ATO signs up as first client for fintech start-up Mainframe Cloud
Fintech start-up Mainframe Cloud (“MfC”) has signed a contract with the Australian Taxation Office (“ATO”) to deliver a suite of mainframe modernisation solutions to the Australian Government’s major revenue collection agency. The contract follows an extensive and successful Beta testing exercise in 2016 and the achievement of a minimum viable product by MfC. Based at the Stone & Chalk fintech hub in Sydney, MfC simplifies mainframe operations by providing applications that focus on improving productivity and efficiency. The global application development market for mainframes is estimated to be US$23 billion per annum. Mainframes process approximately 80% of the world’s data and are at the core of most of the world’s […]
Goodbye to the property middle man?
Our property industry has many “middle men” businesses that help get deals done and make a profit as a result. Sometimes their role is very important and they provide a valuable and efficient service, and sometimes they are little more than a tax on doing property business. These “middle men” businesses are set to be challenged profoundly as Blockchain technologies start to enter the market over the next five to 10 years. A whole lot of hype is taking place around Blockchain at the moment, in particular how the Blockchain technology behind Bitcoin will revolutionise the way we do business, trust each other, and interact without middle men. Blockchain is […]
Westpac’s Reinventure buys tech start-up Doshii
The Westpac-backed venture fund Reinventure has splashed its cash on Melbourne-based payments platform start-up Doshii, a spin-off of Australian point-of-sale vendor Impos. Westpac is the largest investor in Reinventure, which recently launched a second $50 million fund to invest in about a dozen Australian technology ventures. It comes amid a broader trend of Australia’s biggest banks investing in fintech companies aiming to disrupt the payments market, which has so far produced mixed results for the incumbent financial giants. Doshii is the country’s only application programming interface company, and gives app developers a common platform that works with hundreds of point-of-sale systems. Its aim is to overcome a problem in the […]
Investec funding for H2’s fintech accelerator backed by NSW government
Niche lender Investec has increased its funding facility for the fintech accelerator H2 Ventures by $4 million, in a deal that has been partially underwritten by the NSW government, which says it is willing to provide more guarantees to encourage venture capital funding. H2 Ventures says it remains committed to raising an unlisted, $30 million fintech investment fund this year, after it was forced to pull the ASX float of H2Ocean last October despite the backing of high-profile technology industry investors when it failed to raise minimum subscription levels. The unlisted version will invest in several of the 40 new fintech start-ups that will enter the H2 accelerator over the […]
Crowdfunding’s $100m kickstart making Aussie start-ups pozible
Platforms Australia-based Pozible, which launched in 2010, tops Australian campaigns launched (about 11,400), most successful campaigns (around 6500) and dollar value raised (about $46 million). Pozible also has the highest success rate at 58 per cent. At about 24 per cent, New York-based Kickstarter, which opened to Australians in 2013, has a lower success rate. But on average Kickstarter campaigns raise more money, with about 1500 Australian campaigns raising nearly $32 million dollars. A list of the top 20 Australian projects on San Francisco-based Indiegogo shows more than $27 million has been raised since the platform launched in Australia in 2010. However, about 67 per cent of Indiegogo’s total dollar […]
Robo advice start-up Six Park closes $1.5m capital raise
Melbourne-based robo-adviser Six Park has closed a $1.5 million capital raise from a powerful group of investors that includes a former finance minister.
VentureCrowd completes first Israeli crowdfunding deal with Knowmail
VentureCrowd, Australia’s leading alternative assets investment platform, today announced the successful completion of a $155,000 crowdfunding round for Knowmail. The company is the first Israeli startup to be funded through VentureCrowd under a partnership with investment management firm Kentgrove Capital. VentureCrowd raised $155,000 in convertible notes, as part of a larger US$3 million funding round led by reputable venture capital firms CE Ventures, AfterDox, Plus Ventures and 2B Angels. The investment gave sophisticated investors on the VentureCrowd platform the opportunity to access convertible notes at an interest rate of 4.5 per cent per annum. Knowmail, one of few startups to participate in the Microsoft Accelerator Program, is creating an artificial […]
Upstart fintechs learn to live with industry ‘elders’
As 2016 closes, the relationship between legacy institutions and fintech companies has reached another turning point. Fintech, the brash upstart, was initially intent on dominance through total disruption, but it now has a grudging respect for the scale, if not the agility, of the industry’s decades-old incumbents. If phase one was all-out disruption, the dominant feature of phase two has been collaboration, with phase three likely to be some kind of hybrid model. The hype that lasted several years has been diluted by a recognition that most fintech companies operate in a small, targeted niche of the financial services value chain, with very few aiming to take over the entire […]
