The horror of finding a mountain of plastic, rubbish and debris at Everest Base Camp motivated young Gold Coast entrepreneurs to return home and tackle world pollution with a clean sheet. For Gold Coast identical twins Brodie and Roger Cook, taking on the enormity of world pollution meant starting small. “We saw a problem, we… Read more »
Australia is well-positioned to build and maintain a large and healthy agricultural industry ($81 billion of production in 2021/22). Australia also has a unique opportunity to leverage our higher-education infrastructure, skilled workforce and sophisticated capital markets to integrate modern technology into our agricultural industry for the purpose of vastly improving the volume of high-quality agricultural… Read more »
Managed property fund EG is planning to raise $100 million for its proptech incubator EGX, as it looks to transform the real estate and property sector. Launched last year, EGX already has a portfolio investment worth $100 million and backed three startups, Willow, Reveal and FLNT, EGX provides Seed and Series A funding to founders… Read more »
A hackathon offering up to $10,000 for a startup ideas that tackle climate change via space will be held in Canberra next month. SpaceHack, on June 16-17, is a collaboration between the Canberra Innovation Network (CBRIN) and UNSW Canberra. Participants will have 30 hours over the two days to collaborate and compete for cash prizes… Read more »
US venture capital giant has once again backed online used car platform, Carma in a US$52 million (A$75m) Series A round. General Catalyst Partners led the round. MD Adam Valkin will join the Carma board. The US VC’s other local investments include Canva, BigCommerce and Buildkite Other international venture investors joining the round include Entrée Capital… Read more »
Australia has no clear strategy to decarbonise transport. That’s a problem, because without a plan, our take-up of clean technologies like electric cars, trucks and buses is slow. It’s stopping us from meeting our climate commitments. And it leaves us paying exorbitant prices for imported oil at the fuel pump, as well as in the… Read more »
The Proptech Association Australia (PAA) has announced the finalists in the 2022 Proptech Awards, the only nationally coordinated awards for Australia’s booming property technology sector. PAA President Kylie Davis said entries for the 2022 awards jumped 31% on last year to 124 across the 23 categories. “It’s super exciting to celebrate these success stories in… Read more »
On Friday, the Wall Street Journal published information from Facebook whistleblowers, alleging Facebook (which is owned by Meta) deliberately caused havoc in Australia last year to influence the News Media Bargaining Code before it was passed as law. During Facebook’s news blackout in February 2021, thousands of non-news pages were also blocked – including important… Read more »
The price of Bitcoin has fallen to its lowest point since July last year, dipping toward the $43,000 (US$30,000) mark this week as economic fears spook the cryptocurrency and stock markets. Bitcoin came down off its all-time high of around $91,000 (US$67,000) last November and has since struggled to stabilise in an environment of growing… Read more »
Food delivery tech company DoorDash has signed a pioneering agreement with the Transport Workers’ Union (TWU) that sets out safety and fairness standards for gig workers. Amid ongoing legal battles by global tech companies over the employment status of gig economy workers, the first-of-its-kind agreement between an Australian union and a delivery platform sets out… 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 »
The federal government has awarded Queensland rocket company Gilmour Space Technologies $15 million to develop and launch a new sovereign surveillance satellite as part of a $7 billion ramping up of the nation’s space capabilities. Defence Minister Peter Dutton said the partnership with the Gold Coast tech company is part of the government’s Space Command,… Read more »
Victorian startup agency LaunchVic is offering grants of up to $2 million to support accelerator programs for local founders. Applications for the grant program are now open for experienced accelerator program providers to deliver either generalist or sector-specific programs over the next three years. LaunchVic CEO Dr Kate Cornick said the need for tailored support,… Read more »
Brisbane licensing marketplace Layer has raised $3,888,888 in Seed funding The round was led by Carthona Capital, with support from Aura Ventures, TEN13, Flying Fox, Black Sheep Capital, LUXEM, Tribe Ventures and several angels, including Go1 co-founders Chris Eigeland and Vu Tran. Layer’s marketplace connects games with leading rights holders including Bruce Lee, Narcos, CareBears,… Read more »
Australian law firm Lander & Rogers has announced the five startups in its fifth cohort of the LawTech Hub program. Three Australian legal tech startups are joined by one from London and another from New York, following a four-month hunt. Lander & Rogers Chief Executive Partner Genevieve Collins said that over the next six months,… Read more »
Unicorn dehorned: Nasdaq-listed Brisbane EV charging venture Tritium collapses into receivership 
‘Have I gone too far?’ How founders can beat their startup demons 
Tassie carbon accounting startup banks $5.3 million Seed round 
The lessons from Uber, Ola and rideshare’s disruption is that in the end, the consumer still pays 
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