Technology

The technology team is not only known for their deep understanding of UK listed technology companies, but also their broad understanding of technologies that underpin these companies.

Contrarian calls like Darktrace and Sage, to uncovering jewels like Boku and Ten Lifestyle, have helped solidify this reputation.

The team hosts some of the best attended tech and video games conferences, and regularly publishes on thematics like AI, Quantum Computing and Blockchain. The team’s views are not only sought after by the institutional buy-side, but also by both public and private company executives. The team's sub-sector expertise is broad (software, services, video games, payments, semis, etc) and it is one of the few research teams in the market that has in-house machine learning expertise. Already the team is leveraging ML to change the way sell-side research is done.

The FinTech & DX (Digital Experience) focuses on the UK FinTech sector and Digital Experience companies. The UK remains a hotbed for FinTech innovation across the different verticals of the ecosystem – payment processing, core banking, neo banks, remittance, Insurance tech, Reg tech etc.

With a reasonably well established listed public company universe and a rapidly growing list of well-funded private companies (which could come to the market in the next few years) there is significant attention from investors in this sector. Digital Experience is another area of high interest in the Tech sector. Digital spending is on the rise across different verticals which has given prominence to niche and nimble competitors to the legacy players in the IT services industry. These fast growth, high margin and cash generative companies are well positioned to drive the wave of digital spending across public and private sectors.

Prior to joining Peel Hunt in 2017, Damindu Jayaweera worked at Jefferies in the European Technology Research team for 10 years, working on IPOs like Worldpay and Softcat. Damindu also co-founded Microimage, an award winning Asian HR SaaS company and sits on the board of Antyra, a digital marketing agency. He has a Physics degree from Imperial College, London, and an MBA from ESLSCA, Paris. Damindu is well known in the institutional investor community for his deep domain expertise across Software to Semis, global perspectives and his ability to unbundle complex topics such as Quantum Computing and Neural Networks. He ranked 2nd for Technology in the 2021 Institutional Investor (Extel) Survey.

James Lockyer also joined the team in 2017, having previously worked at Jefferies in the European Media & Internet Equity Research team where he did a number of IPOs including Zalando and Scout24, and prior to this, James was at Sky as a Financial Analyst. James has a Master of Philosophy in Finance from the University of Cambridge, and a Master of Mathematics from UEA and the University of California, Berkeley. James was ranked 4th for Technology in the 2021 Institutional Investor (Extel) Survey and #1 Top Stock Picker for the Entertainment category (United Kingdom and Ireland) in the 2020 Refinitiv StarMine Awards.

Micu Dulnoan joined the team in June 2021 from BlackRock’s Equity Index Investment Team, researching and projecting index changes for Portfolio Managers. Prior to this Micu worked in a number of roles primarily covering buy-side institutions in Account Management. Micu has a Masters in Commerce Accounting and Bachelor of Finance from the University of Adelaide. He has a unique skill-set in applying Machine Learning techniques for Data driven decision making.

Gautam Pillai joined Peel Hunt in May 2022 after spending almost 12 years at Goldman Sachs where he co-covered the European Software, IT services and Fintech sectors. He has extensive experience in UK and European IPOs including Worldline, Worldpay, Teamviewer, Nexi, Network International, Evry, SUSE and others. Gautam is a CFA charter holder and completed his MBA from NMIMS, Mumbai. He graduated in Mechanical Engineering from College of Engineering, Trivandrum (India) and started his career as a programmer in Cognizant Technology solutions. Gautam is well known to the institutional investor community across Europe & US for his domain expertise across the various Tech & Fintech verticals and in depth financial analysis.

Advika joined Peel Hunt in September 2022, after working at Goldman Sachs for 3 years in the European Software, IT Services and FinTech team. She has worked on several IPOs across the European software and FinTech space, including Wise, SUSE, and TeamViewer. Advika is a gold-medallist at Indian Institute of Management, Indore, where she did her MBA, as well as a gold-medallist from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, where she did her Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com Honours) degree.