startups – Startup Daily

daum

Another Friday, another mergers and acquisitions round up. Startup land has been a little quieter this week, but here's what went on: Mpire Media merges with Fortunis Perth online marketing company Mpire Media has merged with Fortunis Resources in a deal worth $10 million ahead of a backdoor listing on the ASX. Founded by Russian-born entrepreneur Zhenya Tsvetnenko in 2006, Mpire Media acts as an intermediary between clients and advertising distribution affiliates. It’s described as a performance-based online marketing solutions provider, billing clients and paying its affiliates only when measurable results, such as a sale or product download, are achieved. The deal will see Fortunis conduct a capital raise, bringing in between $2 million to $4 million through the issuing of new shares worth a minimum of 0.20c. Daum Kakao acquires K Cube Ventures Korean company Daum Kakao, which operates Korea's largest web portal and messaging platform KakaoTalk, has acquired venture capital firm K Cube Ventures. Tech In Asia reports that the deal will give K Cube Ventures $15 million to launch another early stage fund and, in turn, become help Daum Kakao with corporate investments. Daum Kakao recently formed K Venture Group, an investment firm holding almost US$91 million. Daum merged with Kakao just under a year ago. Accusoft acquires edocr Accusoft, a company providing businesses with document, content, and imaging solutions, has acquired Manchester startup edocr, which works in the document sharing, publishing, and lead capture space. Jack Berlin, CEO of Accusoft, said in a statement, “Edocr provides Accusoft with a wealth of information and resources for a customer base that’s largely made up of small businesses. Accusoft plans to make edocr free for use and offer Accusoft Cloud Services as a part of edocr products. edocr business users can not only use the existing features of edocr, but also in future will be able to use the integrated Accusoft cloud products as a part of their document workflow.” edocr founder and CEO Manoj Ranaweera, added, “Since its founding in 2007, edocr’s mission has been to find new and exciting ways to provide maximum return for content that could be shared publicly. We achieved this not by just creating a destination site loved by professionals and businesses from 200+ countries, but by extending the functionality into many partner solutions from CRM and customer support to marketing automation. We are very excited to join forces with Accusoft and take edocr to next stage.” RiteTag acquires ScrapeLogo Hashtag analysis system RiteTag has acquired ScrapeLogo, which scrapes brand logos from websites and social networks for implementation on other websites, for an undisclosed sum in a bid to optimise every aspect of social media for brands. ScrapeLogo's service will continue for its current customers, and its employees will join the RiteTag team.

india

If you Google “startups” and virtually any city or nation in the world, you’ll inevitably find true believers insisting that such-and-such region is the new Silicon Valley. But when it comes to India, Asia’s third largest economy, the excitement from investors and entrepreneurs is real — and for good reason. [Source: Pando.com]

Meerkat

Unless you have been cut off from the internet over the last few weeks, you would have noticed that two similar apps have been the talk of the tech world lately: no one has been able to stop talking about Meerkat and Periscope. The two allow users to stream live video to their followers. Debuting in late February, Meerkat came along first. Featuring Twitter integration, the app was quickly tested by big brands like Starbucks and sports teams. It dazzled at the annual SXSW festival where it was named App of the Year and where, according to AdWeek, it went so far as to ‘restore faith in SXSW’s startup magic’. However, just as the Meerkat team got started with promotions at SXSW, Twitter called app founder Ben Rubin to say it was limiting its access to Twitter’s social graph - which allows users to send notifications about new Meerkat broadcasts to their Twitter followers - in two hours. The reason? Periscope, the video sharing platform Twitter acquired in January and had been developing as a live video streaming tool. Hoping consumers hadn’t gotten too comfortable with Meerkat already, Twitter quickly launched Periscope for iOS last week. Though they are essentially very similar apps, Periscope has a couple of things over Meerkat: as well as Twitter’s social graph, it allows users to save and watch broadcasts later if they can’t watch live. It will still face competition from Meerkat for the time being - after becoming the darling of SXSW, Meerkat has pushed through the Twitter blip and continued to gain a lot of traction. While the tech world has become enamoured of the live video streaming concept, it remains to be seen whether the average consumer will catch on. It’s an interesting tools for brands and marketers, essentially allowing them to take Snapchat’s Stories feature to a whole new level, but the big question is whether the average consumer would use either of them to just watch brand broadcasts or broadcast streams of their own - if they would use it at all. Periscope watchers saw a lot of fridges over the weekend, as the hashtag #fridgeview took off and streamers broadcast the contents of their fridge. Of course, Twitter’s early detractors said that no one would want to read about what other people are eating for breakfast, and well...we all know the story there.

Image: Meerkat founder Ben Rubin. Credit: CNBC.

Ruwan Weeasooriya

Rewardle Holdings Ltd, the holding company that owns Melbourne-based startup Rewardle Pty Ltd released a prospectus in August last year about its proposed IPO and Founder and Managing Director Ruwan Weerasooriya copped a lot of criticism by some pretty prominent players across the Australian startup landscape, with some individuals even going as far as trying to label the IPO a scam. A few short months later, Rewardle (ASX:RXH) announced its listing on the Australian Securities Exchange, and its shares closed at 28 cents that day, delivering investors a 40 percent gain on the 20 cents issue price. At the time, the startup raised $4 million through its oversubscribed IPO; and finished that first day with a market capitalisation of more than $30 million. Fast forward to today and Rewardle shares are currently trading at 34 cents and the current market capitalisation is sitting just above $39 million.

Rewardle connects consumers with their favourite merchants, based on transactions. The platform converges social media, marketing and mobile payment technologies. Basically, Rewardle has given the traditional “buy 9, get 1 free” paper punch card a digital makeover and extended its utility by adding pre-ordering functionality, mobile payments and social media integrations. Rewardle’s typical clients are include the local café, yoga studio, butcher, hairdresser, juice bar and other time-poor merchants who tend to have limited operational and marketing budgets

