OurCrowd reaches $1bn funds under management with $200m from Australian backers
Israel-founded equity crowdfunding platform OurCrowd has become one of the biggest sources of offshore venture capital for Australian investors, revealing it just surpassed $1 billion under management, globally with more than 20 per cent or $200 million coming from Australian investors. OurCrowd, which has achieved 20 exits from company investments since launching in 2012 and currently backs 150 start-ups and scale-ups including one in Australia, allows wholesale investors to back those companies with a minimum investment of $10,000. Since it launched in Australia in 2014 it has picked up 2000 accredited investors locally out of a global crowd of 25,000. It takes a minimum 5 per cent stake alongside its […]
Sydney blockchain integrator strikes virtual deal for virtual currency project
Australia’s IoT Group (ASX:IOT) has struck a “cornerstone” agreement with Royalti Blockchain Group to kit out its proposed Hunter Valley power plant cryptocurrency mining project with Bitfury servers, but the deal has a very long way to go before becoming a reality. The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX)-listed IoT Group said on 7 May that its subsidiary IoT Blockchain had signed a conditional binding terms sheet with Royalti Blockchain Group, an authorised Australian integrator for blockchain technology company Bitfury. The idea behind the deal is that Royalti Blockchain Group will house Bitfury’s cryptocurrency mining servers in Australia at IoT Group’s proposed Blockchain Applications Complex in the Hunter Valley, NSW. The publicly-listed […]
DomaCom Australia completes crowdfunding of first mortgage backed loan
DomaCom Australia Ltd (ASX:DCL) has successfully completed the crowdfunding campaign to fund its first mortgage backed loan. The company’s online platform provides an opportunity for investors to invest in residential and commercial property across Australia through the fractional acquisition of units in a trust. Newcastle based financial advice firm Shartru Wealth Management used the DomaCom platform to acquire a $1.6 million residential property in Melbourne using both debt and equity. Internal gearing to deliver long-term returns The crowdfunding campaign was completed to raise about $682,000 for the equity component and another campaign was completed to raise the remaining $948,000 debt. DomaCom chief executive officer Arthur Naoumidis explained that one of […]
CBA reveals promising regtech AI results, proceeds with caution
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has revealed the results of a regtech pilot that uses natural language processing and artificial intelligence to convert regulatory texts into compliance obligations. Speaking on Thursday at the AI NSW Summit in Sydney, the head of CBA’s London Innovation Lab, Supun King-Jayawardana, said the technology was able to crunch regulation documents into actionable compliance with a “genuinely surprising” 95 per cent accuracy. The experiment – carried out in partnership with Dutch bank ING and overseen by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) – applied AI technology from Chicago fintech firm Ascent Technologies to the 1.5 million paragraphs in a piece of banking regulation: Markets […]
Wisr, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank announce $25m wholesale loan funding agreement
Australian neo-lender Wisr Limited (ASX: WZR) today announced a $25 million wholesale funding agreement with Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Limited. The agreement will see Bendigo and Adelaide Bank provide a facility to fund existing and future loans and increase Wisr’s consumer loan book capacity, as well as improving the opportunity for revenue generation and operational performance. Bendigo and Adelaide Bank is Australia’s fifth-largest retail bank and a top ASX-60 listed company. It has a range of operations in consumer and business financial solutions, third-party banking and wealth services, and agribusiness. Wisr provides an innovative and secure platform to facilitate loans between funder investors and consumer borrowers. Anthony Nantes, Chief Executive […]
Bank KYC/AML compliance is broken, and blockchain can fix it
Not only is decentralisation the best solution. It might be the only solution. One of the least-sustainable trends in existing financial services is hidden away in the background. Compliance costs, which refers to the cost of handling legal obligations such as KYC/AML, are a growing stone in the shoes of financial services. And it’s growing extremely quickly. According to Thomson Reuters, the number of compliance professionals increased 3.5 times from 2016 to 2017, while financial institutions are pouring billions into transaction-monitoring systems designed to target suspicious behaviour, like frequent large cash deposits. No one’s entirely sure where these investments will end. At a time when new technology is cutting costs […]
Aussie fintech startup wins Barclays’ global Open Innovation Challenge 2018
Aussie trade financing deep technology startup, Trade Ledger, has finished ahead of nine other VC-backed companies from across the world to be named the winner of the Barclays UK Ventures Open Innovation Challenge 2018 in London this week. The ten finalists were hand-picked by Barclays due to their potential to offer game-changing business solutions across a variety of industries, however Trade Ledger came out on top because of the way it completely transforms processes in business lending, through its world-first technology platform. “Within Barclays UK Ventures, we’re looking for companies we can partner with to develop and deliver transformational products and services,” said Ben Davey, CEO of Barclays UK Ventures. “We chose Trade Ledger […]
Bell Potter pitches fintech Raiz Invest for $120m listing
The initial public offerings are starting to flow thick and fast out of Bell Potter Securities. Next up is a $15.1 million raising for fintech Raiz Invest Ltd which, if successful, would see the company list with a $119.2 million market capitalisation next month. Raiz Invest is the new name for Acorns Grow Australia, a micro-investing app out of the United States that has been operating locally since February 2016. It is best known for its “round up” offering, which enables customer to invest their virtual spare change automatically. It says its app also acts as a personal finance assistant for users and allows customers to make lump sum deposits into managed funds and other financial products. Raiz […]
