NAB Ventures leads $32 million funding for Canadian fintech firm
NAB Ventures led a US$24 million (AU$32 million) series D funding round for cloud fintech firm Wave. The latter, based in Canada, delivers financial management software like payroll, invoicing and accounting. Melissa Widner, NAB Ventures’ general partner, said that the bank is interested in any emerging technologies that offer a connected experience to customers. NAB has more than 450,000 small and medium business customers, making it one of the largest banks in Australia. Wave co-founder and chief executive Kirk Simpson said that nobody understands small business in Australia better than NAB. He added that they are looking forward to explore how to serve businesses better alongside the bank. “We also […]
MYOB founder Craig Winkler just backed a Sydney fintech’s $5 million funding round
A Sydney startup that creates accounting software has secured $5 million in a series A capital raising round. Practice Ignition announced Tuesday that Microequities Venture Capital Fund led the investment, while other new contributors included Black Sheep Capital and Right Click Capital. Craig Winkler, last week named the 12th wealthiest man in Australian tech, is an existing investor in Practice Ignition and chipped in an undisclosed amount for the latest round. Winkler is best known for establishing accounting software firm MYOB then, in 2009, investing $14.7 million in its rival Xero. Xero’s shares are now worth more than 20 times the 2009, as the New Zealand company celebrated passing the […]
Winners at The Finnies!
Congratulations to those Australian Fintech companies and their fearless leaders who won awards last night at the inaugural Finnies Fintech Awards: Female Fintech Leader of the Year: Emma Weston, AgriDigital Co-Founder & CEO Joint Male Fintech Leaders of the Year: Greg Moshal & Beau Bertoli, Prospa Co-Founders Fintech Organisation of the Year: Afterpay Emerging Fintech Leader of the Year: Emma Weston, AgriDigital Co-Founder & CEO Emerging Fintech Organisation of the Year: Spaceship Best Fintech place to work: Prospa Best workplace diversity: Timelio Marketing Campaign or Brand Initiative of the Year: Equitise – Equitise Bubble Excellence in establishing Market Presence (Australia): BrickX […]
VentureCrowd CEO Vivian Stewart slams lengthy crowdfunding legislation process
The newly appointed chief executive of crowd-sourced equity funding platform VentureCrowd, Vivian Stewart, has labelled the leisurely pace at which the government passed equity crowdfunding funding laws “embarrassing”. “Aussies are entrepreneurial and we’ve earned the right to stand on the world stage,” the renowned tech entrepreneur and investor told The Australian Financial Review. “But sometimes structural things around the way we do business have let us down. The delay in getting the crowd-sourced equity funding legislation up and running here is an example of an un-Australian way of not being innovative. It was embarrassing to see these other large first world countries moving faster than us.” The comments from Mr […]
Sequoia and Gobi hunting Aussie start-ups following Airwallex round
Big name Chinese venture capital firms are hunting for Australian tech start-ups to invest in, targeting firms in the fintech, agricultural and medical technology sectors. Sequoia Capital partner Steven Ji and Gobi Partners principal Chibo Tang were in Australia last week meeting with local start-ups, venture capital firms and government ministers, with the aim of finding new businesses to back and both agreed that Chinese investors were keen to invest in asset classes outside of property in the country. “We think Australia is a good place for innovation technology and products, particularly in the fintech area,” Mr Ji told The Australian Financial Review. “There’s been a lot of technology innovations […]
Sydney robo-advisor founded by ex-UBS portfolio manager raises $3 million in series B
Sydney fintech Stockspot has secured $3 million in a series B capital raising round, the startup revealed on Thursday. Stockspot is a digital investment advisor, commonly known as a robo-advisor, and a fund manager founded by chief executive Chris Brycki, a former UBS and BlueLake Partners portfolio manager. ETF Securities founder Graham Tuckwell and Australian firm Alium Capital, which invested in HealthEngine and Nitro last month, led the $3 million round. Stockspot also revealed that H2’s Toby and Ben Heap, who were already investors, and “algorithmic trading” entrepreneur Danny Bhandari contributed to the series B. “Graham is a global exchange-traded fund (ETF) pioneer, having invented exchange traded commodities and built […]
Venture capital 3.0: the initial coin offering explained
The venture capital community thrives on disruption. So what happens when the tables are turned and the medicine bottle has their name on it? There’s a new kid riding onto the financing block – riding roughshod across an unregulated landscape. Welcome to the world of the initial coin offering (ICO). An ICO is a hybrid: part crowdfunding, part software token, part speculation. In simple terms, an ICO is often described, somewhat inaccurately, as an IPO for cryptocurrencies. How it works – A tech start-up team creates an ICO using a blockchain-enabled software platform, usually open sourced. – The platform is powered by cryptography-based software tokens – called cryptocurrencies. – The […]
China giant Tencent funds Melbourne fintech start-up
Melbourne-based fintech start-up Airwallex has landed a $US13 million Series A funding round, becoming one of the first Australian companies to raise money from China’s biggest internet company, Tencent. Airwallex, which is building a new foreign exchange payment network, raised funding from the world’s fourth-biggest internet company, along with Sequoia Capital China and Mastercard. “We’ve built a digital banking layer and a digital compliance layer across traditional banking infrastructure,” co-founder and CEO Jack Zhang told The Australian. “You can think of us as a payment network; we’re offering a faster, cheaper way of making payments happen.” Airwallex lets businesses issue and pay invoices in their preferred currency at the mid-market […]
