Xinja to launch second equity crowdfunding
Xinja, which is building a 100% digital bank or ‘neobank’ designed for mobile, is inviting potential investors to register their interest in its second equity crowdfunding, which will get underway early in 2019. The offer, through Equitise (with whom they partnered for the first round), is targeting a raise between $500,000 and $5 million. Shares will be priced at $2.04. Xinja is an independent, Australian-owned start-up that aims to give bricks and mortar, old-style banking a serious shakeout. It won’t have bank branches and it has been built with feedback from customers about how they want to bank. Xinja launched Australia’s first equity crowdfunding, which closed in March this year, […]
Nod closes $2m funding round to support platform growth
The multi-award-winning artificial intelligence platform, known simply as Nod, has confirmed it has successfully closed its over-subscribed pre-Series A round of AUD$2m. Nod was recently awarded a coveted spot on the KPMG H2 Ventures Fintech100 and has developed a patent pending algorithm that utilises artificial intelligence to create real-time Statements of Advice for Financial Advisers and Accountants. Whilst this is the space where they have chosen to first apply their technology, Co-Founder and CEO, Joel Robbie, says the platform has been developed to be industry agnostic: “We are really excited about the impact we are having on document completion times in the Financial Advice industry! The platform is having genuine […]
Nasdaq moves towards bitcoin futures, unphased by crypto carnage
When you’re searching for volatility, market gore might mean you’re heading in the right direction. “Will digital assets survive?” New York Stock Exchange chairman Jeffrey Sprecher quoted at the Consensus Invest conference last Thursday. “The unequivocal answer is yes… We’re kind of agnostic to price.” He was followed up by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE)-backed Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler, who reiterated the trading giant’s plan to release bitcoin futures contracts for more reliable price discovery. “The Bakkt futures contract will help Bitcoin traders establish a trusted price. Bitcoin now trades at different prices on different exchanges, many of which are unregulated,” she explained. Nasdaq is now reported to be making decisive moves […]
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 […]
Fintech currency wars heat up as Pelikin prepares to launch
A travel cash mishap in Croatia was Sam Brown’s inspiration to launch startup Pelikin into the competitive space of travel money and foreign exchange. “I was in Croatia, I went to get money out, put my travel card into the ATM and then cancelled my transaction because I changed my mind. My travel provider thought that was suspicious and blocked my funds. What that led to was having to borrow money, from the people I was travelling with,” Brown says. Brown has just closed out a crowdfunding raise for Pelikin of close to a quarter of a million dollars that has been “essentially a marketing campaign” for a the company’s […]
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 […]
Competition in SMSF market tipped to turn as robots enter
A panel of financial experts have staked their bets on robo-advice as the future of SMSF investment. The panel, which was hosted by the SMSF Association and included representatives from the Australian Taxation Office, ASIC, Investment Trends, SuperConcepts and OpenInvest, emphasised the need for SMSF members to keep up with technological advancements in order to continue investing wisely and maximising their assets. In the aftermath of the royal commission’s findings, trust in advisers in Australia is at an all-time low. As a result of such sentiment and the current advancements in technology and AI (artificial intelligence), the expert panel suggested the way forward for SMSF investors will likely be engagement with […]
New era for equity crowdfunding
The Australian Government’s long-awaited equity crowdfunding reforms have finally been passed, almost a year after they were introduced to federal parliament. The Corporations Amendment (Crowd-sourced funding for Proprietary Companies) Bill 2017 is the government’s third attempt at legislating equity crowdfunding. Its first bill was left stranded by the July 2016 election, and its second bill – which took effect in October 2017 – was criticised by the industry for requiring companies to become unlisted public companies before they could have access to equity crowdfunding. That was the basis under which seven equity crowdfunding platforms were licensed by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in January 2018. However, the public […]
