AmazingCo founders Silvia Hope, Jeremy Cox and Nick Brozovic. Photo: Supplied Melbourne experiences platform AmazingCo raised AU$5.1m in a Series A round backed by Aconex co-founders Leigh Jasper and Robert Phillpot. Rampersand VC, Artesian and Macdoch Ventures were also part of the raise. The Series A follows a $2.3m seed funding round last year, with those… Read more »
Innovation Bay co-founder Ian Gardiner thinks Adelaide “has become one of Australia’s hotspots of startup activity” and is heading there in November to host a Startup Showcase at Lot Fourteen. The showcase, based on Innovation Bay’s ‘Founder Dinner’ format, gives 16 selected startups the chance to present their ideas and build relationships with investors and… Read more »
Alibaba, Jack Ma’s ecommerce giant, celebrated 20 years in business in April. Over that time, the online marketplace has grown from a startup in an apartment in Hangzhou in East China to employ more than 100,000 people in 30 business units. The US-listed multinational now has a market capitalisation of US$452 billion (AU$660bn) and… Read more »
Square Peg Capital Partner Tushar Roy with Professor Michael Biercuk, founder and CEO of QCTRL. Photo: supplied Quantum computing startup Q-CTRL has raised US$15 million (AU$22m) in a Series A round led by Square Peg Capital. Silicon Valley’s Sierra Ventures also joined the raise beside existing investors, including Sequoia Capital, Main Sequence Ventures, and Horizons… Read more »
The NSW government’s $25,000 grants to help startups build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) are back for FY20. The 50% matching grant to a maximum of $25,000 is for startups looking to get from proof of concept/prototype stage to MVP. Successful applicants receive 35% of the funding up-front and 65% after completion and validation of… Read more »
Neobank Xinja has been granted a full banking license by Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), and will launch transaction accounts as the battle to carve out a digital slice of the $13 billion banking system’s revenue stream heats up. APRA has now granted four authorised deposit-taking institution (ADI) licences to challenger banks, having recently approved… Read more »
Australian software giant Atlassian is introducing tiered pricing for its cloud products as the company looks to its corporate clients to improve the bottom line. Having launched a Cloud Premium service in recent weeks for Jira Software and Confluence, the company will offer four tiers of subscriptions, right down to free editions of Jira… Read more »
There’s an old sporting sledge, coined by a 1930s Springboks rugby forward after an unlikely win, that applies equally in business: “Look at the scoreboard!” Andrew Skelton, CEO and Managing Director of A2B Australia, the old Cabcharge business running the 13cabs network, said as much to Uber in the AFR last week in releasing the… Read more »
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) left the official cash interest rate on hold at 1% when the board met on Tuesday while leaving the door open for further cuts. The RBA noted “further signs of a turnaround in established housing markets, especially in Sydney and Melbourne” as part of its positive outlook, but… Read more »
When Mars Australia announced recently that it was backing six local food-focused startups with a $40,000 grant as part of the food giant’s Seeds of Change accelerator, a familiar name popped up among the successful applicants: Michael Fox. Fox co-founded Shoes of Prey, the customised online shoe startup that collapsed in March, costing investors… Read more »
An Australian rural startup has devised a planting technique for farmers that can potentially boost crop yields by up to 10% simply by measuring the amount of moisture in the soil when they’re planted. And with water and the ongoing drought playing a critical role in the viability of local farms, the agtech solution by Orange-based… Read more »
Chester Osborn, chief winemaker & viticulturist at d’Arenberg The first round of speakers for the two-day _southstart technology conference in Adelaide, November 20-21, have been revealed and include senior executives from Google, DFAT and Atlassian. The issues discussed range from space to artificial intelligence, social enterprise, creative industries, blockchain and other technologies potentially redefining the future.… Read more »
Reinventure Group has made Rohen Sood and Lauren Capelin, the first two people the fintech-focused venture capital fund employed when it launched five years ago, partners. Investment Manager Rohen Sood has been made General Partner. He was the company’s first employee following its inaugural investment into peer-to-peer lender SocietyOne in 2014. Sood has most recently… Read more »
One of these things is not a nanosatellite. South Australian startup Fleet Space Technologies has raised US$7.35 million (AU$10.8m) to fund internet of things (IoT) connectivity to remote industries using nanosatellites. Global funds Momenta Ventures and Horizons Ventures – the private investment arm of Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing- led the raise, with local funds Blackbird… Read more »
Greenfield MC is the first Australian-owned company to cultivate medicinal cannabis for research purposes in New Zealand as part of a joint venture with a US-listed commercial producer Research into using medicinal cannabis to treatment of health conditions affecting Maori people is a focus NZ goes to the polls in 2020 with a non-binding referendum… Read more »
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