On the 24th of this month when Rewardle had a trading halt it was because the company was looking at raising a further $3 million in capital. Rumours began circling that Weerasooriya had reached out to Patersons Securities to assist with the placement and the Australian Financial Review reported that the stockbroking and financial services firm were calling for bids by Wednesday last week so that Rewardle could resume trading on Thursday. As it turned out the interest far exceeded the expectations with Weerasooriya confirming with Startup Daily that over $11 million in bids were on the table with the company deciding to raise $5 million at an issue price of 33 cents a share instead of the original $3 million. In its statement to the ASX Rewardle said it welcomed A1 institutional funds, prominent Family Offices and High Net Worth Individuals to the company, and stated that the new depth of working capital and commercial networks they bring with them will assist the company growth and development plans. According to the company, the funds will be used to 'maintain the company's consistently accelerating Merchant and Member Network'. In addition to these funds, Rewardle also announced to the ASX that it has intentions to secure one or more strategic investors who can assist with the growth and development of the business in as well as provide further capital. Weerasooryia confirmed that these discussions were taking place but the outcomes and timings of such conversations were uncertain. For now the identities of these potential new investors remain anonymous, however if the said discussions prove fruitful, they would be offered strategic investment at the same issue pricing as this raising. Currently Rewardle claims to have just under 3,000 merchants on board now using the system and over 600,000 members in its network. Right now the focus is all around user growth before Rewardle starts taking next steps to enter the phase of growing revenue from that network. In addition to marketing services on the platform, Rewardle will end up generating revenue from brand partnerships and mobile payments. Brands will be charged a fee to engage with Rewardle’s Merchant and Member Network – similar to loyalty programmes like Qantas Frequent Flyer and Virgin Velocity that allow brands to purchase points for distribution to their customer base as incentives. Disclosure: Ruwan Weerasooriya is on Shoe String Media’s advisory board.

Image: Ruwan Weerasooriya. Source: BRW.com.au

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From WhatsApp to Viber, Snapchat to the humble Facebook chat, messaging apps are a dime a dozen. With the market so crowded, each is quickly adding new features to distinguish themselves from the others. A new Australian app aims to compete by taking words out of the picture altogether. Rather than offer emoticons and stickers as an extra feature to complement text-based messages, Yap Chat has users send messages based entirely on visual content to express emotions. Founder Paul Dames originally thought of Yap Chat as a platform for families to chat with each other, having come up with the idea after noticing the popular stick figure family stickers on the backs of cars. “The idea actually grew from there. I involved some very creative people from Johannesburg who helped me on this project and we quickly realised we needed to go much broader than a family construct. We started realising that people instinctively want to add expression into their messaging. What we wanted to try and achieve was to create a whole new construct around messaging, to not just add an emoticon as an afterthought, but really wrap the entire messaging experience into a very creative visual experience,” Dames said. Though he acknowledges Yap Chat faces a lot of competition, Dames said that when he originally came up with the idea of a visual messaging app more than two years ago, stickers were still a very new concept to the established apps. However, he still believes that Yap Chat is doing something different to all the others. “We're really trying to see how we can create a very unique creative platform, and the next steps we wanted to start doing is really engaging the creative communities to start adding to this. We really want to actively involve all the creative talent. There are amazing character artists, cartoon artists, and various genres that one could employ and implement as well,” he said. Dames explains that, like Facebook and YouTube becoming two of the world’s largest media platforms without creating any of their own content, he hopes to see Yap Chat become a content engine as users add their own character sets and create cartoon strips through the cartoon builder. “That's a clear differentiator for me. We've got a full cartoon strip generator inside of the iPad version, and the whole idea there is that we want the community to start creating interesting and engaging content which they could then start distributing via all the social media channels. It's almost a storytelling device,” Dames said. “You can imagine Yap not just being used by a mum to send cute messages to her friend, but she can use the cartoon builder to build full, engaging stories for her kids. You can use the application to create little jokes and memes, and really use it in very creative ways.” Though Yap Chat is an interesting concept, the reality is again that the messaging app market is extremely crowded and consumers are attached to the apps they are already using. What’s more, using a new messaging app means getting your friends to download and use it too in order for it to be any fun. However, with social networks full of memes and graphics, the cartoon and meme generator could see Yap Chat’s download count grow as users look for tools to make social content creation and visual storytelling easier. “You don’t have to have a single design skill arrow in your quiver. All you have to do is open the application, use what we've provided for you in this content library, and be creative in how you pull the components together to start telling stories,” Dames said. The app is free to use with a limited number of character sets. Access to additional sets ranges in price from $2 to $6. 2015 will see the Yap Chat team focus on optimising the iPhone platform before launching an Android version. Building its user base is also top of the list. Dames said, “We really focused on the usability of the app to make it very simple for users to create content. But the biggest challenge for us is going to be breaking through that noise.”

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Today the world – and particularly Wall Street – got a master class in the power of a few well placed words, when a single tweet by Tesla (and SpaceX) CEO Elon Musk cause the electric car maker’s stock to jump nearly 4 percent in just 10 minutes – adding a staggering $900 million to the company’s market cap in just 115 characters. [Source: Pando.com]

Tyro

Sydney looks set to become the country’s leading FinTech space with Tyro, a new hub for FinTech startups, opening in the city’s CBD. Supported by independent EFTPOS provider Tyro Payments, the new coworking space is located on the third floor of the company’s Clarence St offices. The space can accommodate 125 entrepreneurs and, like most other coworking spaces, features meeting and board rooms, a communal kitchen, and areas for relaxing. It will host conferences, hackathons, accelerators, and other startup events. Tyro is being led by Andrew Corbett-Jones, who said the time has come for Australia’s financial services industry to be disrupted by “a swarm of FinTech entrepreneurs.” “Startups face barriers in this space, and we want to give them a boost by giving them somewhere to work, learn, collaborate, and drive change. We’re not the cheapest and we’re not the most expensive. What we are is a location in the heart of Sydney’s financial district, with a space that is open, bright and informal, and is also the sort of place you would happily bring a client or investor,” Corbett-Jones said. Desk costs range from $250 for five days to $625 per month full time. These prices are significantly steeper than other Sydney coworking spaces; for example, a desk at Fishburners costs $400 a month, while a full time desk at EngineRoom is $450 a month. Of course, a space at Tyro will mean receiving services tailored to - and being surrounded by - the FinTech space. Tyro Payments will be picking a startup to work with each quarter, dedicating resources, banking access, and developers to help build APIs. Corbett-Jones said, “The Hub doesn’t need to make a profit, but it does need to foster innovation, and that is what we will be measured on. We believe this space will be particularly attractive to anyone thinking about leaving a large, slow-moving employer, whether that’s a bank, an insurance company or a professional services firm, and launching their own startup.” Tyro’s launch follows the announcement of another dedicated FinTech hub, Stone and Chalk, last month by NSW Premier Mike Baird. Set to open in May, the creation of Stone and Chalk is part of the NSW Government’s plan to unlock Sydney’s potential to become a leading FinTech space in the Asia-Pacific region.

