Sydney-based HR startup Flare has made two key hires, appointing former Birchbox CTO Liz Crawford as CTO and Jim Matheson, former vice president of marketing and growth at hipages, as CMO.
Fairfax Media’s Domain Group has acquired a 35 percent stake in Oneflare, an online marketplace for local services providers, for $15 million, valuing the startup at around $43 million.
The days of tradies waiting for weeks after a job to get paid may soon be over, with tradie marketplace hipages partnering with fintech startup PromisePay to integrate a payment system into its app and launch in-app payments.
Just a few weeks after entering into a strategic partnership with real estate group Ray White, tradie marketplace hipages has announced its acquisition of Australian business directory StartLocal and related assets, including Home Service Engine and Aussie Tradesman User Guide. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Two months on from News Corp acquiring a 25 percent stake in hipages for a reported $40 million, the tradie marketplace has partnered with real estate group Ray White to give buyers and sellers easy access to its database of over 70,000 qualified tradespeople across 240 categories.
The newspapers are now getting back in to classifieds, with both News Corp and Fairfax today each acquiring a 25 percent stake in a startup. News Corp Australia has acquired a 25 percent stake in hipages, Australia’s largest online platform for finding and hiring tradespeople, while Fairfax has acquired a stake in neighbourhood social platform Nabo.
The philosophy “never stop innovating” has been integral to the success of hipages Group, a 10-year-old company that’s brought on successors like Oneflare and ServiceCrowd. The company recently appointed Chris Iona from Bigcommerce as VP of Engineering, after bringing on Dino Talic from Freelancer as VP of Product last year.
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