Mapping software company has seen its shares pop by a third on Monday after revealing that it had been in takeover talks with US private equity company Thoma Bravo. The takeover price of $2.10 cash per share values the business at around $1.055 billion and is an 83% premium to Nearmap’s closing price of $1.15… Read more »
Nine years after it listed on the ASX as one of the 2013’s biggest floats, the board of comparison website iSelect has agreed to sell the business to rival Innovation Holdings Australia (IHA), owner of Compare the Market, in a deal that values the business at $72 million. Startup investor Thorney Investment Group, which has… Read more »
The board of ASX-listed Genex Power Limited (ASX: GNX) have rejected a takeover bid by Altassian co-founder Scott Farquhar as undervaluing the business. Last Monday, after building up a 19.9% stake in Genex via a consortium controlled by Skip Capital, the family VC run by Farquhar’s wife Kim Jackson, in a partnership with US alternative… Read more »
Two months after Mike Cannon-Brookes made an audacious but ultimately doomed takeover bid for AGL, his Atlassian co-founder and co-billionaire Scott Farquhar is making his own energy play with a $320 million tilt at ASX-listed Genex Power Limited (ASX: GNX). Genex shares jumped as much as 50% on the news on Monday before closing 45%… Read more »
Atlassian founder Mike Cannon-Brookes is looking for a place at the AGL board table after routing the company’s CEO and chairman and derailing the company’s demerger plan, and may make a third takeover bid for Australia’s biggest energy supplier. Cannon-Brookes spent around $650 million through his family venture capital firm, Grok Ventures, to take an… Read more »
Tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes has spend $650 million via his family investment firm, Grok Ventures, for his stake in AGL, including $600 million in cash and $50 million in debt. The Atlassian co-founder and co-CEO is waging a public campaign to stop a demerger plan for Australia’s biggest energy company. While the initial stake was… Read more »
It’s been a big week for former The Bachelor star and fitness advocate Sam Wood, who last week welcomed the birth of his third child and sold his fitness app ‘28 by Sam Wood’ in a $71 million (US$50m) deal with Melbourne tech company myDNA. Wood, 41, had his third daughter, Harper, with wife Snezana… Read more »
Vai Photonics, a Canberra startup spun out of Australian National University last year to help vehicles navigate independently of GPS, has been acquired by Sydney tech company Advanced Navigation in a deal believed to be worth up to $40 million. Founded by physicists Lyle Roberts and James Spollard to commercialise their research, Vai Photonics has a… Read more »
ASX-listed gig economy marketplace Airtasker is acquiring services platform Oneflare for $9.8 million. The company (ASX:ART) will help pay for the acquisition by raising $6.25 million via an underwritten placement of approximately 14.5 million new fully paid ordinary shares at $0.43 cents. Airtasker shares have been placed in a trading halt at $0.51 cents. Oneflare… Read more »
Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes has wasted no time in becoming an activist shareholder after taking an 11.3% stake in energy giant AGL. The billionaire launched a campaign with the slogan “Keep it together” to oppose AGL’s plans for a demerger, creating two separate ASX-listed companies, just hours after news emerged that he’d become AGL’s largest… Read more »
Telstra has pinned its ambitions in home entertainment on content aggregation service Fetch in a deal worth $50 million for a 51% stake. The deal values the 12-year-old venture at $100 million and will see the telco shift Telstra TV customers onto Fetch. Like Apple TV Fetch is a set top box, available in two… Read more »
Melbourne flower delivery startup LVLY has been acquired by Malaysian-based Limitless Technology for around $35 million as the e-commerce group expands its footprint in Australia. The deal will see co-founders Hannah Spilva and Verity Tuck, who launched the online flowe gifting venture in 2015, pocket around $20 million. Spilva will join the Limitless board, with… Read more »
Canberra tech scaleup Instaclustr is being acquired by US software giant NetApp. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but it’s believed to be worth more than $500 million. The exit comes 9 years after the cloud-based Internet solutions platform was co-founded by Ben Bromhead, Adam Zegelin, Peter Lilley, and Doug Stuart ANU,… Read more »
Brisbane infrastructure monitoring startup Aurtra has been acquired by French multinational Schneider Electric in a multi-million-dollar deal. The startup, founded in 2017 by Dr Richard Harris, Steve McRae and Terry Woodcroft, was built on sensor technology developed at the University of Queensland technology to monitor the health of electricity network transformers. Aurtra licensed the patented… Read more »
Scaleup unicorn SafetyCulture has acquired local worker safety startup SHEQSY for $6 million. The smartphone-based app is a lone worker safety solution designed for remote situations, offering real-time safety monitoring including duress situations. For managers it offers a visual dashboard of staff locations with activity countdown timers and generates real-time alerts when an employee overstays… Read more »
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