V2food, the fake meat joint venture between Hungry Jacks billionaire Jack Cowin and the CSIRO, has raised $77 million (US$55 million) in a series B round involving several Asian investors including Singapore’s state-owned Temasek Holdings as it looks to push into region with its plant-based burger mince. Investment companies ABC World Asia, Altitude Partners and… Read more »
The Morrison government and Big Four banks have committed $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 fund will grow to $1 billion. The nation’s biggest banks… Read more »
Perth-based angel investor Greg Riebe has been named the Angel of the year for his contribution to and impact on angel investment in the startup community in the annual Techboard 2020 Australian Angel Investment Awards. Despite fears that it would be a lean year for angel investment, Techboard found that total funds deployed by… Read more »
Sydney software startup Pathzero, which launched in the middle of the Covid-19 lockdowns through the Antler Australia program, has raised $1 million in a seed round. Antler, Black Nova Group and senior business figures including former bank boss Brian Hartzer, climate campaigner, Simon Sheikh, and former Australian Ethical Investment CEO Phil Vernon, as well as two… Read more »
Neobank Xinja is once again cutting the interest rate on its Stash account from Wednesday, as well as slashing the amount of money you can earn interest on by $95,000. It’s the fourth interest rate cut in the nine months since Stash was launched in a blaze of publicity as “Australia’s best savings account”, paying… Read more »
Welcome to our new, regular column, The Pitch Doctor, with Cheryl Mack, Head of Community at Stone & Chalk. When Mack appeared on the Startup Daily show recently on ausbiz, we asked her to name the best pitch deck she’d seen. She only half-jokingly replied “Fyre Festival”. You can read what she had to say about… Read more »
Let’s face it, for most of us, raising money, even in the best of times, isn’t easy. Over the past 13 years I’ve raised over $1 billion dollars, in the UK, Europe, North America and Asia, and pretty much none of it was simple. It might be more challenging now than it was a few… Read more »
FY20 startup funding nearly $7 billion Private investment almost doubled to $4.48bn Blackbird led Australian VC investors with 14 deals worth $490m More than 700 Australian startups have received nearly 900 rounds of funding from around 400 investors during the 2020 financial year according to the latest annual funding report by data analysis company Techboard.… Read more »
The Research and Development Tax Incentive (R&DTI) program is one of the most crucial yet fraught programs supporting the growth of Australian startups. The R&DTI helps offset some of the costs that businesses invest into eligible R&D and the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources is looking at reforms to improve how companies engage… Read more »
Presentation platform SalesPreso has raised $5 million, and has also rebranded as LivePreso as it ramps up its offering for business. Shearwater Growth Ventures, the $50 million Sydney VC fund co-founded by former WiseTech directors Charles Gibbon and Mike Gregg, with managing partner Zac Zavos, led the round. Melbourne investor and MedAdvisor chair Chris Ridd… Read more »
Airwallex has topped up its US$160 million (AU$254m) series D raise from April with an extra US$40 million ($57m) with Skip Capital, the family investment fund run by Kim Jackson with her husband, Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar. Regular backer Square Peg Capital also returned for the latest cash injection, which continues to value the… Read more »
Sydney-based non-alcoholic spirits company, Lyre’s Non-Alcoholic Spirit Co. has $16 million in seed round funding 18 months after launching as the startup’s growth continues to grow exponentially worldwide. The backers include VRD Investment, Doehler Ventures, DLF Venture and Maropost Ventures, with family funds in Europe, America and Australia tipping in. Lyre’s CEO and co-founder Mark… Read more »
Steve Baxter’s investment syndicate TEN13 and LA-based angel investor Kate Vale, Google Australia’s first employee, are part of a US$1.3 million (AU$1.8m) seed round for audio platform Vurbl, which hopes to become the YouTube of audio. The startup, which is in beta and will launch before the end of the year also attracted support from LA… Read more »
Atlassian says it will invest US$50 million in early-stage startups, but the funds come with a catch – the ventures must all be working on projects that help build out the US-listed tech giant (Nasdaq: TEAM). The company’s US-based head of corporate development, Chris Height, said in a blog post on the company site that… Read more »
Swedish buy now pay later (BNPL) fintech Klarna is now Europe’s most valuable fintech – the 4th most valuable globally – following a US$650 million equity raise that values the business at US$10.65 billion (AU$14.54bn). The latest valuation nearly doubles the US$5.5 billion valuation following a US$460 million raise in August 2019. The round was… Read more »
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