Prospa raises $20m from Partners for Growth
Online business lender Prospa has raised $20 million from Silicon Valley-based Partners for Growth through a tailored debt facility that will allow it to ramp up loans and further develop its technology allowing credit assessments to be made in seconds. Prospa, which has lent more than $400 million to small businesses, up from $250 million in February after a strong fourth quarter, has deals with 4000 distribution partners, including finance brokers and cloud accounting platforms. It also has a referral partnership with Westpac Banking Corp. Prospa chief financial officer Ed Bigazzi said some of the new capital will be used for product development, including in invoice financing, and a stronger […]
Fintech the future
According to Kate Carnell, there have been less than 10 complaints about fintech operators in Australia since March 2016. “None of these have been fully-fledged complaints,” the small business ombudsman says. “It was more a misunderstanding or even confusion as to the contract they entered.” Burgeoning industry There are an estimated 600 fintech operators in Australia. The industry is burgeoning and continues to attract new players, so receiving less than double-digit complaints in 16 months isn’t a bad track record. “In addition to those 600 there’s probably another 20 to 30 overseas-based fintech companies that are operating here such as PayPal, Stripe and Square, for example,” says Cameron Dart, Australian […]
NSW spends $35m on 11-floor Sydney CBD startup hub
Up to 2500 entrepreneurs will get Sydney CBD desks at subsidised rents, under a $35 million NSW government plan for a 17,000 square metre start-up hub. Comprising levels 1 to 11 above Wynyard train station at 11-31 York Street, the hub’s four cornerstone tenants are all established co-working spaces that will relocate or expand from elsewhere in the city when the hub opens by early 2018 – Fishburners, Tankstream Labs, creative industries specialist The Studio, and fintech specialist Stone & Chalk. The NSW government will contribute $35 million over five years to fitouts and rent subsidies for the four, under a strategy worked out by Jobs For NSW, an agency […]
FinTech Interviews: GROW Super
by Matthew Parker, The Mitchellake Group Over the coming weeks, I will have the pleasure of sitting down with many of Australia’s leading FinTech CEOs. Each will be discussing the specific vertical of Financial Services they are looking at and share their insights. For the first interview in this series, I sat down with the CEO of GROW Super, Josh Wilson, to discuss the stream of innovation that is occurring in the Superannuation vertical. Matthew Parker (MP): There have been a few new “disruptive” superannuation businesses launch over the past 2 years. Why is this happening now? What has created the right circumstance for this to occur? Josh Wilson […]