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Mobile HealthTech startup Healint announced last week that it had raised $1 million in seed funding for its new app Migraine Buddy. The round was led by Wavemaker Pacific with Gree Ventures and Shin Ryoku also coming in on the deal. Most interesting was that Wavemaker co-invested in the startup alongside Singapore government agency, The National Research Foundation. Healint was started two years ago and is founded by Francis Cadiou, Veronica Chew, and Ali Elgamel. The company focuses on using mobile technology to support patients, doctors and researchers in the fields of migraine-pain, sleep, stroke, epilepsy, and respiratory through data and insights. Mobile Health is a growing area across the Asian region and an important one too, as evidenced by the investment from the Singapore government, who place a high value on innovation and technology that is in the national interest - healthcare is one of those. Prior to Migraine Buddy, Healint created and launched another product - an app called Just Shake It, that was targeted towards stroke patients. The app basically allowed patients to shake their phone and messages were automatically sent to a designated contact / caregiver along with their location. The product was launched just prior to Healint being accepted into the JFDI Asia accelerator program. However Healint ended up discontinuing this product after it found that there was not enough engagement on the app - which is a good thing, because that means there were not as many people suffering strokes as initially hypothesised, but what it also meant was that it didn't allow Healint to improve their algorithm. What the experience with Just Shake It did is provide Healint with strong working relationships with neurologists. In having many conversations across its network of neurologists, the founders discovered that one thing they all mentioned they had in common was that they tended to see a lot of patients with migraine issues. One of the stand-out pieces of information related to that was that it is extraordinarily hard for doctors to determine the exact causes of each individual's migraines; in fact, the most common way of deciding on a treatment was doctors getting patients to keep a paper diary, writing down everything that was happening in their day-to-day life to see if in three months' time when they returned to the doctor whether the triggers and symptoms causing the migraines could be determined. It is important to note here for non-migraine sufferers that a migraine is actually not a headache. It is a neurological condition that involves an unusual wave of activity in the brain nerve cells that in turn causes severe pain in the head, as well as other symptoms like nausea and vomiting. A migraine has four distinct phases to it: the Prodomal phase (warning signs before the migraine), the Aura phase (strange sensations that often occur like change in vision, light exposure etc), the Attack phase (this is where the migraine is happening and most painful stage), and finally the Postdromal stage (almost like a migraine hangover and can last up to a day, often in the form of tiredness etc). Seeing that it could do something to support both doctors and patients from a data perspective, Healint created its current product Migraine Buddy. In simple terms, users can use the app to keep a comprehensive record of their symptoms via simple touch and multiple choice answers to questions (instead of a diary), and doctors can use their dashboard and the data as a reference during checkups. While it is true that there are other applications that allow you to do similar things, the big point of difference with Migraine Buddy is that it uses sensor readings from mobile phones, external data sources and additional user imput to help patients better understand their condition. "Through the recording [of data] we generate a report for the patient which they can look at anytime," says co-founder Veronica Chew. "It helps patients answer questions like - What is my frequency of having migraines? When does it usually happen? What are my top triggers? The symptoms and the medication, what works and what does not work." The unique algorithm that Healint have created is key to the next phase of Migraine Buddy, where the company intends to be able to (based on the data and analysis from each individual) alert users via a pre-warning notification that one or more external triggers are taking place that strongly predict that person will most likely have a migraine occur in the next twelve hours' time. In addition to phone data, Healint are also looking at how they can tap into the wearables market to further enhance the data and reporting for patients and doctors. Chew told Startup Daily that right now there are just under 100,000 users of the Migraine Buddy product. It is worthy to note that the app is currently in four languages - English, Spanish, French and Japanese - and that currently 40 percent of the users are located in the United States. Of that 100,000 user base, Chew says that 30 percent of them are active monthly on the app - and by active she doesn't mean that a user just opens up the app. She says that Healint measure 'active' as being someone that has recorded one or more migraines on the application each month. Majority of those month-on-month active users are females between 30 and 40 years old. Other interesting facts that have come out of some of the data are the difference in triggers from country to country. For example in Japan the biggest triggers for migraines, according to data collected by Healint, are pollen, as well as lifestyle triggers, specifically high-stress and lack of sleep - in fact these two factors were way above other countries. When it comes to monetisation, Healint already have strong working relationships with institutions and companies, where they work with them using big data and from the perspective of understanding patient behaviour. The reason that Migraine Buddy is an important product for Healint is because it demonstrates the possibilities of what the company is capable of doing from a HealthTech and data perspective. Having said that, there will be additional features being added to the Migraine Buddy platform in the coming months based on user feedback. The team are just deciding what could or should be monetised when it comes to them - if any at all.

atomic sky

Perth startup studio Atomic Sky has launched a three month program to help entrepreneurs at the helm of early stage startups find investment. The Fusion Founder Program will be running for three months three times a year, looking to address the unique challenges West Australian startups face when looking for investment. Running over 100 hours, the program is split into three phases: Startup 101, designed to help founders refine what it is their startup does; A Go To Market Strategy, helping the startups with product market fit, sales, and finance; and Operation, Traction, and Growth, to help with PR, legal, and fundraising. Founders will take part in collaborative workshops and seminars. Sam Mead, co-founder of UK startup Saberr, has been appointed director of the program. “The path to market is not obvious enough for a lot of Perth startups. Our goal is to give startups an unfair advantage by helping them understand how best to reach their markets, while limiting their costs and failures. We connect founders with a world class network of mentors, investors, and most importantly customers," Mead said. The first program will run from mid-May to mid-August, ending with a demo day where participants will pitch to angel investors and VCs. Interested startups can find more information and apply here.

