In the world of business, hardly any company goes it alone.
Partnerships, collaborations and acquisitions are a normal part of expanding a company’s reach and growing its revenue and profits.
Working with other businesses opens up more opportunities to tap on one another’s network and strengths to achieve better outcomes.
Companies use such collaborations to extend their presence, expand their customer pool, and even grow their total addressable market.
Acquisitions are a quick way for companies to enter a new market or product line without having to build it up organically.
If done right, such partnerships and purchases can help to accelerate a company’s growth and propel it to new heights.
Here are three US growth stocks that recently announced such business development initiatives.
Shopify (NYSE: SHOP)
Shopify, the e-commerce platform that offers a comprehensive set of tools for entrepreneurs to set up their businesses, announced a partnership with YouTube, a unit of Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL).
The Canadian company will allow its merchants to sell through the video platform as more content creators launch their online stores.
YouTube reaches over two billion monthly users and will enable Shopify to greatly increase its reach.
Shopify has been launching new features to help its merchants to sell better as it seeks to buffer against a post-pandemic slowdown in online shopping.
It has worked with a variety of parties including Twitter (NYSE: TWTR), TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms to increase its visibility and offer its merchants a wider variety of options.
Such partnerships will hopefully help to improve conversion rate and boost gross merchandise volume for the e-commerce company.
Meanwhile, Shopify is also eliminating around 10% of its workforce to cut costs as CEO Tobi Lutke acknowledged that the company had expanded too rapidly in the past two years.
Shares of the company fell 14.5% on this news and have lost three-quarters of their value year-to-date.
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN)
Amazon, the largest e-commerce company in the world, has announced the purchase of primary care company One Medical (NASDAQ: ONEM) for US$3.49 billion.
One Medical offers telehealth services and also has 182 clinics spread across 25 markets in the US.
Amazon is paying for this acquisition fully in cash and represents the company’s push into the healthcare space.
The e-commerce outfit had earlier introduced virtual care visits for its employees in Seattle in 2019 before extending this service to other employees under its Amazon Care brand.
One Medical boasts reputable clients such as Alphabet’s Google and Airbnb (NASDAQ: ABNB).
Amazon’s share price has declined by 32.6% year to date and is set to announce its 2022’s second-quarter earnings on the evening of July 28.
Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE)
The New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE, which is part of the Intercontinental Exchange Inc, has signed a new agreement with Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX: S68), or SGX, to collaborate on the dual listing of companies.
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) is a global provider of data, technology, and market infrastructure and this collaboration will benefit both parties.
A dual listing between the two exchanges will help investors in each market to tap into businesses outside their region and will help to broaden the range of companies available for investment.
In turn, this initiative will boost liquidity for both exchanges and be mutually beneficial as the arrangement increases the attractiveness of both SGX and ICE.
The agreement also covers new products and services to be developed to support listed companies and the investor communities tied to them.
In addition, the collaboration will also allow ICE and SGX to explore new products in ESG, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and indexes.
Shares of ICE are down 27% year to date but the exchange operator reported a healthy set of financials for its fiscal 2022’s first quarter (1Q2022).
Net revenue increased by 5.7% year on year to US$1.9 billion while net profit inched up 2.6% year on year to US$667 million.
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Disclaimer: Royston Yang owns shares of Alphabet and Singapore Exchange Limited.
