MYOB votes are in; shareholders hand keys to KKR
Aussie blockchain investor goes global
London threatening San Francisco’s fintech unicorn dominance, research says
London could soon overtake San Francisco as the fintech (financial technology) unicorn capital of the world, according to a new study. Of the world’s 29 fintech unicorns – private companies valued at more than $1 billion – nine are based in San Francisco, while seven are headquartered in London, the research published Tuesday said. The report, by London-based recruitment firm Robert Walters and research group Vacancy Soft, said London was “showing signs of potential to threaten San Francisco’s historic dominance of the market.” It noted that London’s fintech sector received more venture capital (VC) funding than any other EU city in 2018, securing 39% of all European fintech funding. Berlin’s […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
Fintech gold rush tipped as KPMG finds Australian investment hit $842m in 2018
Big four professional services firm KPMG has tipped even more funding will come for Australian fintech players in the wake of new open banking rules and the banking royal commission, despite a huge rise in deals taking spending to $US600 million ($842 million) in 2018. In new local figures derived from its biannual global Pulse of Fintech study, KPMG said deals in the local sector picked up last year, following a drop-off in 2017, when capital raisings, acquisitions and IPOs had fallen to $US200 million. The report found that globally a record $US111.8 billion was invested in fintech firms in 2018, with Asian funding reached a new high of $US22.7 […]
Techboard data shows the startling growth of the Australian fintech sector
US-based data company CB Insights recently reported that VC investment in Australian Fintech had grown from $67m in 2017 to $343 million in 2018. While this does show massive growth in funding for Australia’s fintech sector, data from Australian Startup Data Company Techboard indicates that this represents a significant understatement of the sector’s growth. Techboard has recently released its Report for the December quarter 2018 which revealed another $1.066B in funding for Australian Startups and young tech companies. This was the second consecutive quarter of over $1b funding across all sectors and took the total amount of funding for the 2018 Calendar year to over $4b, up around $1/2b revealed […]