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Since there's a very long weekend coming up, we've got the mergers and acquisitions round up a day early for you this week. Take a look at what went on across startup land over the last few days: Snapdeal acquires majority stake in RupeePower Indian company Snapdeal has acquired a controlling stake in financial products provider RupeePower for an undisclosed sum. TechCrunch reports the acquisition was made in order for Snapdeal to launch a financial services marketplace, which will provide $1 billion in loans over the next two years through the platform by partnering with financial institutions. Kunal Bahl, Snapdeal cofounder and CEO said of the deal, "Realizing the various difficulties that consumers face while deciding and purchasing financial products/services and the challenges that companies face whilst reaching out to the ‘right’ audience, we have brought RupeePower into our family, to help solve the distribution challenges of the financial services ecosystem and make it more inclusive. The same way Snapdeal has democratised retail in India, now we aspire to democratise access to credit." Apple acquires Acunu It happened in 2013, but news emerged just a few days ago that Apple acquired British data analytics firm Acunu. It's expected that the acquisition, which saw Acunu's employees begin working for Apple in late 2013 and early 2014, was made to boost Apple's iCloud and iTunes radio services, as well as its upcoming Beats Music streaming service. Xurpas acquires stake in PT Sembilan Digital Investama for US$245,000 Xurpas, a Philippines-based mobile content company, has acquired a 49 percent stake in Indonesian mobile content provider PT Sembilan Digital Investama for US$245,000. The deal gives Xurpas a distribution strategy for its products in Southeast Asia. Nix Nolledo, president and CEO of Xurpas, said in a statement, "Indonesia is one of the most exciting mobile markets in the world with close to 300 million subscribers, making it the fourth largest mobile market in the world. Just like the Philippines, majority of users are still on pre-paid but they are rapidly moving away from fixed connections in favor of smartphones and mobile data. The striking similarity between the Indonesian market and ours makes it an ideal location to establish another stronghold." Microsoft acquires LiveLoop Microsoft has acquired LiveLoop, a San Francisco startup that has built a PowerPoint plugin that helps people collaborate on presentations over the internet. LiveLoop has advised that it will be shutting down on April 24, with new user registrations disabled. A statement from Microsoft read, "Microsoft is excited to welcome the talented team from LiveLoop to help build great collaboration across Office applications, as part of our strategy and vision to reinvent productivity." Avant acquires ReadyForZero Avant, an online platform providing consumers with next day loans, has acquired ReadyForZero, which helps consumers manage their personal finances. Avant's CEO Al Godstein told TechCrunch that the acquisition made sense as the two companies have the same goal: helping people with their finances. ReadyForZero will continue as an independent website and brand though its product will also be offered to Avant's customers. It's expected that the majority of ReadyForZero's team will eventually move across to Avant. OPIS acquires NAVX Oil Price Information Service (OPIS) has acquired French startup NAVX, which provides real-time information on fuel prices and parking to auto manufacturers, including Toyota, Audi, and BMW. The acquisition sees the creation of OPIS-NAVX, where the two companies will share data, with OPIS experts on the US market and NAVX providing data on 30 countries in Europe, as well as Mexico and Brazil. The OPIS-NAVX brand intends to expand into Asia.

Image: Snapdeal founder Kunal Bahl. Credit: DealCurry.

0X2A1745

Gary Elphick and Jason Rogers are both into sports. In fact, both of them are actually instructors of several sports from surfing to snowboarding. The pair used to get annoyed with the fact that, not just their students, but they themselves were going into shops to buy sporting equipment, and realising they just purchased the wrong equipment - a mistake that hinders progression and growth for both students and instructors alike. In addition to that, the Elphick and Rogers also saw amazing and unique designs that appealed to them, however would find that it was never available in the equipment they wanted or needed. This motivated the duo to do something about it, and their startup Disrupt was born. Disrupt, which is part of the current muru-D class two intake, creates 100% unique customised sports equipment that performs better for users and also has a unique look. Being keen surfers themselves, the founders chose surfboards as the first product line to launch and test, hence the first iteration of their brand prior to muru-D, Disrupt Surfing. What sits behind this is a platform that uses data to help users develop the unique shape and size of the equipment - on a surfboard that would be features like the size and volume of the board. On other equipment, like a cricket bat (which Disrupt will be beginning to offer soon), a user's arm length would be vital data allowing a customer to see how good their trajectory will be in hitting the ball based on the bat they have created. Everything about the design and artwork of Disrupt equipment is customisable; users are able to upload their own images or they can collaborate with one of the local artists the startup works with. "We are using data and technology to help educate people what goes into creating [equipment] and are inspiring creativity" says Elphick. "What we are building is actually a customised sports platform, the idea is that we have identified 1126 different product lines that we can and believe should be customised. We are starting at the beginning with surfing, but we see the vision as being a lot bigger than that." The vision around the technology powering Disrupt is a big one. Right now, the platform uses a mix of technology and manual input to feed data into its system. Eventually, the plan will be to have a platform that is able to read people and their metrics in 3D as well as tap into other data, in a internet of things (IOT) type play. To give you an idea what that could look like in a future iteration of the platform, a surfer looking to purchase a new board would have their biometric data such as height, weight and fitness level scanned into the system and this would then be overlaid with location data to determine the types of waves that person is most likely to surf. This will help the platform recommend the right shape of board for that individual. Essentially, Disrupt is about creating a line of 'smart' sporting products from surfboards to table tennis bats. When it comes to the manufacturing side of the business, up until about two weeks ago, Disrupt had four manufacturing units spread across Australia, the UK and the US. But now, a majority of the manufacturing is being pushed into Thailand and China. "China no longer are taking the position of being the cheapest in the world [when it comes to manufacturing], they now have about 20 years experience in doing these type of things," said Elphick. "They understand how the industry moves, so we are trying to use them as partners. What we are doing is linking manufacturers directly with western customers, so we customers put in all the details and design specs and that feeds straight through into our Asian manufacturers." Regarding the recent muru-D China trip, Elphick says it was a chance to not only strengthen relationships from a manufacturing perspective, but really understand and tap into some of the world's largest growing sports economies. For example in China, table tennis and badminton are massive markets, and in India, cricket is huge. Understanding the different sporting economies within the different global regions is critical to the success of Disrupt's global expansion. The team has also surrounded themselves with advisors to help them get there. Two recognisable names from the Australian startups scene are Jodie Fox from Shoes of Prey and Matt Fayle from The Loop. Fox understands manufacturing and how to change manufacturing processes, and has gone through the process herself. She also understands consumer demand and how that is changing and beginning to head down a path of more bespoke and customised goods. Whereas Fayle has a deep knowledge and background within Australia's creative industry. He understands the challenges that artists are currently going through working out how to monetise their work and is helping Disrupt enable artists to do that. Prior to entering muru-D, Disrupt had some very early customers and revenue coming through the door: Elphick says, "The advantage was that we made a heap of mistakes upfront. But those mistakes allowed us to learn a lot quicker than starting from a zero base because as soon as someone pays money out they are a lot more vocal in their opinions". When it comes to the next steps post-muru-D demo day, Disrupt knows that even though there is revenue coming through the door, in order to successfully launch into new countries they will need capital behind them to make a significant impact in each new territory - especially because most sports are seasonal and the window to make a 'big bang' will be a limited one each time. Elphick has told Startup Daily that the strategy around this raise is to dilute as little capital as possible. The team is therefore working hard to take advantage of grants that Disrupt is eligible for in Australia, Europe, China, Singapore and Hong Kong. So far in-depth research by the team has identified around $600,000 worth of grants that the company is eligible for. Elphick claims the startup is making good progress with the grants so far. This is a smart move, especially when consider grants in the Asian region. Hong Kong, for instance, has a program where startups operating for over 12 months in the country that qualify can have 80 percent of any loan up to a million dollars underwritten by the government, meaning that investors get a sweeter deal because startups that qualify for this have access to more capital, which in turn means their stake in the company does not shrink. Also the Chinese government is very pro-active in helping out companies that give their manufacturing industry access to new markets. On top of the grants, Elphick says that Disrupt would then look at taking on a seed funding round of $400,000 to $500,000 of 'smart money' preferably from someone with a background in sports retail or experience in a global go-to-market play for ecommerce platforms. Disrupt will launch its new platform this Friday.

