Australian FinTech marketplace Valiant announces capital raise
Valiant, member of fintech hub Stone & Chalk announced today that the company has completed their seed round capital raising subscription. The $800,000 capital raise was led by fintech venture capital firm Reinventure, supported by H2 Ventures and a selection of prominent angel investors including Mitchel Harad and Vincent Turner. Co-Founders Alex Molloy and Richard Cotton launched the Valiant business loan marketplace in November 2015, with the aim to minimise the angst associated with sourcing, comparing, and securing business loans. Valiant partners with over 26 lenders from across the lending spectrum with more lenders being added monthly. Alex Molloy: “We built the Valiant marketplace to solve a very particular need. Until now, it has been difficult for time poor business owners to quickly […]
The DAO: Australians buy into the virtual company of the future
Australian investors and organisations are among hundreds of backers of a new virtual organisation that only exists online, is run entirely by computer code, but which promises to change the nature of corporations worldwide. The DAO, or Decentralised Autonomous Organisation, represents the largest non-political crowdfunding project to ever hit the internet, closing a $US132 million ($184 million) fundraising round over the weekend, to create a corporation with no management, no board and essentially no legal rights in any jurisdiction. The Australian Financial Review has tracked down a number of Australians who have invested including Duncan Campbell, a 26-year-old early cryptocurrency adopter, Bitcoin company Bit Trade and smaller research organisations hoping […]
DigitalX announces deal with global telco Telefónica
ASX ANNOUNCEMENT: DigitalX Limited (ASX:DCC and “the Company”) is pleased to announce that Telefónica Internacional S.A.U. (“Telefónica”) is the Company’s first strategic partner in Latin America following the successful integration of the DigitalX AirPocket App into Telefónica’s network. The mobile phone giant signed a marketing, distribution and sales agreement with DigitalX, which was announced to the market via the ASX on 17 February 2016, that will give Telefónica’s Latin American customers access to DigitalX’s unique value transfer and remittance application, AirPocket. Telefónica, which has nearly 232 million telecommunication access points in Latin America, is one of the largest telcos in the region and is among the top five biggest telecommunications […]
Blockchain technology to hit bank profits
Revolutionary blockchain technology threatens to slash the profits of banks and wipe out lenders which fail to quickly adopt the online record-keeping innovation, a high-powered panel of finance and technology experts warned. Jose Fernandez Da Ponte, global digital business executive at Spanish banking giant BBVA, said digital disruption to financial institutions by blockchain posed “extremely large” threats and opportunities. “Those institutions not up to that are likely to cease to exist,” he said at a conference in Washington. At a panel convened by the International Monetary Fund, financiers, technologists and regulators debated the ramifications of the evolving blockchain. IMF deputy managing director David Lipton said banks and regulators were grappling […]
Federal government set to introduce “regulatory sandbox” to help early-stage fintechs
Treasurer Scott Morrison has outlined the government’s plans to remove regulatory hurdles for early-stage startups in a move that could further push Australia towards being a regional leader for fintech, Fintech Melbourne founder Andrew Lai says. Morrison says a range of policy changes, including the introduction of a “regulatory sandbox”, will be released next week with the aim of helping entrepreneurs commercialise financial services technologies and cut through the red tape, as the Sydney Morning Herald reports. It follows a meeting between government representatives and a newly formed fintech advisory council last week. A regulatory sandbox was also one of three core policy requests from national body Fintech Australia, presented […]
How fintech lender zipMoney boosted retail sales by 20 per cent
With $10 million worth of loans already allotted and having recently listed on the ASX, the innovative consumer finance company, zipMoney, appears to be taking the retail industry by storm. Distributing finance through more than 200 retailers and merchants, the fintech lender provides customers with access to loans of up to $2000 via a simple smart phone application within minutes. zipMoney CEO, Larry Diamond, said “there are two million small businesses around Australia and most are locked out of consumer purchase financing.” By taking the benefits of a credit facility without the burden, some of zipMoney’s users have reported increases in sales of up to 20 per cent. Source: How […]
