‘Stupid money’ is out and smart investors are looking for opportunities in the Australian startup scene, say leading venture capital partners. Speaking at the Melbourne Startup Bootcamp at Bay City Labs yesterday, Skalata Ventures cofounder and CEO Rohan Workman called out the ridiculous funding rounds that had given startup founders unrealistic expectations. “It’s a great time… Read more »
Tech salaries have surged in recent years, but a leading recruiter has warned that salaries are “starting to stabilise” as widespread economic challenges force companies to tweak their strategic plans and reassess their hiring requirements. Despite a continued appetite to invest in “paramount” critical technology functions – for example, infrastructure, governance, and development – many… Read more »
From steam power and electricity to computers and the internet, technological advancements have always disrupted labor markets, pushing out some jobs while creating others. Artificial intelligence remains something of a misnomer – the smartest computer systems still don’t actually know anything – but the technology has reached an inflection point where it’s poised to affect… Read more »
2022 was a tough year for many, but in tough times our true characters are revealed. I was inspired by Ben Armstrong’s post to reflect on and celebrate the growth and collaborative nature of startup Aus/NZ, especially what I’ve seen last year. Australia is the lucky country, and our luck hasn’t run out. For the… Read more »
Sun Cable – considered to be the world’s biggest renewable energy export project – announced this week it had entered voluntary administration following “the absence of alignment” with shareholders. Sun Cable is expected to cost over A$30 billion. It proposes to build an enormous, 12,000 hectare solar farm in the Northern Territory, add an enormous… Read more »
From the high school dropout who started her first business at 12 and now runs a $25 million empire, to the surfer whose ‘sea bins’ have captured more than 100 tonnes of microplastics in Sydney Harbour in just two years, these entrepreneur podcast interviews will open your minds for 2023. If you’re looking for the… Read more »
If you’ve found yourself feeling a bit flat after returning to work (or outright hating your job) this year, you’re not alone. #BackToWork is trending for Australia on Tik Tok, with plenty of users lamenting the return to the office. A growing body of research also shows this feeling is pretty common. But while there’s… Read more »
A newly developed text-to-speech language model from Microsoft can mimic a person’s speech from as little as three seconds of sample audio – but the tech giant is keeping its tech under wraps for now so it is not misused. One of Microsoft’s artificial intelligence (AI) research teams published a paper about its model for text-to-speech… Read more »
If share price is anything to go by, Tesla is in trouble. The market capitalisation of the electric vehicle (EV) company has fallen by 73% from its record high in November 2021, causing concern for investors. On the face of it, there is no crisis. The cars are still the benchmark for performance. The underlying… Read more »
The widespread talent shortage is hitting Australian IT project managers hard, with nearly three-quarters experiencing staff shortages, according to a new report. The Australian Institute of Project Management’s State of Project Management in Australia included a survey of more than 300 diverse Australian project professionals in July and August last year. Just under a quarter of… Read more »
Financial contagions can be triggered easily, if conditions are right. First one financial institution falls and then others follow, like a chain of falling dominoes. The cinder that sparked the global financial crisis in 2007 is considered by many to have been a March 14 briefing by executives of the Lehman Brothers’ investment bank. Under… Read more »
In this essay, we are imagining a pitch from an early stage deep tech company, probably still working inside a university. An investor red flag might not be obvious to a founder. Why would it? They build up over years as signals of weakness and they are best avoided. Knowing what they are makes it possible to… Read more »
Melanie Perkins is an ambition-driven creative, making transformative impacts on the world of graphic design. She is CEO and co-founder of Canva, which launched in 2014. Kochie’s Business Builders editor Cec Busby untangles the truth behind Canva’s ‘overnight success’ in this interview with Perkins. Starting from scratch Melanie Perkins’ passion for design has been present… Read more »
The silly season is upon us. While business ramps up for a lot of sectors over the summer, for others it’s time to down tools and take a break. We canvassed some of Australia’s leading founders to get their tips for how to prepare for time away. Ben Lipschitz, CEO and co-founder, FoodByUs “The most important… Read more »
The Australian game development sector is enjoying rapid growth on the back of unprecedented government support, with almost 800 new jobs created in the last year alone. The Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (IGEA) released its sixth annual Australian Game Development Survey this week, revealing that the sector has more than doubled in size over the last… Read more »
Unicorn dehorned: Nasdaq-listed Brisbane EV charging venture Tritium collapses into receivership 
The lessons from Uber, Ola and rideshare’s disruption is that in the end, the consumer still pays 
‘Have I gone too far?’ How founders can beat their startup demons 
Here are the finalists in Fintech Australia’s 2024 Finnies awards 
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