A year-old online car financing marketplace has raised a $3 million seed round led by Carthona Capital. Driva, which launched in early 2020, hopes to take on comparison sites such as Finder and Canstar, offering car buyers lending options from more than 30 auto financers. The fresh round of investors includes Stephen Das, founder of… Read more »
A new e-commerce venture originally developed by Catch Group founders Gabby and Hezi Leibovich’s has scored a record $30 million from the Commonwealth Bank prior to its launch. CBA’s taken a 23% stake in Little Birdie, valuing the business at $130 million before the online retail deals marketplace has sold a single product. The Melbourne… Read more »
White-label payment technology provider, mx51, which last year span out of fintech Assembly Payments, has raised $25 million in its first round, led by Acorn Capital, Artesian, Commencer Capital and Mastercard. The Sydney-based fintech claims to be the first Australian fintech to develop a bank-grade, modern, Payment-as-a-Service platform, offering integrated payment solutions for merchants. Last… Read more »
US-based Tiger Global Management’s aggressive global investment strategy has seen it lead a $40 million funding round for Robinhood-like Australian digital broker Stake. The New York investment firm has previously backed local startups Tyro and Safetyculture, alongside the likes of Coinbase, Airbnb and Clubhouse, and was joined in the round by partners of London-based DST… Read more »
Legaltech software startup Josef has raised $2.5 million led by Carthona Capital, alongside US-based The LegalTech Fund. The no-code software platform automates legal tasks, including document drafting, to offering legal guidance and advice, and users can even build bots for client interviews. Founded by two lawyers and an engineer in 2018, the startup previously raised… Read more »
Fintech Athena Home Loans has raised $90 million in its latest funding round. A range of previous investors returned for the series D, led by Square Peg Capital, including AirTree Ventures, Macquarie Bank, superannuation funds AustralianSuper, Hostplus, and Sunsuper, plus Salesforce Ventures, and Apex Capital. Athena previously raised $70 million in a series C in… Read more »
Sydney-based non-alcoholic spirits startup, Lyre’s has soared to $179 million valuation just two years after launching following a seed-plus round of $9 million. US-based Morgan Creek Capital Management, early-backers of Alibaba, SpaceX and Lyft, and Bitburger Ventures, the VC arm of the German brewers came on board as new investors with existing supporters DLF Venture, VRD… Read more »
Australian e-bike venture Zoomo has raised $16 million in a fresh round just eight months after a $16 million series A. The new raise, led by AirTree Ventures as a new investor, also saw existing backers the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), Maniv Mobility and Contrarian Ventures. Cleantech-focused US investors Winthrop Square and Wisdom VC… Read more »
US-based venture capital firm Insight Partners has led a US$73 million (A$95m) investment into workplace safety venture that nearly doubles the value of the startup to US$1.6bn (A$2.1bn). The deal comes just a fortnight after Insight was the sole backer of Brisbane software startup Octopus Deploy in a US$172.5 million (A$220m) round. Existing invest Tiger… Read more »
Adventus.io, a SaaS-based college student recruitment marketplace which has attracted more than 2000 universities globally to the platform, has raised an additional $11 million, led by venture capital firm Our Innovation Fund (OIF), to close a $22.7 million Series A. The funds will be used to bolster the edtech startup’s global footprint, especially in the… Read more »
Brisbane software startup Octopus Deploy is close becoming a $1 billion company after its first funding round, taking a US$172.5 million (A$222m) from New York venture capital firm Insight Partners. The enterprise software business, which counts Microsoft, NASA, Xero and Disney among its 25,000 customers, has bootstrapped for a decade before taking on Insight with… Read more »
Business fintech DiviPay, an expense management platform has raised an additional $1.7 million in its series A, led by ANZ Bank’s venture capital arm, ANZi. The four-year-old startup previously raised $2.3 million in its series A in late 2019, once again led by ANZi, along with Seed Space ventures and former Pepper Money CEO Patrick… Read more »
Virtual reality startup Vantari VR, which has developed the medical version of a flight simulator for doctors, has scored a US$100,000 (A$131k) grant from US video games giant Epic Games, the company behind smash hit video game Fortnite. The Epic MegaGrants are designed to assist game developers and others use Unreal Engine, the commercial game engine… Read more »
Australian design giant Canva has a staggering new valuation of US$15 billion (A$19.6bn) following a fresh US$71 million (A$93m) investment. That figure more than doubles the company’s last A$8.7 billion valuation in less than 12 months following an A$87 million raise in June 2020. In just 18 months, the privately-owned design startup has more than… Read more »
Batch Brewing Co, from Sydney’s Inner West, has raised $1.5 million in an equity crowdfunding raise through Equitise just a day after the campaign went public. With a day of the two-thirds of the funds already pledged on the day the campaign opened, it closed fully subscribed just after lunch on Good Friday. The raise… Read more »
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