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With the job search market becoming increasingly crowded, Australian jobs platform Workible is looking to distinguish itself from the others by focusing on social recruitment and brand engagement. The startup has introduced a range of new features, including a Talent Community Platform which allows employers to create ‘communities’ of interested candidates they can then call on when a position becomes available. Employers can engage with candidates through things like video and polls, and then measure each candidate’s engagement with the business and brand. The platform has also partnered with recruitment firm Chandler McLeod to help businesses hire temps on short notice. The new Temps on Tap and Brekky Temps features allow businesses to call in temps who are on standby every morning. Employers will also have access to things like background checking, assessments and testing, payroll services, and training. Alli Baker, co-founder of Workible, said that social recruitment results in finding better people faster. “We have some brands with over 12,000 people in their Talent Community and they find that not only are they building candidate engagement with their company but that, more importantly, identifying brand fans means that they’re getting a better quality of candidate, and they can find them as soon as a job pops up,” she said. Since its pivot - or 'pirouette', as the founders like to put it - from job search board HireMeUp to Workible two years ago, the startup has aimed to make hiring as quick and easy as possible. At the time, this meant focusing on mobile-first development, with the startup noticing that the service industries using the platform were working on mobile because they needed to find workers quickly on the go. The new Talent Community and temp features take this vision further by allowing employers to have suitable candidates on hand ready to come in. Workible is also looking to help job seekers by giving them personalised feedback on job applications, explaining why they didn’t get a job and what they can do to improve their chances next time. “We knew that candidates get frustrated with the job seeking process and a survey we did late last year overwhelmingly confirmed it. Job seekers told us that they were fed up with never hearing back from their job applications through any platform so we did something about it,” Baker said. Baker explains that Workible aims to make both sides of the job search process as easy as possible by investing in its tech and, specifically, algorithms. “With all that data out there, there shouldn’t be a need to post a job to the universe and pray for a decent result. We collect data at every point of interaction with the platform, and that allows us to give our users a customised experience.”

Co-founder of ClassPass Payal Kadakia

FitTech is beginning to be a crowded space in Australia, and two more startups have joined the likes of Australian ventures FitUsIn, Classium, Classhopper and FillMyClass in recent weeks with the hopes of being the first to dominate the market in a space that is as competitive and unforgiving as the TravelTech space. The two newcomers to the space are My Class Fit, founded by UNSW alumni Jade Feng, Sohaib Mushtaq and Delia Deng, and the soon to launch AnyClass founded by Elena Torriani and the team at 25Fifteen. Australians have always been large adopters of fitness based technologies and we have also had some major success stories in the space. In 2012 Australian entrepreneur Nick Crocker launched his fitness coaching technology startup Sessions, which was acquired in February by My Fitness Pal. The Sessions deal is a shining example of the impact an Australian born application can have at a global level. Albeit a different model than Sessions, the "Fitness Class Pass" space has the potential to be a large and profitable market. The above six are not the only contenders; based on the information at hand and traction of the startups, they are most definitely the strongest contenders in Australia at the moment. AnyClass works on a subscription model and has just launched in Sydney. The platform allows users to access dozens of gyms and studios and unlimited classes for a flat weekly fee. Some examples of classes include yoga and mixed martial arts.

“The boutique fitness space is booming in Australia,” said AnyClass co-founder Elena Torriani who comes from a family of gym owners. “I kept hearing friends say that they could never attend all of the classes they wanted to, across studios, because membership to all of them would be too expensive.”

[caption id="attachment_39522" align="aligncenter" width="630"]

AnyClass co-founder Elena Torriani[/caption]

The fitness industry has undergone a major transformation; an industry that previously thrived on telling customers what to buy, now has tech savvy customers that already know exactly what they want to achieve and what products they want to buy or classes they want to attend in order to implement the changes they desire.

Much like AnyClass, MyClassFit partners with local fitness providers and subscribers to get access to classes offered by those providers. It describes itself as having a similar business model to music streaming service Spotify. The backend of the platform works on a model where the fitness classes give MyClassFit spots, for example, a studio may have an extra ten spots they can fit in to their usual yoga class.

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MyClassFit founders Sohaib Mushtaq, Jade Feng and Delia Deng[/caption]

"As a user, I can book myself into that class and go to the class. We only allow you to attend three classes max a month per studio. You can do as many classes as you want across different providers. There's greater variety than a normal gym would be able to give" says co-founder Jade Feng.

"Like Spotify, we do pay for every reservation and attendance. You do get penalised if you book in a class and take up someone else's spot and you don't turn up. I think that's a good incentive as well for you to commit to your class. From our research and surveys, we found that people don't usually go to the gym more than 10 times a month."

Both AnyClass and MyClassFit have told Startup Daily that the business models they have both implemented were inspired by New York based startup ClassPass, a company that launched two years ago and was part of the TechStars accelerator program.

The growth of ClassPass has been quite meteoric. The startup raised a total of $52 million in venture capital since launching ($12 million Series A and $40 million Series B) and currently offers users access to over 2,500 studios and boutique gyms in 30 different cities for the price of $99.00 a month. The startup also claims to have had over 1.5 million reservations made via the platform since launching.

