Super will help fund the next wave of unicorns
The country’s leading venture capitalists are tipping more direct investment will flow from superannuation firms such as Hostplus into start-up deals, as more $100 million-plus raises test the funding capacity of the VC firms. Last week cross-border payments start-up Airwallex became the latest Australian company to achieve the lauded $US1 billion valuation milestone, making it the quickest local start-up to achieve unicorn status. The valuation came on the back of a $US100 million raise ($141.3 million) for the fintech, which is less than four years old. The raising was led by US investor DST Global, with participation from Sequoia Capital China, Tencent, Hillhouse Capital, Gobi Partners, Horizons Ventures and Square Peg […]
Australian fintech Airwallex confirmed as latest fintech unicorn following Series C fundraising
Airwallex confirms unicorn status following a successful Series C fundraising round of $100m USD, valuing the company at over $1bn USD. Founded in Melbourne in 2015, Australian fintech Airwallex has grown from an emerging start-up to a global challenger in the crossborder payment space, supporting a client base of internet titans including JD.com, Tencent and Ctrip, and large financial service companies including MasterCard. Top-tier investor DST Global led the Series C fundraising round, which closed at $100m USD. DST Global has been a primary investor across a number of global technology success stories, including Facebook, Airbnb and Spotify, and other fintech leaders, such as Robinhood. Alongside new investor DST Global, […]
What’ll Waddle do with $4m injection?
Small business lender fintech start-up Waddle will step up its efforts to crack overseas markets and take a larger share of the big four bank’s local market share after closing a $4 million series A funding round. The funds, sourced from tech venture capital firm Allectus Capital, will be used to grow the fintech’s footprint in Australasia and push forward with its plans to integrate with overseas banks. “We are seeing strong demand from banks looking to digitise their working capital product offerings by partnering with fintechs with proven models,” said Simon Creighton, co-founder of Waddle. While it is the first major external venture-style funding round, co-founder Simon Creighton is […]
Fintech gold rush tipped as KPMG finds Australian investment hit $842m in 2018
Big four professional services firm KPMG has tipped even more funding will come for Australian fintech players in the wake of new open banking rules and the banking royal commission, despite a huge rise in deals taking spending to $US600 million ($842 million) in 2018. In new local figures derived from its biannual global Pulse of Fintech study, KPMG said deals in the local sector picked up last year, following a drop-off in 2017, when capital raisings, acquisitions and IPOs had fallen to $US200 million. The report found that globally a record $US111.8 billion was invested in fintech firms in 2018, with Asian funding reached a new high of $US22.7 […]
Techboard data shows the startling growth of the Australian fintech sector
US-based data company CB Insights recently reported that VC investment in Australian Fintech had grown from $67m in 2017 to $343 million in 2018. While this does show massive growth in funding for Australia’s fintech sector, data from Australian Startup Data Company Techboard indicates that this represents a significant understatement of the sector’s growth. Techboard has recently released its Report for the December quarter 2018 which revealed another $1.066B in funding for Australian Startups and young tech companies. This was the second consecutive quarter of over $1b funding across all sectors and took the total amount of funding for the 2018 Calendar year to over $4b, up around $1/2b revealed […]
Aussie-founded fintech Banked secures $2.7 million in seed funding, to launch open banking data solution
An Aussie-founded fintech, based in London, has secured £1.5 million ($2.66 million) in seed funding, while it’s still pre-product, pre-revenue, and less than a year old. Founded in early-2018 by Australian native and chief executive Brad Goodall, along with co-founders Neil Ambler, Patrick Cox and Ellen Fernandes, Banked aims to open up the possibilities of financial data by providing a trustworthy channel of communication between banks, businesses and individuals. The entirety of the seed funding has come from London-based venture capital firm Backed VC, although Goodall tells StartupSmart he is in talks with other investors regarding a potential secondary seed raise. Open banking came into effect in the UK earlier […]
Home loan fintech raises $25m
A fintech start-up is celebrating a $25million raise as it continues on its pathway to becoming Australia’s “most innovative home loan provider”. Athena Home Loans, which is still in its pilot phase, has closed its most recent Series B raise led by Square Peg Capital. Industry super fund Hostplus and venture firm AirTree also joined the round, taking the group’s total capital raised to date to $45m. The Series B raise comes six months after the company announced a Series A fund raise led by Macquarie Bank and Square Peg Capital and three months after announcing a strategic partnership with Resimac Group. Powered by Australia’s first cloud native digital mortgage […]
Lumi raises $31.5m to improve small business lending
Australian fintech company and alternative lender Lumi has announced it has raised $31.5 million in Series A funding as part of its plans to give small- and medium-sized enterprises easier access to finance. As a result of the funding, Lumi will become the first pre-revenue fintech business lender to offer a warehouse securitisation program in Australia. By combining its application programming interface (API) with traditional credit data and the applicant’s social impact, Lumi aims to streamline the loan application process for small business owners. Yanir Yakutiel, founder and CEO of Lumi, says the company is trying to solve the key issues of alternative lending for small businesses. “We saw a […]
