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 […]
Wisr $10 million placement heavily overbid, upscales to $15 million
Wisr Limited (ASX: WZR), Australia’s first neo-lender, announces it has received commitments to raise approximately $15 million after costs via a placement of approximately 220 million shares. The Placement was oversubscribed and completed with the support of new and existing institutional, sophisticated and professional investors.The issue price for the Placement is 6.8c per share, representing an 8% premium to the last traded price of the Company’s shares on 25 March 2019. The shares issued pursuant to the Placement will rank equally with existing ordinary shares of the Company.The Company will issue shares for the Placement in two tranches. Settlement of Tranche 1 of the capital raise, for 134,767,857 shares, is […]
Show me the Moula
Moula CEO Aris Allegos, tells the story behind the fintech’s multi-million dollar securitisation In early March, online business lender Moula secured an additional $250m in funding to lend to Australian businesses, which was raised through the latest round of a securitisation program launched in 2015. To enhance the impact of the funds on the business sector, Moula also adjusted its terms and conditions, extending repayments from 24 to 36 months and doubling the maximum loan amount to $500,000. In a move it says is “unprecedented” in the online lending space, pricing starts at 15.95%, with no establishment or direct debit fees and no early repayment penalties. So high is the […]
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, […]
Future of advice: boutiques for some, robo-plans for the rest
Westpac chief executive Brian Hartzer says the growing cost of providing personal financial advice, including sky-rocketing regulatory costs, is creating a bifurcated financial advice market, with specialist boutiques serving customers willing to pay more for bespoke plans, while banks – sensitive about their reputations following the Hayne inquiry – shift to an automated model supplying general advice to the masses. After Westpac announced it would no longer provide personal advice, leading wealth advisers also said the traditional model of major banks seeking to provide cheap, personalised advice funded by cross-selling products was now dead, following the royal commission, and agreed “robo advice” would emerge as the way of delivering financial […]
Do start-ups stand a chance in the face of ‘crypto winter’?
Cryptocurrencies have lost more than $400 billion from their global market cap over the past 12 months, but despite this Australian start-ups remain determined to weather the fallout from “crypto winter”. “The best time to build something is where there’s a lull in the market,” says co-founder of cryptocurrency investment app Amber, Aleks Svetski. Market tracker CoinMarketCap says the past year of volatility sliced the global value of cryptocurrencies from $610 billion to $190 billion. In the US and Europe, entrepreneurs are questioning whether they can make start-ups in the space work long-term and the phrase “crypto winter”, to describe the freezing up of both growth and enthusiasm, was born. The […]
Super funds look to AI to improve member engagement
Tech giants like Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google are driving members’ expectations of customer experiences which presents a major headache for superannuation funds. Georgie Obst, HESTA’s general manager – campaigns and customer growth – told CFSM delegates on Friday that funds need to do whatever they can to exploit new technologies to help cement their position as their members’ most trusted financial services brand. “That’s a very good role for the super funds to play particularly in the current environment,” she says, What’s shifting she went on to say is that members now expect funds to leverage personal data to the members advantage. Mario Garrido, head of brand behaviour change […]
Aussie ETF industry breaks another record
Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have continued on their growth trajectory as the Australian ETF industry broke new records last month, with a monthly funds under management (FUM) increase of $2.3 billion, BetaShares’ February Australian ETF Review has said. This figure eclipsed the previous record set in November 2017, and the industry now stands at $44.8 billion. “Similar to January, market rebounds meant that the substantial industry growth primarily came from price increases, accounting for 80 per cent of the total, with the other 20 per cent due to net inflows amounting to $524 million,” the report said. According to BetaShares, investor appetite for global exposures continued to grow, with international equities […]
