Author: Peter van Bruchem

Airwallex confirms unicorn status with $100M USD raise

Peter van Bruchem

Techboard is pleased to report that international payments fintech start-up Airwallex has raised $100m USD in Series C round led by DST Global.  This represents a significant funding event not just for the company but for the Australian Ecosystem, with Airwallex joining Canva in the very exclusive Australian unicorn's club. 

This funding round will be captured in Techboard's upcoming funding report for the March Quarter 2019 which will be published early April. Techboard funding reports include deals reported in the startup and more traditional press as well as transactions that are reported to Techboard.  Techboard also now provides commercial subscribers with access to its funding data.

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Aussie Female Startup Founders Secured 26.5% of Larger VC Investments in 2018 (REVISED)

Peter van Bruchem

It has been well reported by Techboard and others that the level of funding for Australian Startups and Tech has been on the rise so for this International Women’s Day we decided to undertake a partial analysis of our funding data to see how female founded startups fared in the last year. 

NOTE: since this post was published we discovered that Judo Capital's Chief Marketing Officer Kate Keenan was also a co-founder. Given that Judo Capital had the largest funding event we captured for 2018, a $350m debt facility AND a $140m capital raise... this has thrown our figures out just a little... Taking the percentage of funding going to female founded companies to 19.9% of funding events over $5m .... and the percentage of large scale private investment from the previously reported 15.4% to 26.5%.

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Over $1 Billion in funding for Australian Startups and Young Tech Companies in the December 2018 Quarter

Peter van Bruchem

Techboard is pleased to present its Report into funding secured by Australian Startup and Young Tech Companies in the quarter ending 31 December 2018.   During the December quarter 2018 Techboard identified over 160 funding events across a broad range of funding types ranging from accelerator program funding, acquisitions, equity crowdfunding, major debt instruments (sometimes called venture debt), grants (including awards and prizes), initial coin offerings, initial public offerings and reverse takeovers, ASX placements and private investment (including angel, VC and other large-scale private investment).

The report reveals that Australian Startups and young tech companies received $1.066B in funding during the December 2018 quarter. The quarter was strong in general with a small reduction in funding from the September Q 2018, but a significant increase from the Dec Q 2017 ($762m) by almost 40%.

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New York Fund increases its stake in R&D Lender Radium Capital

Peter van Bruchem
Image:  Steve Ferrier, courtesy of the West Australian

Techboard's Partner Radium Capital is pleased to announce it has secured further financial backing to step-up its offering of quarterly R&D advances.

Specialist research and development funder Radium Capital is poised for new period of rapid growth after an affiliate of New York-based hedge fund Brevet Capital bought a 50% stake in the Perth based company.

In the 15 months since Radium Capital was launched by long-term friends David Weir and David Brennan, it has supported more than $130 million of Australian research and development expenditure and is aiming for $300 million in the next 12 months.

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