Thursday was a very good day for ASX-listed buy-now-pay-later venture Splitit which, just before 11am, told the market it had “signed a multi-year agreement” with Mastercard “to accelerate the adoption of Splitit’s instalment solution around the world”. The market was bullish for the Afterpay rival – itself hitting new record highs today before closing at… Read more »
Fine Defender was founded by Adam Cockayne in 2016 after he saw first-hand the challenges related to unjust fines. So he developed software to help assess and challenge fines issued for everything from parking to traffic, public transport and more recently Covid-19, charging a $25-$35 fee to launch the challenge after they’ve completed an online… Read more »
Welcome to Wednesday Don’t forget to tune into the Startup Daily show on the business TV streaming channel ausbiz.com.au every weekday, 2-3pm, where we talk to startup founders, investors and innovators about everything tech. If you’ve missed an episode, you can catch up on the ausbiz site here. 1. EU v Apple on competition The EU’s competition watchdog has some… Read more »
Australian space startups and university researchers working on everything from astronaut virtual realise training to better spacesuit and AI-based avatar crews to test systems have been granted a total of $11 million in funding from the Australian government. Industry, science and technology minister Karen Andrews said the 10 projects sharing in $11 million would… Read more »
The Founder Institute, the world’s largest pre-seed accelerator, is moving its next Sydney program online as the innovation hub hunts for sustainability startups. Aspiring entrepreneurs or teams interested in building a startup with sustainability focus, supported by some of Sydney’s top mentors can apply to the Spring Founder Institute program here, and/or attend a free online… Read more »
It’s tech Tuesday and lots is happening folks. Don’t forget to tune into the Startup Daily show on the business TV streaming channel ausbiz.com.au every weekday, 2-3pm, where we talk to startup founders, investors and innovators about everything tech. If you’ve missed an episode, you can catch up on the ausbiz site here. 1. … Read more »
Australia is joining a new global organisation setting a framework on the use of artificial intelligence alongside 13 other nations and the European Union. In a statement announcing the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI, pronounced Gee-Pay) on Monday, the founding member nations said they “will support the responsible and human-centric development and use of… Read more »
Digital sector lobby group the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) is pushing for the Morrison government to invest more heavily in technology infrastructure ahead of more traditional infrastructure projects as the nation emerges from the covid-19 lockdowns. In a 54-page whitepaper titled ‘Building Australia’s Digital Future in a Post-COVID World’, developed by representatives from some… Read more »
Hello to Monday. Hope it’s a fun one. Here’s what we’ve spotted. 1. Unicorn hunting US startup sector analytics company CB Insights has picked out two Australian companies among the 50 it thinks could be the next unicorns (ie worth more than US$1bn). SafetyCulture and Culture Amp – 4% of the total with the US… Read more »
Coronavirus has dealt another blow to the arts and creative sector, with Queensland University of Technology (QUT) saying it will kill off 12-year-old Creative Enterprise Australia (CEA), including the CEA Startup Fund, which invested in successful startup ventures such as TrademarkVision over the last seven years. In a statement on Friday, QUT said that “after… Read more »
Andrew Wilson is co-founder of Sydney fintech Nudge, which he bootstrapped with his brother to launch last year. When Covid-19 hit he hatched a plan called ‘Save Australia’ for his app, Nudge Saver, which helps people save for their financial goals. Nudge works with any Australian bank account and was recently selected to be part of… Read more »
As many businesses continue to struggle to navigate their way through the pandemic, we spoke with nine Australian startup leaders to understand what they’ve learned from the COVID-19 catastrophe and how they believe businesses can keep their heads above water in future crises. Here’s their advice Ben Thompson CEO and co-founder, Employment Hero Taking… Read more »
Welcome to Thursday team. It’s a busy one, with Kogan.com raising $100 million in an ASX share placement. More on that here. 1. Here’s looking at you Jeff Reading the room, and perhaps also pushing for a seat at the table as US legislation is finally drawn up to deal with the use of facial-recognition… Read more »
Kogan.com shares have jumped more than 11% in early trade on Thursday morning after the online retailer announced it had successfully raised A$100 million in an institutional placement on Wednesday. Within 30 minutes of trade resuming today, shares in the multi-pronged ecommerce business (ASX: KGN), had climbed to $13.79, up from Tuesday’s closing price of… Read more »
The relentless march of buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) startups such as Afterpay and Zip into the retail landscape has been confirmed in new research by Roy Morgan that found nearly 60% of Australians, 12.3 million people, are aware of the payment services. The figures in the latest Roy Morgan Digital Payments Report are up 22.1% points in just… Read more »
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Smart hotels get even smarter: 72 Byte to launch in Australia with AI expert backing 
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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