Venture Capital

Peppermint secures strategic investment at a premium

Peppermint Innovation Ltd (ASX: PIL) announce a strategic placement agreement has been executed, for the investment of $1,000,000 at 2 cents per share via a placement of 50,000,000 shares in the Company, with an option to place a further $1,000,000 at a 25% premium to 5 day VWAP within 60 days from the first placement.   The placement agreement has been executed between the Company and Smidge Digital Unit Trust, an Australian special purpose investment vehicle that subscribes for minority positions in innovative fintech and enterprise data analytics companies.   Chris Kain, Managing Director & CEO comments: “This is a significant relationship with a strategic investor who has an intrinsic […]

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Mike Cannon-Brookes leads $4m round in home energy fintech start-up Brighte

Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes has made his latest move in his ongoing effort to move the dial on Australia’s energy crisis, becoming the lead backer in a capital raising for home energy funding platform Brighte. The company, which was founded by former Macquarie Group senior manager Katherine McConnell in 2015, provides on-the-spot finance online for home energy improvements such as solar panels and home batteries. It promises to dramatically increase the number of homes installing renewable, clean energy equipment by taking away the often hefty upfront cost and making it easier and more affordable. Brighte raised an initial seed round of $3.5 million from high net worth investors and family […]

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Sep
04

Westpac creates data accelerator

Westpac Banking Corp has created a “data accelerator” to build new technology businesses from anonymised data sets, and will offer access to it to institutional banking clients seeking to turn data into assets. FUELD, which has been set up in partnership with Stone & Chalk, will provide early-stage start-ups access to the Data Republic data-sharing platform. Westpac’s venture capital fund, Reinventure Group, is an investor in Data Republic. The accelerator will be run by the former CEO of Fishburners, Murray Hurps. Macgregor Duncan, Westpac’s co-head of business development, said start-ups which could emerge from the program may examine new credit models and applications for algorithmic real-time property valuations. Start-ups will […]

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Sep
04

Picturewealth app that lets you take a ‘welfie’ pic of your finances raises $1.2m

A Perth start-up that claims to offer a snapshot of your finances – dubbed a “welfie” – has raised $1.2 million, led by the financial planning group that will distribute its app first. The funding for PictureWealth shows the excitement around personal budgeting fintechs created by the likes of Acorns and Pocketbook – both of which have raised millions in Australia – continues to spread. PictureWealth claims to allow users to aggregate information on all their assets, debts, expenses and insurance policies, viewable on one PC or smartphone screen at one time. “Until now, there hasn’t been a single space where people can view a picture of their personal wealth. […]

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Aug
30

Leading startup investment insiders told us what they’re looking for in the perfect fintech

Rajeev Gupta knows about startups and what’s needed to attract funding for them. The former investment banker and technology investor has had his own startup, Geckolife, and has also worked at Goldman Sachs and Tribeca. Now he’s a partner at Alium Capital, a technology-focused crossover investment fund looking after sophisticated investors wanting to get in on smaller, high potential projects overlooked by the big players. He’s recently closed a couple of key investments in local Sydney fintech startups. In Australia, fintech is mostly driven by local companies, with 512 Australian and 67 offshore companies operating locally, according to analysis by KPMG. One of Gupta’s investments is Stockspot, a robo-adviser fund […]

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Aug
29

H2 Ventures eyes global expansion and data and AI start-ups after fresh intake

Sydney-based fintech accelerator H2 Ventures is preparing to take its program international and expand into artificial intelligence and big data after doubling its intake of startups. The accelerator brings on startups, which receive $100,000 in return for a 10 per cent stake in their company, and in exchange they partake in a program that runs for 20 weeks, based out of Stone & Chalk in Sydney. H2 has just set up an office in San Francisco, designed to support its rapidly-growing portfolio of startups when they expand to the US and take on a fresh intake of 16 startups, after it received 300 applications following a roadshow across major cities […]

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Aug
16

Australian FinTech Launches Australia’s Only Dedicated FinTech Jobs Platform – Australian FinTech Jobs

The team behind the highly successful Australian FinTech website have soft-launched their FinTech employment marketplace platform, Australian FinTech Jobs. Founder and CEO, Cameron Dart, says AustralianFinTechJobs.com.au has been born on the back of the highly successful Australian FinTech website and growing demand from the local FinTech community to have a dedicated employment platform for the sector. AustralianFinTechJobs.com.au is Australia’s only dedicated platform for FinTech companies and Recruiters to promote FinTech, financial technology, financial services, banking, legal and IT employment opportunities in Australia. “Australian FinTech have built a new jobs startup for fintechs and startups about startups, fintechs and jobs” “When people think of ‘FinTech’ in relation to employment, they might […]

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Aug
15

TruePillars secures $5m in Series A capital raise

TruePillars, the online marketplace lender allowing everyday Australians to fund loans to small businesses, today announced it has raised a total of $5 million in a Series A funding round. The funding round was led by a long-term Melbourne-based private investor, and includes both equity and commitments by shareholders to fund loans to Australian businesses on the TruePillars platform. Further commitments from additional investors are expected to be finalised by 30 September. The business will now commence a recruitment drive to more than double its number of employees over the next 12 months. “This investment will give us the means to further innovate and build on our service, including our […]

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