Online health brands company Eucalyptus is putting the $50 million it recently raised to use acquiring the online assets of the Australian Jenny Craig brand from its administrators as the rest of the weight loss business looks set to be liquidated. Voluntary administrators FTI Consulting were appointed on May 9, but a month on, have… Read more »
Sydney logistics software startup Ofload has acquired Melbourne freight specialist CIA Logistics in its first deal to expand nationally. Founded in 2020 with a focus on cutting inefficiencies in the trucking industry and reducing its environmental impact, this is Ofload’s first acquisition, taking its headcount to more than 120 employees in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane,.… 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 »
B2B payments automation provider Monoova has merged with foreign exchange fintech Moneytech FX to build out its cross-border payments offering. The terms of the merger deal were not disclosed, with Moneytech now sitting under the Monoova brand, and headquartered in Sydney with a team of around 70. Monoova cofounder and CEO Christian Westerlind Wigstrom said… 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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
ASX-listed buy now, pay later (BNPL) fintech Zip plans to acquire rival Sezzle in a $491 million all-scrip merger. The offer, now under a definitive agreement, will see Sezzle (ASX: SZL) investors swap their holding for 0.98 Zip (ASX: Z1P) shares, with Sezzle priced at $1.78 and Zip, $2.21. The transaction offers 22% premium on… Read more »
UK-based Asian food delivery platform HungryPanda, has snapped up two local rivals, acquiring Melbourne-based startup Easi and New Zealand’s Buy@Home. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisitions mean HungryPanda, founded in 2017, now operates in 10 countries, including the UK, France, Italy, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and Singapore, across 60 cities.… Read more »
Sydney digital asset manager TCM Capital has hitched its wagon to Singapore-based digitisation, tokenisation and provenance services firm Trovio to create the Trovio Group in a deal that values the merged cryptocurrency entity at $200 million. An oversubscribed raise as part of the merger, led by Ellerston Capital, Sun Hung Kai Strategic Capital and Amherst… Read more »
Afterpay’s $39 billion takeover deal with Square dragged down the Australian fintech’s share price yet again amid delays and the US payments company announcing a rebrand. Because the takeover is an all-scrip deal, Square’s (NYSE: ASX) 6.6% fall in its stock overnight weighed on Afterpay (ASX: APT) in Thursday trade, falling 6.08% to close at… Read more »
Melbourne customer engagement marketing company MessageMedia is being acquired by Swedish rival Sinch for US$1.3 billion (A$1.7bn). The deal is made up of US$1.1bn in cash and 1.126 million new shares in Sinch. MessageMedia offers mobile messaging solutions for SMEs in the US, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe, serving more than 60,000 customers and sending… Read more »
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