Blog - Page 26 of 29

Perth tech startup to transform Australia’s voting system

14/07/201609/11/2016 Peter van Bruchem Leave a comment

For almost a week after the recent Federal election the nation waited while millions of postal votes travelled at the speed of paper to their home centres to be counted. A group of young Perth entrepreneurs are creating a secure, anonymous and verifiable end-to-end voting process that would see an election result being announced on the same day as the last polling booth closing.

Adrian Petersen and four friends founded veri.vote after the news in 2014 that more than 1300 ballots had been lost in a state election in 2014. The team operates out of the BloomLab at St Catherine’s College, next to the University of Western Australia.

Techboard and BDO – Investing in WA’s Future – Investor event 3 August 2016

07/07/201619/05/2017 Peter van Bruchem Leave a comment

Together in One Place – Innovators, Investors and Business Insight

Are you:

Interested in finding out more about investing in Australian Start-ups and Technology Companies?
Looking to learn more about the new Tax incentives for investment in early stage Innovative Companies? (These are accessible by both sophisticated AND retail investors).
Interested in managing the risks of investing in early stage innovation companies?

Then join BDO and Techboard along with special guests Vocus Upstart (a tech accelerator program for Perth start-ups) as we explore investing in Australian start-ups and technology companies and discuss the new Tax Incentives for innovation.

Introducing the 2016 Vocus Upstart Cohort

07/07/201609/11/2016 Peter van Bruchem Leave a comment

Vocus Upstarts are excited to announce the seven startups who have been selected to join the 2016 Vocus Upstart program, commencing August 1st at Spacecubed.

This years cohort have developed ground-breaking technology concepts and applications; ranging from a secure online voting system to entertainment experiences, and online student job markets to virtual reality training programs.

Focused on supporting and encouraging the WA startup community, the program will challenge its seven startups to launch and build their businesses over 12 weeks at Spacecubed.

For more information on the companies and to keep up to date with all company announcements click here.

Techboard Co-founder Peter van Bruchem talks Techboard

22/06/201622/06/2016 Peter van Bruchem Leave a comment

Will the Innovation Tax Incentive increase investment?

17/06/201617/05/2017 Peter van Bruchem Leave a comment

I was at an Egroup meeting earlier this month and Marc Loftus from BDO was presenting on the new Innovation Tax Incentive. For information on the Innovation Tax Incentive see my earlier post here. A question came from the floor on the subject of what impact the Innovation tax incentive was likely to have on levels of investment. The UK has a similar Innovation tax incentive called the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS). The EIS was highly influential on the new Australian Tax Incentive legislation. I was in Scotland from 2006 to 2009 working in the startup and innovation space. I had a fair bit to do with Scottish Angel investors who I knew were using the EIS. I also remembered reading reports on the impact of the EIS on the levels of investment. So I thought I would dig those up and share them.

The UK government introduced EIS in 1992 with the purpose helping types of small higher risk unlisted companies to raise capital. So there is a fair bit of data available to gauge the impact of that scheme.

What do the UK studies reveal?

The earliest report I have found was produced by NESTA in May 2009. That report entitled “Siding with the Angels Business angel investing – promising outcomes and effective strategies” found that:

“Eighty per cent of investors surveyed have made use of the Enterprise Investment Scheme, at least once. And 57 per cent of their investments had made use of the EIS.”

and

“Investors said that 24 per cent of their investments would not have been made without tax incentives.

In January 2015 the Enterprise Research Centre released a study called “A Nation of Angels: Assessing the impact of angel investing across the UK”. In their report it was stated:

So… tell me about Techboard’s Announcements Platform

03/06/201621/11/2018 Peter van Bruchem Leave a comment

We are working hard here at Techboard to help raise the profile of Australian startups and technology companies. One key way we do this is by providing free access to our Announcements Platform. We have been getting some questions about how our announcements platform works and as to what benefit a company can get from making announcements we have also just made some improvements to the system to make it work how we had always intended and make it easier for people authorised by a company to make announcements. So we thought it was time to do a post.

Our Announcements Platform enables any Australian Startup and Tech Company, listed or unlisted to make announcements and increase and enhance its profile. Companies can make an announcement on any big or small developments they want to share with their audience and the Techboard audience. We have a bundle of different announcement categories so companies will probably find the right one for them. This also makes it easier for our readers to find an announcement that is interesting to them.

Companies shouldn’t limit themselves to news that traditional media channels are interested in…. your fans are interested in your little steps, and your incremental progress as well as your huge ‘newsworthy’ wins.

Check out the latest announcements that have been made on Techboard

Senate Passes Innovation Tax Incentive Legislation – 4 May 2016

04/05/201612/10/2016 Peter van Bruchem Leave a comment

Techboard Update 21 April 2016

22/04/201622/04/2016 Peter van Bruchem Leave a comment

Techboard Problem Solvers Board

Techboard is now taking registrations from Problem Solvers who want to promote their services to Startups and Tech companies. Solvers (service providers) are only listed if they are validated by a company listed on Techboard by creating a connection describing the service, which the startup receiving the service can comment on. Once a company is validated the connection appears on both the Problem Solver’s and Company’s profiles. When we have more problem solvers registered we will activate the Board to enable startups and Tech companies to search for suitable Solvers. We feel that the approach we are taking with Problem solvers provides greater opportunity for Startups and Tech companies to have their profiles raised by their service providers who are incentivised to talk about what they have done to help a company listed on Techboard.

Find out more or Sign Up.

Website Refresh

Techboard’s Homepage has been updated with more videos including featured Companies and a new widgetised structure that enables us to add new components when they come on line such as the Problem Solvers Board. Check it out.

Techknow Invest Roadshow Videos

Videos from companies presenting at the Techknow Invest Roadshow are now available on Techboard. Just visit the homepage.

Announcements

It has been a busy few weeks for announcements on Techboard with 23 announcements since our last general update on 1 April. We have had product Launches, Team updates, rebrandings and news updates announced on the platform with too many to list here so here are some highlights. All announcements are published on company profiles and can also be viewed here.

Innovation Tax Incentives Bill Analysis

08/04/201612/10/2016 Peter van Bruchem Leave a comment

On 16 March I published a post on the new Innovation Tax Incentives Bill and promised to come back with more analysis. Our friends at BDO have done such an analysis and have concluded that while the legislation provides further incentive for investment in innovative start-ups, some of the eligibility requirements are overly restrictive and time consuming for start-ups to comply with.

Suffice it to say that the Bill is pretty complex, in terms of figuring out if a startup is an eligible company, with a points based formula, the possibility of rulings and with further rules able to be set by regulation. The investor eligibility rules are pretty complicated as well.

What is clear is both retail and sophisticated investors can benefit from the tax breaks on offer… but not equally… and investors investing too close to home (including founders) are not eligible.