Melburnians will no longer have to stay within 25km of their home from midnight tonight, November 8, as the “ring of steel” is lifted and other restrictions are eased under the Victorian government’s “third step” reopening plan. Premier Dan Andrews announced the changes on Sunday morning as the state had yet another day of no… Read more »
Australian companies face five key barriers to unlocking value in innovation in a new report from the CSIRO. Talking to private and public sector leaders, the Value of science and technology report by the CSIRO Futures team, identified a range of issues, including declining investment in innovation – despite the push into tackling Covid-19 in 2020… Read more »
Victoria is planning to build a 300 megawatt Tesla battery near Geelong, snatching the title for the Southern Hemisphere’s biggest battery from South Australia. French renewable energy company Neoen will pay for construction of the lithium-ion battery, as well its ongoing operation and maintenance, Victorian energy minister Lily D’Ambrosio announced today. The 300MW battery will be… Read more »
Envato is a company with a big heart. Collis Ta’eed co-founded the privately owned global marketplace in a Bondi garage in 2006 with his wife Cyan, and friend Jun Rung. The Melbourne-based company now has more than 600 staff globally, having doubled in size in the last three years. It now generates more than $1… Read more »
Freelancer and solo entrepreneur accounting platform Bookipi has raised $1.6 million in a seed round co-led by Sydney VC Our Innovation Fund and Steve Baxter’s investment syndicate TEN13. Bookipi, founded in 2017, is targeting the freelancer and micro SME sector with its book-keeping platform and already has a user base of more than 640,000 customers… Read more »
Accomodation comparison site Trivago has lost an appeal against a Federal Court finding that it misled consumer in its TV and online advertising. In January this year, the court found the German tech company, which is listed on the Nasdaq and operates in Australia, had breachedAustralian Consumer Law, in a case brought by competition watchdog the… Read more »
Australian comedy and satire group The Chaser have had their verified account suspended by Twitter overnight after @chaser changed its name to Donald J Trump, including a photo of the US President and wrote “Don’t vote for me, I’m a massive idiot”. Twitter’s response was surprisingly quick given it occurred while most of the US… Read more »
78% of survey respondents were familiar with Open Banking (CDR). 71% of industry respondents intend to use CDR, 58% of whom stating that they intend to use CDR data within the next 12 months 64% of banks and lenders, and 54.6% of technology providers plan to spend more than $500,000 54.2% of fintechs expect to… Read more »
Australian e-tailer Booktopia is planning to list on the ASX in December with a market capitalisation of nearly $315 million. The business lodged its prospectus today, hoping to raise $43.1 million, with an offer of 10.9 million new shares and 7.9 million existing shares at $2.30 per share. Existing shareholders will cash in $18.1 million… Read more »
Debit payments platform eftpos is hoping to crack the digital wallet market by acquiring payments app Beem It. Beem It is free app that allows people to pay in real time, downloaded more than 1.4 million times. The joint-venture fintech owned by CBA, NAB and Westpac and other banks as well as major retailers such… Read more »
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has cut interest rates by 15 basis points to a new record low of 0.1%. The cut was widely expected by markets. RBA Governor said in his statement that the Board decided on a package of further measures to support job creation and the recovery of the Australian economy… Read more »
Agtech startup The Yield Technology Solutions has signed a three-year deal with ASX-listed Treasury Wine Estates to use its machine learning technology to assist with harvest predictions and grape production. The Yield’s Sensing+ solution users sensors and analytics to provide information and predictions in apps that help commercial vignerons make key production decisions such as… Read more »
ASX-listed Amaysim Australia Ltd is offloading another part of its business, hoping to sell its mobile venture to long-term wholesale partner, Optus Mobile for $250 million in cash. The deal follows the sale last month of its power provider, Click Energy, to AGL for A$115 million, and would bring an end to business just a… Read more »
MYOB has led a $22 million Series C round into workplace software startup Flare, with the accounting platform also announcing a new partnership with the five-year-old venture. Existing investors Point72 Ventures, Acorn Capital and David Fite joined the round with Malcolm Turnbull signing on as a new investor. Turnbull and Fite will become special advisors… Read more »
A household products company hoping to reduce the plastic waste by reusing containers for everyday products such as shampoo, liquid soaps and laundry wash has raised $2 million in seed funding, led by Skip Capital, the family VC run by Kim Jackson, wife of Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar. Zero Co has already attracted a series… Read more »
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Tassie carbon accounting startup banks $5.3 million Seed round 
Eucalyptus head of growth Matt Rossi departs to launch his own marketing startup, Oodle 
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