The corporate behaviour of online retailer Kogan Australia Pty Ltd has caught the attention of regulators once more, with the company fined $310,800, this time for breaches of Australian spam laws. An Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) investigation found Kogan (ASX: KGN) sent more than 42 million marketing emails to consumers that made it… Read more »
Payments fintech Tyro may already be looking forward to 2022 after a tough start to the year, with lawyers threatening a class action against company, nearly 10% left without working payments terminals and instead shifting to square and a short-seller targeting the business. But investors are sticking by Tyro (ASX:TYR) with its share price soaring… Read more »
Iranian police confiscated more 45,000 bitcoin mining machines, chewing up around 95 megawatts per hour (MWh) of electricity, because the miners were using cheaper, subsidised power illegally, according to local media agency Tasnim News. To put that in perspective, that’s around half the capacity of South Australia’s Tesla “big battery” plant (aka Hornsdale). Iranian authorities… Read more »
Buy-now-pay-later fintech Zip has nearly doubled the amount it raised in its Share Purchase Plan (SPP), issuing more than 10 million new shares worth $56,739,524. Zip (ASX:Z1P) set out to raise $30 million through the SPP, but also accepted an extra $26,739,524.95 in oversubscriptions from eligible shareholders, who could subscribe for up to $30,000 worth… Read more »
If you’re feeling a bit sad about your fortunes at the moment, spare a thought for San Francisco-based computer programmer Stefan Thomas, who, around a decade ago, made this video and took 7,002 Bitcoins as payment for the job. The New York Times has the sad tale of German-born Thomas – a former CTO at blockchain… Read more »
When Michael Koss landed in India last year to work on developing his joint venture Australian-Indian startup, Digitology Healthtech, little did he realise the important role the technology would play in his own health and saving his life. Koss is CEO of Health and Patient Services (HPS), which is developing the startup with Indian healthcare… Read more »
Beforepay (previously Cheq), the fintech version of a payday lender, has raised $9 million in a pre-IPO round led by Alium Capital. The company is looking to list this year, having now raised around $17 million. Its previous round was $4 million just two months ago, led by Vocus founder and Airtasker chair James Spenceley. The… Read more »
The recent storming of the US Capitol has led a number of social media platforms to remove President Donald Trump’s accounts. In the case of Twitter, the ban is permanent. Others, like Facebook, have taken him offline until after President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration next week. This has led to a flurry of commentary in the… Read more »
Security industry tech platform Guardhouse raised $850,000 in seed funding late last year as it prepared to launch in the UK market. The Sydney startup, co-founded in 2018 by Julian Cartwright, Jack Alpe, Andrew Longworth and Keith Longworth aims to be an to be an all-in-one solution for security industry workforce management to improve workflow between… Read more »
Payments fintech Splitit (ASX:SPT) has announced a deal with the Google Store in Japan for instalment payments on the new Pixel 5 mobile phone, Nest products and Chromecast streaming devices. The company’s share price jumped more than 10% in morning trade, peaking at $1.425, following news that the deal had been inked. Splitit CEO, Brad… Read more »
Bitcoin continues to trade close to its all-time high reached this month. Its price is now around US $34,000 — up about 77% over the past month and 305% over the past year. (Editor’s note: Since this piece was first published, Bitcoin’s price has doubled in a month to US$40,000.) First launched in 2009 as… Read more »
Amid the chaos in the US Capitol, stoked largely by rhetoric from President Donald Trump, Twitter has locked his account, with 88.7 million followers, for 12 hours. Facebook and Instagram quickly followed suit, locking Trump’s accounts — with 35.2 million followers and 24.5 million, respectively — for at least two weeks, the remainder of his… Read more »
As part of our summer series looking back on an extraordinary year and towards 2021, we asked Carbar founder Des Hang about the good, the bad and what he learnt from 2020, his summer plans and for suggestions on what to read when he gets a chance to catch his breath. Here’s what he said:… Read more »
Cell-based meat production startup Vow Foods has raised $7.7m (US$6m) in a seed round led by Square Peg Capital, alongside Blackbird Ventures, Grok Ventures and new investor Tenacious Ventures. James Tynan from Square Peg will join Vow’s board. The cellular agtech startup, based in Western Sydney, began with lab-grown meat from pork and kangaroo cells… Read more »
Two areas that could soon dominate the Australian finance space are the increased success of the fintech industry and the movement toward the adoption of open banking. Interestingly, an ecosystem built on the security needs of banks for sharing consumer data will see fintechs become more intrinsically linked to the innovation opportunities open banking allows… Read more »
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