Given the fact that Australians actually spend more money per capita on health and fitness each year than Americans, I feel that the price point of $70.00 to $90.00 that most of the local players are offering on average could actually be a little higher, giving themselves better margins and passing on more revenue to the gyms and classes making being part of their platform a more attractive deal.

But I would also argue that Australia is not big enough of a market to accommodate five companies doing the same thing. In terms of UI / UX all the local startups in this space are on pretty equal footing; they all work in a very similar fashion with very minor differences platform to platform from a user perspective. Whilst FitUsIn was undoubtedly the first to market locally and as a result has reaped the benefit of a lot of press coverage and awards because of this, I don't necessarily think it secures its safety in the space.

The backing of 25Fifteen for AnyClass is something that shouldn't be ignored. Both Luke Carruthers and Kim Heras have a great deal of experience in the startup space and via Heras' Pushstart connections are tapped into a wide network of investors for when it comes time to raise capital. There is also the fact that 25Fifteen is actually relatively new and will be looking for a couple of wins to have under its belt in the near future.

But the dark horse in this race could in fact be MyClassFit, based purely on the fact that in the last two weeks since launching Feng (a self-taught coder) and her fellow co-founders are on track to having between 500 and 600 classes available on the platform within the next couple of months, shows that the team has systemised their on-boarding strategy for both gyms / classes and users very early on, and it's this that is going to get them marketshare. Like AnyClass, the platform will not be open to users for a couple of months so there will be a full platform of classes when users start getting onto the platform - both companies are taking on pre-signups right now.

If we look at this space in the United States for guidance it is very clear that two overarching things are going to determine dominance in this space locally. The first is capital; in order to make a significant impact, the dominant player will need to be seriously cashed up as marketing and technology are going to be critical to scalability. And the second is mobile-first, whether that is in the form of a complimentary app or something else, it will be important in order to reach younger audiences so they can access classes from the palm of their hand.

Featured image: Payal Kadakia Source: TechCrunch

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Each year, Startup Daily publishes its Top 50 male entrepreneurs list, recognising the talent and achievements of young men creating startup companies. Much like our Top 50 female entrepreneurs list published in March, we use a wide set of metrics in putting this list together. This means that although financial turnover and capital raised are factors we look at, these are not the primary reasons an entrepreneur would make the list.

York Butter Factory

Just weeks after announcing a multi-year sponsorship of Sydney coworking space Tank Stream Labs, Ernst & Young has today announced that it is sponsoring Melbourne's York Butter Factory. David McGregor, Ernst & Young's Technology, Media & Entertainment and Telecommunications Leader, said the sponsorship will see the company assist the coworking space with the next phase of its development and, more broadly, support Melbourne's startup ecosystem. Ernst & Young will provide a range of services, expertise, and connections to help improve the skills of York Butter Factory's entrepreneur community. “Melbourne has proven itself time again as a great melting pot of entrepreneurs, rivalling Sydney as a centre for technology startups. Australia is fast climbing the ranks as a global hub for innovation and entrepreneurs, yet at this stage, the potential to grow this community is largely untapped," McGregor said. “One of our aims is to help York Butter Factory's members create new relationships with financiers, customers, potential partners, and acquirers to help them achieve their business goals. Given the appetite for new partnerships and mergers and acquisitions within the middle market, there are obvious synergies in linking innovative startups with larger corporates." York Butter Factory's managing director Darcy Naunton said that the coworking space is looking forward to working alongside Ernst & Young to support Melbourne's entrepreneurial ecosystem. "Through the cross-pollination of ideas and resources, and by building relationships between the entrepreneurs of the York Butter Factory and Ernst & Young, we believe that we can unlock latent opportunities that will create positive value for the community,” Nauton said. As well as the sponsorship of Tank Stream Labs, Ernst & Young has been supporting the local entrepreneurial and startup ecosystem through initiatives such as the Entrepreneur of the Year award, which has been running for 15 years, and its support of Rare Birds, the movement hoping to inspire women to become entrepreneurs.

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Founded in 1995 by web designer Lynda Weinman and her husband, illustrator-designer Bruce Heavin, Lynda.com pioneered online education, offering a platform for students to learn about business, technology and creative skills. Today, Lynda hits a record-breaking milestone, entering into an agreement to be acquired by the world’s largest professional network, LinkedIn for US$1.5 billion. Lynda and LinkedIn’s integration will help propel the growth of online education, especially as more startups head in to disrupt the traditional education sphere. In fact, the global eLearning market estimated to be worth $51.5 Billion by 2016. James Cakmak, analyst at Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co told Bloomberg Business that the deal should bump up LinkedIn’s revenue by 3 percent to 5 percent this year. LinkedIn's sales had already increased across its business segments in the fourth quarter of 2014. Bloomberg Business reported that revenue from its core service which helps recruiters and companies find job candidates, generated $369 million, up 41 percent. Sales and Marketing Solutions for advertisers rose 56 percent, generating $153 million; and revenue from the premium-subscription segment increased by 38 percent to $121 million. Cakmak told Bloomberg Business that Lynda.com is a gateway into the online education space for LinkedIn. He said, "It’s really about making sure their professional community has the tools to achieve what they want. That’s the near-term. I think the longer-term is greater penetration into educational institutions." Ryan Roslansky, Head of Content Products at LinkedIn describes in his blog about the possibilities of this collaboration, “Imagine being a job seeker and being able to instantly know what skills are needed for the available jobs in a desired city, like Denver, and then to be prompted to take the relevant and accredited course to help you acquire this skill. Or doing a search on SlideShare to learn about integrated marketing and then to be prompted with a lynda.com course on the same subject.” With over 350 million active users on LinkedIn, LinkedIn is taking the huge leap forward from simply connecting employees to potential job opportunities, to being a scope for endless possibilities. Now, anyone is able to learn and acquire the relevant skills from Lynda with their professional training focused content for those who may not have access to the time and money needed for traditional education methods. The acquisition means that Linkedin will begin to become a full service platform. Another possible reason for their integration is that LinkedIn is a community space where people can read, create and share content to see more stories and news by companies, Influencers and users. This is a good reason for users to continually go back on their site. With Lynda added in the mix, through their video based content, this could generate more revenue via video advertisements as well garner more attention in this learning space. As Facebook is already proving, video content is vital for the future of internet companies.

