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 »
Sydney contract and supplier software platform Portt has been acquired by UK firm Advanced for an undisclosed sum. The sale comes just 14 months after the 11-year-old procurement tech venture raised $4 million in VC funding after a decade of bootstrapping. The funds were to tackle slavery risks in company supply chains as Modern Slavery… Read more »
AGL has rejected a revised takeover bid from Mike Cannon-Brookes and Brookfield The $8.25 a share bid was a 10% increase on their first bid two weeks ago and worth $5.5 billion Cannon-Brookes said their consortium won’t make a further bid AGL is planning a demerger that it says will offer better value Atlassian billionaire… 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 »
Shares in Block, the ASX-listed company formed out the A$39 million merger of Afterpay with Jack Dorsey’s payments platform Square, surged up to 40% in Friday trade after the US parent company released a Q4 trading update that beat expectations. Block (ASX:SQ2) shares hit $165 during Friday trade, having closed at $116.05 on Thursday. The… Read more »
Australian design giant Canva has acquired UK data visualisation platform Flourish as it looks to ramp up its European growth plans. The cost of the deal was not disclosed. London-based Flourish has more than 800,000 users creating data stories ranging from Covid vaccination to climate change. More than 9.5 million visualisations have been created, generating… Read more »
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