The wins keep coming for design startup Canva. Just a few weeks after closing a US$15 million Series A round that has valued the startup at $165 million, co-founder Melanie Perkins has taken out top prize at the NSW Technology Entrepreneur of the Year awards in recognition of her ‘entrepreneurial endeavours and role model qualities’.
After advertising for a local manager over the last few months, New York fitness startup ClassPass has finally announced its Australian launch, naming FitSessions cofounder Natasha Prasad as regional general manager for Australia.
When it comes to mathematical education, what’s lacking is real-world maths being taught in schools. Real-world maths teaches kids about managing income, taxes, loans and all the other financial issues individuals face once they leave the safety of school and are no longer under the care of a guardian.
It’s become impossible to watch a sports broadcast without sitting through at least a dozen ads for one sports betting agency or another, and as each agency looks for an edge over the other, it’s never been easier to place a bet. A punter no longer has to visit the TAB in person to place a bet, with Sportsbet to Unibet, Ladbrokes, William Hill, Tom Waterhouse and more offering live in-game betting from a smartphone. It’s also never been easier for punters to lose money.
Peer-to-peer and B2C marketplace for space startup, Spacer has announced today that it has closed a $1 million funding round from angel and private investors to support its Australian launch.
This morning, Sydney-based Mad Paws, a fast-growing marketplace for pet services, has raised $1.1 million in an oversubscribed funding round. Investors that contributed to the round include Macdoch Ventures, cofounder of HotelsCombined Michael Doubinski, Commonwealth Bank Group Executive Matt Comyn and Managing Director of Amazon Web Services Paul Migliorini.
Design platform Canva today announced a USD$15 million Series A round of funding to continue expanding its platform, which is now used by more than five million marketers, designers and small business owners. This latest round of capital brings the total amount raised by the Sydney-based startup to USD$27 million and gives it a valuation of USD$165 million.
In spite of the name, fantasy sports is a big and serious business. It’s so serious that some sports fans are willing to put aside allegiances to teams they’ve supported for decades and cheer for their arch rival’s star playmaker to work his magic so they get all the fantasy points they can and win their league’s money pool.
The idea for BuiltWith came in 2007, when Gary Brewer was visiting a lot of random sites, looking at their source code and discovering what platforms they were built with. He was researching elements like the writing of code on the site by viewing the source, seeing if they were made in PHP or if the company was using Windows and similar information in that arena.
One of the big criticisms of popular video games is that they promote violence or materialism and aren’t doing us that much good. But of course, like in most other industries, there are groups creating niche products looking to make a positive impact. One such group is Noosa-based game development startup Disparity Games, which has launched a new title hoping to help combat bullying.
Melbourne FinTech startup Clover, an automated investment advice platform, has announced the raising of a seed funding round by a number of investors including superannuation fund Equipsuper. Though the startup wasn’t willing to reveal the exact amount, Startup Daily was able to confirm that Clover raised over $1 million.
We’ve seen a number of startups emerge in the last few years that help people manage their personal finances via their smartphones – a few notable examples include Mint, Pocketbook and Digit. Although Sydney-based startup MoneyBrilliant isn’t a new market entrant, it has undergone many iterations and is now one of best available because of its UI/UX as well as the volume and type of financial services accounts that can be integrated into the application.
As the saying goes, in order to succeed you first need to fail. That was certainly the case for Nick Bell, who spent three years on a skincare business that never quite took off before launching a web marketing company that now turns over $45 million a year.
Sydney-based fintech startup zipMoney, described as ‘online lending meets the checkout’, listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) yesterday after raising $5 million in an oversubscribed reverse takeover of mineral exploration company Rubianna Resources.
Over the years, one thing that’s become increasingly clear about Dropbox is that it plays the long game when it comes user acquisition. It doesn’t aim to convert users to paying customers overnight or over months, but over years.
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