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The rhetoric this week was that Neopost's sizeable investment of $50 million into Brisbane-founded freight quoting and booking startup Temando, was a coup for the startup. I couldn't disagree more. Yes, there are some major advantages that Temando will be able to leverage being partnered with Neopost. However I would argue that Temando will help Neopost's future business plans more than the other way around. Before I go further, it is important that I disclose that prior to launching Startup Daily I was part of the Australian senior management team for a US company called Pitney Bowes, which happens to be the biggest global competitor to Neopost. Although I have a great deal of expert knowledge of the industry I am no longer affiliated, hold shares in or consult for either party or the industry. A brief history lesson Neopost and its competitor Pitney Bowes are both very old (founded into the early 1900s) publicly listed and very cash rich companies. Both businesses have hardware and software solutions, but it is in the hardware space that both compete, most notably with their core postage meter and folding and insertion product lines. The two companies are the biggest names in the mailroom solutions industry and cater to everyone from small businesses to large outsourced mailroom setups like Australia's Salmat. While both companies have diversified over the years having made acquisitions and expanded their product offerings into the digital realm - an example of this is Pitney Bowes acquisition of MapInfo and the way that created a whole new market for the company - the mailroom solutions arms of the business are critical revenue generators for both companies. Neopost and Pitney Bowes are essentially leasing companies that rent out their postage meter and mailroom solutions equipment over periods that usually last between three and five years, this means that both companies have solid recurring monthly revenues and this has been the backbone of how they have both grown and remained such large and profitable companies for close to 100 years. Both companies face some problems though. The steep decline in mail volumes across the medium sized and small business landscape, the shift to paperless offices, online invoices and payslips, have created a very real threat to the baseline business of both companies. Although with the growth of online shopping more people are beginning to send packages and parcels, there are many comparable and even cheaper services for those people to engage that don't mean they have to lock themselves into 36 or 60 month contracts. The appeal of Temando's platform The reason that Temando is appealing to Neopost is because it fits so nicely into the company's overarching goal to protect its mailroom solutions business and the technology owned by Temando will help it do that. It gives the company an edge over Pitney Bowes immediately because straight away there is a global database of over 800,000 business customers that Neopost has which it can begin talking to about using Temando technology on a daily basis in their mailrooms. It allows Neopost to own a stake in an end-to-end mailroom solution - it has everything else except the software part of things right now and Temando will be able to help push the company's PackCity product and white label shipping solutions. Temando is the the perfect complementary software product to Neopost's range of mailroom hardware and services. In the same way that Neopost will be able to leverage Temando, Temando will be able to leverage its new relationship with Neopost to grow - in fact, accelerate growth at an even faster pace now. Smartlockers and Ecommerce Companies like Neopost are very proactive in partnering and getting their salesforce to sell-in products that make the "fulfilment" process within a business easier. A clear example of that is its PackCity product, an automated smart locker parcel pickup and drop off solution. Essentially when a customer buys an item from an online store, rather than having it delivered to a local post office or their home or workplace which often requires them needing to be present at a location within a certain timeframe, they can have it delivered to a smart locker system, such as the PackCity locations currently expanding all over France. Users are sent a text message with the locker number and a code to get into it and collect their package. In Australia, Pitney Bowes and Australia post have been trialling 'smart lockers' for a number of years looking at all types of scalability models when it comes to locations such as installing them at 7/11 stores across the country etc, but the concept is yet to take off in any major way. However, in Europe the progress is a little more evident with PackCity having become a major product line of Neopost. There is a very big opportunity for Neopost to grow not just PackCity but its other shipping solutions and managed services products such as the company's white label shipping/courier services that at the moment service over 23,000 shipping companies in Europe, fulfilling around 250,000 shipping requests a day for these clients. These Neopost services again are end-to-end; and in some ways the online service the company already has in place has a lot of the features that Temando has. However Temando is much more ingrained into the Australian and United States markets than Neopost is. That is where the major opportunity lies for both companies to work together to be the dominant full service player in every region they decide to play in. The End Goal It has been reported across multiple publications in the last couple of days that Temando founder, Carl Hartmann's goal is to connect all the world's logistical resources into an individual intelligent platform in order to make commerce universally accessible to everybody. This new investment by and partnership with, let's be honest, the European power player in that space, is a very good indication that this vision which Hartmann first spoke to Startup Daily about in early 2012 is rapidly becoming a reality.

Featured image: Carl Hartmann | Photo credit: Rob Homer | Source: BRW.

data

“What could we say that would help you avoid all of the pain, the headaches, the late nights that we had to endure as systems failed and data got corrupted?”

This is how DJ Patil kicked off his session at First Round's recent CTO Summit. [Source: FirstRound]

Vikash Radia

As a concept, the monthly goodie box subscription service has become old hat, but entrepreneurs are still trying to put a new spin on the idea. Sydney startup Joe Merchant Co is using the model to help subscribers discover new coffee. Upon returning to Sydney after a few years in London, founder and coffee lover Vikash Radia saw that a crop of new artisan roasters had popped up. Having seen the coffee membership model in the UK, Radia thought it would be fun to start a similar service in Australia. “The trend towards home brewing coffee also seemed to have grown in the couple of years that I was overseas, and more people were getting serious about trying new coffees at home. More Australian households have coffee machines than ever before and more people are also exploring alternative home brewing methods as well,” Radia said. “This has seen a steady rise in the demand for freshly roasted coffee beans and consumers have become more interested in exploring different options and discovering the latest and greatest coffee roasters.” Radia, whose previous work was in the financial services sector, immersed himself in the London and Singapore startup scenes while on sabbatical to learn about tech and the lean startup model. In Sydney, he began talking to roasters to gauge their interest. “After confirming that roasters were interested in working with us, I spoke to some fellow coffee lovers about their coffee habits and built a basic site myself using some readily available tools and plugins, as I’m not a tech guy by trade. The whole operation was launched in a lean manner and continues to be refined as we learn from feedback,” Radia explained. Joe Merchant Co offers 250g subscriptions for $22.50, while a 500g package will set customers back $35, with shipping free. “Specialty beans are usually sold in a pretty standard price range so there’s a benchmark of sorts. The price of our membership should be as close as possible to what it would cost a customer to order similar quality beans from the roaster’s website directly and in fact, it’s actually less most of the time. We take pride in curating, packaging and providing information about each month’s featured bean, which is where we add value to each month’s delivery,” Radia said. The startup is working with independent and artisan roasters who source their beans ethically and sustainably. At the moment, these roasters are all Sydney based. Radia said, “Inherently, these guys have so much passion for coffee that it shines through in their bean offerings, which are of course taste tested. We try to provide a different taste profile each month so our customers get to experience different origins and varieties, developing their palate and knowledge of coffee.” The monthly coffee subscription isn’t new - No BS Coffee offers subscribers packages from Melbourne roasters, while various roasters around the country offer their own delivery service. However, Joe Merchant Co is the first service to showcase a variety of Sydney roasters and, if it manages to build a sizeable following in the city, may be able to expand. Given how much this city - and Australians generally - loves its coffee, the odds are good. Radia’s passion for coffee and his attention to detail is also clear - upon sign up, the site asks how customers brew their coffee, which will ensure they receive the appropriate roast profile and grind type. Customers can also choose whether to have their coffee ground or sent as whole beans, a feature Radia said he introduced after listening to customer feedback. Though the business is still new, Radia is already thinking internationally. “If viable, we’d love to start offering the service to international customers, as Australia is known on the world stage for its coffee. There are plenty of global coffee enthusiasts that would love to get their hands on Aussie roasted beans.”

