Fintech Kashcade, a digital lender offering startup founders non-dilutive capital, has raised $5.5 million and it seeks to build out its loan book. The round was led by Prandium Capital, with MD Andrew Whitten, now chairing the Kashcade board. Several startup founders also backed the raise, a combo of $1 million in equity and the remainder… Read more »
Square founder Jack Dorsey has backed Indigenous impact fund First Australians Capital (FAC) with $3 million from its ASX-listed parent company Block. It’s the first time the global payments fintech, which in 2022, paid $39 billion to acquire BNPL Afterpay, has made a social impact investment in Australia. The former Twitter CEO and founder, now… Read more »
A new digital jobs networking app targeting Gen Z, migrants and older job hunters is hoping to boost employment for blue- and grey-collared workers. ApplyKart is the brainchild of Melbourne-based entrepreneur Bharati Babbar. She set out to match job seekers with new employers within 48 hours, through an end-to-end hiring system. “Younger and older people,… Read more »
There’s no shortage of ambition when it comes to trying to recycle plastics, yet less than 10% are actually recycled. A Victorian envirotech startup, Phantm, which has just raised $2 million in Seed funding, is hoping to change that by helping companies understand and reduce their plastic footprint, by using alternatives. The round was led… Read more »
Food waste recycling startup Goterra has crossed the border into Queensland in a collaboration with Brisbane’s Howard Smith Wharves precinct. The deal will see Goterra’s robotic processing plants, which use black soldier fly larvae to eat through food waste, installed at the riverside entertainment precinct under the Story Bridge as part of its drive to be… Read more »
Dispelling the myths that sustainability is too pricey or difficult for small businesses to implement, a free digital masterclass next week will sort fact from fiction. Startup Daily’s sister publication Kochie’s Business Builders and cleantech startup Greener for Business are inviting startups to join the charge and discover how to tackle your net zero emissions… Read more »
Entries for the One Roof Startup Women of the Year Awards will close this Sunday, November 12, at midnight. The awards, organised by One Roof, Sheree Rubinstein’s platform for entrepreneurial women, will honour the best and brightest across Australia, with the winner announced in Sydney on November 23. “This competition is our game-changer to the… Read more »
With Facebook now the social media version of a nursing home, a rival London-based startup cofounded by expat Australian Jack Symonds, has bagged $4 million in Seed round. The raise for Lounge, which is connecting the current generation of university students on in four countries, including Australia, was led by Square Peg with support from existing… Read more »
CSIRO venture capital fund Main Sequence Ventures has bolstered its leadership team with Cochlear chair Alison Deans signing on as a venture partner. Deans, who is also on the boards of Ramsay Health Care, staffing management scaleup Deputy and ASX-listed envirotech scaleup Calix (ASX: CXL), and is a former Westpac and IAG director, previously ran… Read more »
The Startup to Scaleup (S2S) Summit brings together hundreds of founders, investors and experts from the Australian tech ecosystem for a one-day conference at the Sydney Startup Hub, next Thursday, November 16. The program spans all stages of the founder journey and features keynote speeches, panels and fireside chats from founders, investors, accelerators & incubators,… Read more »
Optus customers woke up on Wednesday morning to find they were unable to get their social media fix, and they weren’t happy. Around 4am AEDT, customers started to report an inability to access both mobile and home internet services. Optus advised it was investigating the issue, with reports emerging around midday of some services coming… Read more »
More than 10 million Optus business and personal customers across Australia have lost communications on Wednesday morning across Australia, leaving them without internet access or the ability to make or receive calls, with several telcos using the Optus network also offline The problems, which are believed to have started around 4am, have effected everything from… Read more »
The NSW government has reinstated the minimum viable products (MVP) grant program, six months after it was halted in May, but at just a 25% of the value of the previous government’s program. The government has allocated $12 million to the rebadged “MVP Ventures Program” over the next four years – $3m a year –… Read more »
The StartGiving podcast, providing tech founders with inspiration and insights to start or scale their charitable giving journey, welcomed world renowned moral philosopher and bioethicist Peter Singer as its latest guest. Singer’s writings have been foundational to both the effective altruism and the modern animal rights movements. He founded the not-for-profit The Life You Can… Read more »
Venture capital investor Elaine Stead is among several women in the startup sector subjected to “a barrage of abusive, sexually harassing and vile comments” on LinkedIn by the founder of charitable startup GiveTree, with the company involved issuing an apology. Sam Joel, founder of the cryptocurrency and NFT-focused GiveTree subsequently had his comments, made on… Read more »
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