Operating for 20 years, Australia Plays has become a globally influential gaming survey authority. But it now faces new challenges as its data matures. Bond University’s Professor Jeffrey Brand is calm, collected and ready to go. There’s no sense of nervousness or trepidation on a media call discussing his research into Australia’s gaming population. He… Read more »
The Australian government today released regulatory guidance on the social media minimum age law, which comes into effect on December 10. The law will restrict individuals under 16 from holding accounts on many social media platforms. Reasonable steps for tech companies This guidance follows a self-assessment guide for technology companies recently released by the eSafety… Read more »
Tesla is expected to soon turn on its “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” (FSD) mode in Australia and New Zealand. Is a future of driverless cars upon us? Not exactly – it’s essentially more advanced driver assistance. Legally, Tesla drivers using this mode must be ready to take control and pay attention at all times. Calling it… Read more »
Firmus Technologies has become the latest Australian-founded startup to reach unicorn status, after the data centre infrastructure business raised $330 million in a round backed by US chip giant Nvidia. Local investor Ellerston Capital has also backed the Singapore-based company, founded by Australian entrepreneurs Oliver Curtis, Tim Rosenfield and Jonathan Levee in 2019. The company… Read more »
It often takes an incoming government a full electoral term to figure out which bits of policy it should never have thrown out. But on an unseasonably warm September Monday in Sydney, the Minns government wasn’t about to repeat that habit. In a full-throated sales pitch as to why it wants both the local and… Read more »
The start of spring appears to be a fruitful time for startup funding, with 19 blossoming Australian and New Zealand startups sharing in new funding deals this week. Keep reading to learn more about Andromeda, Starboard Maritime Intelligence, Freckle, Marloo, X-Hemp, Harvest B, Wable and Techstars’ latest cohort. Andromeda Robotics: $23 million Robotics startup Andromeda… Read more »
Just for a moment last week, Larry Ellison, co-founder of US cloud computing company Oracle, became the world’s richest person. The octogenarian tech titan briefly overtook Elon Musk after Oracle’s share price rocketed 43% in a day, adding about US$100 billion (A$150 billion) to his wealth. The reason? Oracle inked a deal to provide artificial… Read more »
The Commonwealth Bank (CBA) has sold a small stake in Swedish buy-now-pay-later fintech Klarna, worth around $100 million, as it lists in the US at more than 2x the price CBA paid for it 5 years ago. Klarna listed at US$40, higher than the expected $35-37 price, on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) overnight,… Read more »
PsiQuantum, the US startup with Australian cofounders, has raised a gobsmacking US$1 billion (A$1.5bn) in a round that’s more than doubled its valuation in four years to US$7bn (A$10.5bn). The California startup, founded in Palo Alto in 2015 by expat Australian professors Jeremy O’Brien, Terry Rudolph, Mark Thompson and Dr Pete Shadbolt, hopes to build… Read more »
The Techstars Sydney Accelerator has invested US$1.44 million (A$2.2m) in 12 early stage startups announcing its class of 2025 today. From surfing to strata management, music, marketing, finance and biotech, it’s a wide range of ideas and solutions to big problems. The founders include a former concert violinist, an early AirBnb employee, a PHD researcher… Read more »
Google will not have to sell its Chrome web browser in order to fix its illegal monopoly in the online search business, a United States federal judge has ruled. It will, however, need to do a few other things, such as sharing data with rival companies, in order to improve competition. The remedies ruling was… Read more »
ANZ-backed online shopping cashback platform Cashrewards has shut down. The company announced its demise on Monday afternoon with a notice saying “From 12pm AEST, Monday, 8 September 2025, Cashrewards ceased making offers available on its Website, App and Notifier.” Customers received an email around two hours after the shutdown, with the headline “URGENT: Cashrewards is… Read more »
It took almost eight years for the downloadable content turned into a fully-fledged title to go from idea to release. A determined fandom and a vacuum of information created its own brand of gaming community conspiracy theories around the title. With less than a few breadcrumbs of information, the game remarkably sustained a full near-decade… Read more »
The venture arm of embattled Big Four bank ANZ has offloaded its stake in international payments fintech Airwallex for $67 million, just five years after first investing, 1835i sold its US$44 million stake to Airwallex founders and executives in a deal that adds nothing to the company’s cash balance. All up they nabbed US$70m (A$106m)… Read more »
The Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) will get one more crack at cryptocurrency fintech, Block Earner, in a long-running dispute over one of its investment products after the High Court granted the regular special leave to appeal a Full Federal Court decision it lost. It will be the fourth case in a two-year legal battle… Read more »
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