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Trigger Warning: Parts of this article talk about assault and depression and may be triggering to some readers. In May 2012, Patrick Artese was at university studying a degree in civil engineering. One weekend, he was having a night out with friends in a Kings Cross nightclub; and unbeknown to him, this night would change his life forever. One of his friends got into an argument with another partygoer in the nightclub they were at. Artese stepped in to pull his mate away to prevent the altercation developing into anything further. But the other guy struck and caught Artese unaware. He fell to the floor of the club, smashing his head on the concrete. Artese was left there, haemorrhaging and bleeding out. This event, as it so happens, was just two weeks before the tragic death of Thomas Kelly which resulted from a similar cowardly punch. Artese woke in St Vincents Hospital. He had a haemorrhage, blood clots, he could not see, could not talk and was unable to walk. It was a long rehabilitative process to get back to full physical strength, but that did not prepare Artese for the depression that followed over the next eight months. The uncontrollable spiral of depression completely overwhelmed Artese to a point where he no longer had the will to keep living. He did however have the foresight to seek professional help for his depression, which helped him get back on track. He completed his degree and became a professional civil engineer. Almost a year on, Artese was sitting at work one day and began to have thoughts of doing something more meaningful in his life. "I thought I'm a civil engineer, I'm kinda kicking goals and it got to the point where a lot of people get to, [where] they feel like 'what the fuck am I doing?' There's got to be more to life. I sat at my desk and imagined another place where I'd rather be and what I'd rather be doing." Artese imagined a place where he could go online and be inspired by a community of people that are doing amazing things; and this is how the concept of his startup Cherrii began to materialise. Cherrii has a goal to be the world's biggest directory of possibilities, the go-to place to see what is happening across the world, be inspired by the endless possibilities and learn who to connect with in order to have these possibilities become a reality. Essentially Artese is building a content driven social platform - the content will primarily take the form of video. "Everyone seeks inspiration and tries to find a purpose in life and this will be a community where there are all these different [groups] of people seeking their own personalised way to give themselves a purpose and seek out their own purpose," says Artese. "It will be a community of people who are trying to learn how to surf or trying to learn how to snowboard. There are people who are trying to seek out how to start a business, if that's their purpose. It will be a hub of communities and offerings of people who can actually help them bring that to life." It's in this connecting that Artese plans to make revenue. In the same way that sites like Red Balloon or Adrenaline make money from selling experiences. Cherrii derives from the concept that there is a first time for everything and that is what the platform will aim to give people - first time, out of this world experiences. So instead of buying a voucher to sky dive at Byron Bay like you would on a platform like Red Balloon, you might instead by an experience sky diving over Sydney Harbour and landing in an inflatable pool at Darling Harbour - as a radical example. The concept is similar to startup Lime and Tonic in this respect who sell out-of-this-world dining experiences that take dinner and drinks with friends to the next level. So how exactly will the platform work for users? Artese explains, "The mechanics are it will start off with the interest or the passion or the way you find the person. Let's take snowboarding for example. It will start off with snowboarding and the passion you want to seek out. It will then also be able to connect you to local people in the area, who are willing to share that passion with you, businesses that can give you that kind of exposure and [tell you] secret places you can go to learn that, different tips, etc". On the social side of things, users can follow people's stories that inspire them, connect with them and engage in experiences with them. From my perspective, I fear that what Cherrii oozes in its passion to inspire others it may lack in focus when it comes to translating what the purpose of the platform is. Aside from the many features that I have described above, there were many others that Artese aims to include over time. I might be wrong but when I look back at the platforms I have covered that have gone on to acquire large user numbers and revenue, they all began with basic features and a very clear goal - sometimes less is more. Creating a directory of possibilities is actually a strong statement; I feel that a few key functionalities of such a platform would actually strengthen the purpose around why it is being created. The platform is still currently in development and Artese is very open about the fact that he is still navigating his way through many things. I would not be surprised if we saw a slight (focus related) pivot happen as Cherrii opens for BETA testers over the coming months. Artese told Startup Daily that he has met with a number of investors to explore options. Based on what I have seen with Australian investors, a succinct, simple platform that attracts a large audience is a much more lucrative opportunity than a platform that has everything except users.

The mergers and acquisitions round up

Here’s why Accel just committed $305 million to startups in India

Will Twitter’s live video streaming app Periscope trump Meerkat?

ASX listed Rewardle closed a further $5 million funding in a heavily oversubscribed round

Messaging app Yap Chat hopes to succeed in crowded market by focusing on visual content

Elon Musk created nearly $1B in value today with a single tweet

Tyro Payments launches new FinTech startup hub in Sydney

Singapore government has invested in $1 million seed fund round for HealthTech startup Migraine Buddy

Perth startup studio Atomic Sky launches program to help founders land investments

The mergers and acquisitions round up

Disrupt’s technology taps into buyer metrics and data to create ‘smart’ sports equipment

Workible introduces new features to help employers find engaged candidates faster

Will any local player in the FitTech space be able to replicate the scale that New York based ClassPass has experienced?

Top 50 Male Entrepreneurs Under 40 List 2015

Ernst & Young announces sponsorship of Melbourne’s York Butter Factory coworking space

LinkedIn is acquiring professional training site Lynda.com for US$1.5 billion

There is a very good reason why Neopost just bought a stake in Temando for $50 million

Everything We Wish We’d Known About Building Data Products

Sydney startup Joe Merchant Co wants subscribers to discover new coffee roasters every month

Cherrii intends to be the world’s largest directory of possibilities. But what exactly does that mean?