A takeover bid for ASX-listed online car sales venture iCar Asia by rival Singaporean car e-commerce platform Carsome has pushed the shares up more than 41% in early trade today. The non-binding acquisition proposal from Carhome at $0.55 cents a share pips a previous offer last year at $0.50 cents from China’s Autohome. iCar Asia… Read more »
US technology workforce development company Pluralsight has closed its acquisition deal for online learning startup A Cloud Guru. The $2 billion deal for the London-based startup, which began life in 2015 in a Melbourne bedroom as the vision of brothers Sam and Ryan Kroonenburg, is one of Australia’s biggest M&A tech deals. Sam, the company’s CEO,… Read more »
Melbourne-based drinks business Mighty Craft has announced plans to buy South Australian producers Adelaide Hills Distillery, Mismatch Brewing and Hills Cider in a deal worth $47 million. The agreement also includes 75 % ownership of the popular LOT.100 venue, which is a destination distillery, cellar door, restaurant and function centre on an 84-hectare property near… Read more »
US tech workforce development venture Pluralsight will acquire online learning startup A Cloud Guru in a deal believed to be worth $2 billion. The sale is likely to be one of the biggest in local tech for the 5-year-old London-based startup. A Cloud Guru was originally built in a month in a Melbourne bedroom… Read more »
Stackla, the social media marketing startup that had a near-death experience in 2019 when it was blocked Facebook and Instagram, has been sold to Finnish e-commerce platform Nosto. The terms and conditions of the acquisition were not disclosed. Facebook’s move against Stackla, which built its business on user-generated content amid a crackdown following the Cambridge… Read more »
Restaurant tech venture Dragontail Systems (ASX:DTS) is being acquired by the US parent company behind KFC and Pizza Hut, Yum Brands, in a deal worth $93.5 million. Domino’s has been Dragontail’s leading customer in recent years. Its machine learning cameras monitor pizza quality and is the technology behind Domino’s Pizza Checker, as well as the… Read more »
ASX-listed payments platform Tryo (ASX: TYR) is spending $22.5 million to acquire NAB-backed digital health payment startup Medipass Solutions The deal gives an exit for the four-year-old Melbourne-based startup’s key investor, NAB Ventures. Founder Peter Williams and CEO Jonathan Davey will also sell their stakes, in the 100% acquisition by Tyro, but will remain with… Read more »
Australian tech giant Atlassian has opened its wallet to acquire ThinkTilt, the Brisbane startup behind the ProForma, a no-code/low-code form builder for Jira, for an undisclosed sum. The six-year-old venture has more than 700 companies as customers and helps them build the forms to manage workflows In a post announcing the acquisition, Atlassian’s head of… Read more »
The journey for Melbourne fintech Assembly Payments is set to end with the company being merged into Ireland-based cross-border payments platform CurrencyFair by one of the company’s key backers Standard Chartered. The British banking multinational launched a Singapore-based joint venture digital payments company with Assembly Payments in early 2020. Standard Chartered said the merger was… Read more »
This week, after building the Momentum ESR platform for nearly 18 years, we’ve been acquired by Compass Education. I’ve been asked several times why I did this now. The simple answer is: we have found a shared vision in Compass education to provide a comprehensive school administration solution for NSW Schools into the future. We… Read more »
US listed retail commerce platform Lightspeed POS will pay up to US$350 million (A$450m) to acquire New Zealand cloud-based retail management software company Vend. Founded in 2010 by Vaughan Fergusson, Vend became the first point of sale on the iPad, and first POS to be based in the cloud. Vend’s revenue in 2020 was around… Read more »
Big four bank NAB is taking control of neobank 86 400, just 18 months after the fintech launched. The proposed deal ends the “challenger bank” dream of British banking pioneer Anthony Thomson, co-founder of the UK’s Metro Bank and publicly-listed digital bank Atom, and CEO Robert Bell, a former ANZ Japan boss. It was only… Read more »
Accounting software giant Xero Ltd is moving into lending to small business through invoice financing, announcing plans to acquire Sydney startup Waddle for up to $80 million. Xero (ASX: XRO) said the acquisition of the cloud-based lending platform aligns with its strategy to grow the small business platform and to address critical small business financial needs. “Waddle’s… Read more »
Atlassian has bought US helpdesk startup Halp. The Nasdaq-listed Sydney tech giant, best know for the Jira, Trello and Confluence platforms, acquired the three-year-old venture, which operates in Slack, delivering help desk ticketing and automated answers, for an undisclosed sum, Steve Goldsmith, Head of Product, Integrations, at Altassian, said in the company’s announcement that Halp… Read more »
Atlassian cofounder Scott Farquhar steps down as co-CEO 
The lessons from Uber, Ola and rideshare’s disruption is that in the end, the consumer still pays 
Kiwi tech skills startup NextWork pockets $2.3 million pre-Seed raise 
Logistics software startup Veyor Digital shifts $2.75 million pre-Series A for US plans 
Daily startup news and insights, delivered to your inbox.
