How Lakeba Group uses AI to identify business opportunities – and when it lets humans take over
Rather than picking a single problem and solving it, Australian technology company Lakeba Group is hedging its bets, using AI to unearth a range of business opportunities, commercialising the underlying technology components as well as applying it to industry-specific use cases. So far the Manly-based company has identified seven commercial ventures, including the Shelfie, a joint venture with Microsoft, and Paid By Coins, a payment service that lets users pay their bills with cryptocurrencies, which Mobecom recently acquired a 80 per cent stake in for $6 million. Giuseppe Porcelli, Lakeba Group CEO, spoke to Which-50 about how the company approaches innovation and commercialising its ideas. Lakeba Group’s neural network is […]
Splitit: why this payments company is dividing the market
The last time fund manager Dean Fergie’s cycling buddies had such a specific interest in the financial markets was during the bitcoin boom. “Two years ago, everyone was going, hey, what about bitcoin. Now it’s about Splitit – it’s the stock everyone is talking about,” says the Melbourne-based Cyan Investment Management director whose fund bought shares in the company during its initial public offering. Splitit Payments, a company that gives credit-card customers the option of paying for purchases in instalments, listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in January with a market capitalisation of just $54 million, issuing shares at 20¢ each. Now, its market capitalisation is $450 million – more […]
Australia to develop national blockchain strategy
The federal government will develop a national blockchain roadmap in a bid to position Australia as a global leader in distributed ledger technology. Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews announced the strategy and $100,000 in accompanying funding on Monday to nurture a “burgeoning” industry. It comes just weeks after advice from the Digital Transformation Agency urging “pragmatism” from agencies around the use of blockchain in government. The roadmap is expected to focus on policy areas like “regulation, skills and capacity building, innovation, investment and international competitiveness and collaboration”, the government said. It will be developed in consultation with experts from industry and academia, as well as CSIRO’s digital […]
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 […]
Wisr sees strong support for new debt reduction app
Wisr (ASX: WZR) announced more than 4,000 Australians have downloaded the new Wisr App during its testing phase, which automatically ‘rounds-up’ digital spare change to pay off debt faster. The app is the newest financial wellness product to be offered by neo-lender Wisr and is the first in Australia to ‘round-up’ spare change with a focus on credit card or mortgage debt reduction. Wisr App can be used by customers of most Australian banks. Wisr App links a user’s everyday transaction account, rounding-up purchases to the nearest dollar and automatically paying the funds off a nominated debt – including credit card debt or mortgage debt with any financial institution, or […]
BGL declares war on Australian Super
BGL Corporate Solutions, Australia’s leading supplier of SMSF administration and ASIC corporate compliance solutions, is extremely disappointed with the comments made by Ian Silk the CEO of Australian Super about SMSFs. “Ian like most CEO’s and Directors of Industry and Retail Funds simply don’t get it” said BGL’s Managing Director Ron Lesh. “People move out of large funds because of the lack of transparency, the huge salaries paid to executives, the unrepresentative boards, the hugely wasteful advertising expenditure but most of all the desire to control their own destiny.” “Silk is using data from the Productivity Commission that is simply not correct!” says Lesh. “Industry data over the past 20 […]
Five ways to better manage cashflow for your business
Did you know, according to the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC), 46% of all company failures occurred due to inadequate cash flow in 2015/16? Cash flow is vital to a business, and management should be priority number 1. So how can you better manage cash flow in a business, whether you sell products, provide services, or do a bit of both? Here are five ways to better manage cash flow in your business 1. Look at your balance sheets and make a projection In business, like in sport, you need to keep score. Keeping score tells you whether you’re winning or losing. Balance sheets and profit and loss statements […]
A fintech wanting to be ‘Australia’s leading migrant bank’ has launched a $4 million placement
There are plenty of fintechs and plenty of small caps seeking money from Chinese consumers, but few companies that are both. Novatti (ASX: NOV) is one of them. The ASX-listed small cap is a holding company for half a dozen fintech platforms. One of these is chinapayments.com which allows Chinese people in Australia to pay Australian utilities bills through AliPay. They receive fees on a per-transaction basis for payments through the platform. In December, the volume was around $200,000 a month but in January this rose to $460,000. For those with loved ones back home, they can send money overseas through TransferBridge or MoniSend, or alternatively pay bills on their behalf. […]
