There are a lot of people who this week are talking to their accountant about capital gains tax for the very first time. Canva confirmed on Friday that US$1.6 billion (A$2.43bn) worth of shares in the design software platform had changed hands in a secondary market sale, at a valuation of US$26 billion. The total… Read more »
Monogramed luxury fashion startup The Daily Edited (tde.) is back in voluntary administration, just 15 months after the brand was sold to former Myer boss Bernie Brookes. Marquee Retail Group (MRG), which scored tde.’s flagship store in Sydney’s Queen Victoria Building, when it bought the 10-year-old business in December 2022, handed the books to administrators… Read more »
National science agency CSIRO has allocated $20 million towards supporting startups and smaller companies with greater access to vital research and development (R&D) opportunities to accelerate their growth. Up to 750 small to medium enterprises (SMEs) will be supported under the banner of SME Connect via programs that provide facilitation, training, dollar-matched funding and support… Read more »
Design software platform Canva is fattening up for its public listing in 2026, acquiring UK professional graphic design and photo editing software business Affinity for an undisclosed sum. It’s believed to be the biggest outlay yet by Canva in a string of merger and acquisition deals in recent years, including fellow British data startup Flourish in… Read more »
Employee experience platform Culture Amp is acquiring a Serbian people analytics startup to broaden its capabilities The cost of the deal with Orgnostic, founded in Belgrade in 2019, was not disclosed. The analytics platform combines fragmented HR data to give leadership teams rapid insights into how their workforce is tracking. That data will be plugged… Read more »
The public listing of Canva will most likely happen in 2026 and won’t be on the ASX because Australia is a small market, according to the design software’s cofounder Cliff Obrecht. The husband of CEO and cofounder Melanie Perkins, named the 10th richest person in Australia, alongside his wife, with a combined wealth of $10.92 billion,… Read more »
The final cohort of startups with the potential to be worth $1 billion has been chosen by LaunchVic for its 30X30 mentoring program. 30X30 is a leadership program helps develop and mentor scaleup founders and their executive teams to build their companies – and hopefully reach unicorn status: a $1 billion valuation by 2030. The… Read more »
Hostplus says Employment Hero CEO Ben Thompson wants them to “pay to play” to promote the super fund on the employee platform, but they’ve turned it down because it’s “undisclosed advertising”. In a statement to Startup Daily in the wake of Thompson publishing the letter from Hostplus to fellow investor, VC fund Airtree, which called… Read more »
There’s a cage fight-like quality to Employment Hero cofounder and CEO Ben Thompson’s campaign against one of his investors, Hostplus, but it appears the $100 billion industry super fund is not enjoying the show. In fact, in Hostplus’ view, Thompson is lowering the tone of Australian corporate life and unless he brings back a bit… Read more »
Brisbane solar battery startup Redback Technologies has handed its books to voluntary administrators. McGrathNicol were appointed administrators of Redback Operations Pty. Ltd on March 5, as the company was in Sydney exhibiting at the Smart Energy Expo. Redback continues to trade as the administrators seek expressions of interest for the sale or recapitalisation of all… Read more »
Disrupting a $3.5 trillion industry is difficult. Just ask fintechs like Cannon-Brookes-backed Spaceship, Superhero, and Verve Super. Australia’s superannuation industry gets a $362 billion compulsory cake from fees – more than $30 billion annually – and wants to eat it all too. Treasury put out a consultation paper titled Securing Australians’ Superannuation late last year… Read more »
Small business lender will disappear from the ASX within months following a $74 million takeover bid from the Melbourne-based Salter Brothers Tech Fund. While the offer of $0.45 cents a share is a 22% premium on Prospa’s (ASX:PGL) closing price of $0.37 cents on Monday, it’s a far cry from when the business listed at… Read more »
Brisbane enterprise software scaleup Octopus Deploy has acquired a US rival, Codefresh, in a deal worth reportedly worth US$28 million (A$42.6m). It’s the first major acquisition by the quiet achiever of the Queensland tech scene, one of the largest privately-held companies in the DevOps ecosystem. While no figure was mentioned in the announcement, media reports… Read more »
Financial comparison site Finder has cut its workforce by 17% in a fresh round of redundancies, the third major staffing reduction in the past 12 months. Around 60 people have lost their jobs globally in the latest cuts. It may be the fourth time HR handed out redundancy notices in the past year, with SmartCompany… Read more »
Sydney startup AMSL Aero, which has designed and built a Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft powered by hydrogen, has sold its first 10 aircraft to a commercial client. Aviation Logistics, which operates spanning regional passenger services, charter, freight and aeromedical flights, paid deposits on 10 aircraft, with the option to buy 10 more,… Read more »
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