Scan #073: Four open questions and four franchises

Today's scan runs the full stack from gig-economy insurance in London to a 5.8 GWh thermal battery in Kansas, with two 19th-century freight networks (one onshore, one on ocean) and a Gen-Z-coded handbag renaissance for texture.

Zego — Insurance · Open question. The UK's first insurtech unicorn hit its first profitable month in December 2024, walked away from the B2B fleet book that burned it, and now targets £1bn in GWP. In April 2026 Japan's Sompo Holdings led a $28M round to seed a telematics partnership. The open question is whether the lean post-restructuring consumer and gig-rider book can actually compound to the stated target — or whether exiting fleets and burning five years without a mark-up turned Zego into a profitable but strategically stuck business.

Hungryroot — Ecommerce · Open question. SmartCart-powered personalised online grocery hit ~$700M in net revenue in 2025 (+55% YoY), serves ~1.5M people across 700K+ households, and is reportedly exploring a 2026 IPO with Goldman Sachs. The business pivoted out of meal kits in 2020 and has been profitable since early that year. The open question is whether AI personalisation actually improves six-month retention enough to defend $125 AOV against Amazon and Walmart's gravity.

Antora Energy — Energy · Open question. Three Stanford alumni now run industrial thermal batteries that store renewable electricity in solid carbon at >2,000°C and discharge as heat or electricity via >40%-efficient TPV cells. The $550M Series C in July 2026 (G2 + Eclipse co-lead) brought total financing to ~$1B. The first commercial 5 GWh system came online at POET's Big Stone City ethanol plant in May 2026. The question is whether heat-plus-power works commercially before Rondo's cheaper firebrick commoditises the heat-only market.

Vayyar Imaging — Insurance / sensors · Open question. The Israeli 4D mm-wave imaging-radar-on-a-chip company bet its future on Euro NCAP's Child Presence Detection mandate, which requires direct sensing for top safety ratings from model-year 2025 onward. Vayyar raised roughly $300–340M across multiple rounds, hit $1B+ unicorn in late 2021, and laid off ~20% in mid-2023. The 2025–2026 OEM start-of-production window is the prove-it moment against TI and Infineon reference designs.

Sennder — Logistics · Open question. Berlin-based digital road-freight forwarder that acquired its way to top-five European FTL scale through the merger with Everoad (2020), the acquisition of Uber Freight Europe (2020), and the February 2025 close of C.H. Robinson's European Surface Transportation business. On 21 October 2026 Sennder declared monthly IFRS EBITDA profitability and a €1B 2026 revenue target. The next day it announced €228M of new financing. Whether the sennOS single-platform integration delivers durable gross-margin expansion against European road-freight's cyclical history is the live question.

Enbridge — Energy · Well-positioned. North America's largest energy infrastructure company moves ~30% of continental crude and ~20% of US natural gas, operates North America's largest gas utility by customer count, and just announced CEO Greg Ebel will retire 31 December 2026 (Michele Harradence succeeds 1 January 2027). Secured backlog hit ~C$39B at year-end 2025 with 31 consecutive years of dividend increases. Permitting gridlock on new North American pipelines makes the rights-of-way effectively irreplaceable.

Sunbelt Rentals Holdings (Ashtead Group) — Construction · Well-positioned. Redomiciled from the LSE to NYSE as SUNB in February 2026, Sunbelt is the world's #2 equipment rental operator — 1,578 stores, US$10.8B FY25 revenue, 46.5% EBITDA margin, US$1.79B FCF, and a new US$1.5B buyback that started March 2026. US rental penetration continues to compound from ~40% a decade ago toward 55–60% today; specialty verticals grew 11% in FY25 and the mega-project backlog (CHIPS, IRA, LNG, data centres) is Sunbelt's wheelhouse.

Tapestry — Retail · Well-positioned. One of the strongest S&P 500 re-rates of the last two years: from ~$35 before the October 2024 FTC block of the $8.5B Capri deal to ~$134 in early November 2026, a ~$26.6B market cap. Coach's Tabby-led Gen-Z renaissance is firing at a 33.5% operating margin with 87% DTC mix; Stuart Weitzman was sold to Caleres for $105M (closed August 2025), leaving a two-brand company where Kate Spade's $855M FY25 impairment is already priced in and Eva Erdmann runs the brand turnaround.

Hapag-Lloyd — Logistics · Well-positioned. World's #5 container shipping line (2.4M TEU, 7.1% share per Alphaliner April 2026). The Gemini Cooperation with Maersk launched February 2025 and hit 92% schedule reliability in its first month. On 17 February 2026 Hapag signed a definitive merger with Israel's ZIM at a ~$4.2B enterprise value — pending Israeli government golden-share approval, with Maersk reportedly ready to counter-bid if it falls through. Methanol dual-fuel orderbook (8 ships December 2025, 24 ships November 2024) positions the company for the decarbonisation cycle rather than against it.