Buy-now-pay-later service Zip Co. (ASX: Z1P) is looking to raise $60 million from a share issue to fund its UK expansion and move into small business lending. The fintech announced the capital raise to the market this morning. $50 million will come from a non-underwritten placement to professional and sophisticated investors, with $10 million… Read more »
Well hello, you big Belmont boy. Photo: CSIRO. Hello Thursday. How’s your world? 1. Prospa boss says sorry Prospa chair Gail Pemberton has apologised to shareholders at the fintech’s first AGM as an ASX-listed company this week. Last week, the SME business lender, which listed on June 11 at $3.78 a share, announced… Read more »
The Morrison government and Big Four banks will commit $100 million each to the fund It will invest in around 30-50 high growth SMEs annually in return for a 10-40% equity stake The Business Growth Fund will have an independent management team selecting investments The government is talking to others to build the fund to… Read more »
Sydney-based courier disruptor Sendle is heading to the US just five years after its launch hoping to carve out a slice of the growth e-commerce deliver market. The venture raised $20 million in a Series B at the start of 2019, in part to explore international markets and with four billion parcels shipped around the US… Read more »
Kasada founder and CEO Sam Crowther. Cybersecurity startup Kasada has closed its $7 million Series A raise with the CIA’s 20-year-old venture capital fund, In-Q-Tel (IQT) joining the round. The Sydney tech venture previously announced the first $6.5 million in the Series A from the CSIRO’s innovation fund, Main Sequence Ventures, and Westpac’s Reinventure Group,… Read more »
v2foods CEO Nick Hazell, Hungry Jacks founder Jack Cowin and Main Sequence Ventures partner Phil Morle. Photo: supplied Fast food billionaire Jack Cowin partnered with the CSIRO’s innovation fund to create a plant-based burger The JV business, v2food, launched at the start of 2019, produced its burger within 8 months The mince ‘meat’ is made… Read more »
Happy Tuesday Here’s what’s been happening 1. Ali G reckons Facebook et al can out-propaganda Goebbels Satirist actor Sacha Baron Cohen, of Ali G fame, let rip at Facebook, and other internet giants, including Google, Twitter and YouTube, accusing them of being “the greatest propaganda machine in history” and allowing the spread of hate and violence,… Read more »
Legal advice that wrongly classified Afterpay as a factoring service led to breaches in Australia’s strict anti-money laundering laws, an independent audit of the ASX-listed fintech payments provider has found. Afterpay shares have jumped more than 10% to above $33 in morning trade on Monday after the audit, by Neil Jeans of Initialism, broadly praised the… Read more »
Xceptional CEO and founder Mike Tozer. Photo: supplied If you watched the 2018 ABC TV series Employable Me as it followed people with neuro-diverse conditions such as autism and Tourette Syndrome looking for work, then you came across the Xceptional, an IT recruitment firm (that gave Tim a job). Founded by Mike Tozer as a… Read more »
Good morning from StartCon, where former PM Malcolm Turnbull’s about to deliver the keynote on getting our innovation mojo back. Let’s get cracking for Friday. Hope to see you here. 1. Westpac bugged We’re confess to feeling queasy about today’s column, with two stories featuring links to paedophilia. How did we get… Read more »
SME lender Prospa’s week from hell for its investors continues after the fintech announced on Monday that it would undershoot its prospectus forecasts for 2019. Here’s the chart, courtesy of CommSec, that tells the story. Prospa (ASX: PGL) shares are down another 6.38% in lunchtime trade on Thursday to $2.20. The Sydney fintech’s shares plunged… Read more »
Plans to build a giant solar power and battery facility in central Australia to supply electricity to Singapore will go ahead thanks to backing from tech and mining billionaires Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest. The duo are co-leads on an investment round for Singapore-based Sun Cable‘s $22 billion proposal for a 10-gigawatt (GW)… Read more »
The Dexus Brainwaves art installation in North Sydney. Hello Thursday. One more sleep to StartCon. Let’s do this. 1. Meet your neighbours on Nextdoor This week’s episode of our new podcast, The Problem Solved, is up. We spoke to Sarah Friar, CEO of Nextdoor, the social media network that connects local neighbourhoods. Friar has… Read more »
Tyro CEO Robbie Cooke. Photo: supplied On the same day Prospa shares were hammered by the market for undershooting its prospectus forecasts, fintech rival Tyro revealed plans for an ASX float it hopes will value the company at more than AU$1 billion. The SME payments and loans provider, chaired by David Thodey, and around since… Read more »
Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms should be treated as publishers, Australia’s Attorney-General Christian Porter believes, making them potentially liable for any defamatory comments published on the sites. The country’s senior lawmaker’s view is that “the playing field is not at all fair at the moment” for traditional media companies when it comes to… Read more »
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