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 »
From a telco platform recognised as having the ‘Best AI Product in Telecom’ at London’s CogX Festival, to AI-powered retail tech that increases shopper basket sizes, these Australian and New Zealand startups are getting noticed globally. Earlier this month, Startup Daily and Microsoft joined forces for our first-ever AI Deep Dive event for startups, founders… Read more »
Nearly a quarter of the way through its first term, the NSW government has opened submissions for its Innovation Blueprint, seeking to make its support for the sector “more collaborative”. After NSW minister for innovation, science and technology, Anoulack Chanthivong announced plans for an Innovation Blueprint last September, six months after taking on the portfolio,… Read more »
Synthetic biology – referred to as “synbio” by insiders – could develop industry worth billions of dollars, creating thousands more jobs that previously expected according to a new report by national science agency, CSIRO, and its venture capital fund, Main Sequence. The Synthetic Biology National Progress Report, released this week, is an update to the 2021… Read more »
Men continue to outstrip women in the salary stakes, with men’s median annual salary $11,542 greater than women’s, according to newly released data for Australian private companies. It’s a gap of 14.5%, down from last year’s 15.4%. Men’s median annual base salary in 2022-23 of $79,613 compares to $68,071 for women. When bonuses and overtime… Read more »
A little over a week ago, OpenAI announced a new generative AI system named Sora, which produces short videos from text prompts. While Sora is not yet available to the public, the high quality of the sample outputs published so far has provoked both excited and concerned reactions. The sample videos published by OpenAI, which… Read more »
Online retailer Kogan.com is back in the black and will pay its first dividend in three years after posting a net profit of $8.7 million for the half-year (1h24) to December 31. It’s a turnaround of more than $30 million on the $23.8 million half-yearly loss 12 months ago and comes despite a 9.9% fall… Read more »
FinTech Australia is launching a new event next month aimed at showcasing sustainability-focused fintech companies. FinTech for Net Zero is a panel discussion on fintech’s role in managing the challenge of climate change. It will be held at BDO’s office Sydney office at 1 Margaret St, in the CBD, from 4pm on Tuesday, March 12.… Read more »
About this time four years ago, China-based analyst and short-seller J Capital took its third stab at ASX-listed WiseTech Global with a report headlined “WiseTech may be the first corporate death from Covid19”. This week the logistics software company (ASX:WTC) was very much alive and kicking with its share price hitting an all-time high, above $90,… Read more »
Psychotherapist and sex and relationships expert Esther Perel, who coined the term “erotic intelligence”, has joined Australian employee experience platform Culture Amp as an advisor. Perel, who in recent years turned her attention to workplace relationships with a podcast called How’s Work, to help cofounders and others work navigate the challenges thrown up in the… Read more »
Quantum technologies are the “future of made in Australia’, federal industry minister Ed Husic said as he pushed for more quantum research commercialisation in Australia. Husic made a speech at a Quantum Australia event on Wednesday morning, focusing on the federal government’s National Quantum Strategy and efforts to make Australia a quantum powerhouse in the… Read more »
The cofounder of Coviu, Dr Silvia Pfeiffer, has stepped down as CEO after six years and away daily operations in the decade-old telehealth startup. Pfeiffer revealed her decision on LinkedIn last month, saying her plans “are wide open and I am curious about what challenges the New Year has in store for me”. She will… Read more »
The 10 startups in Startmate’s Summer24 accelerator cohort go a long way to addressing a key concern for the sector, with six of them featuring women founders, including two all-female teams. Support for female founders has been a sore point for the sector, despite recent improvements, such as VC funds pledging to report their investment… 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 »
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