Biggest stories from the world of Tech & Venture

Fast News

🏆Profit 

Kogan shares surged 30% on return to profit last week

💰Raise 

Bugcrowd, an Aussie-founded cybersecurity startup, has closed one of the year’s biggest funding rounds so far – US$102m

🪝Acquisition

Octopus Deploy made its first major acquisition of Codefresh for $43m

🥈Secondaries

Canva’s secondary could be as much as $3.6b sold with more to come

🤖 AI

Xero to deploy generative AI to help customers and automate common accounting tasks

🚀LaunchVic

Launched a new grant initiative of up to $300k for new angel groups focused on a unique industry vertical or technological innovation within the pre-seed and seed investment space

🚕Uber

Uber will pay $272 million to Australian taxi operators – the fifth-largest class action settlement in Australian legal history (filed on behalf of more than 8000 taxi and hire car owners and drivers) – after it settled following a five-year legal battle. Ride sharing service is now regulated in every state and territory across Australia Globally

💳Stripe 

Valuation spikes to $65B in employee stock-sale deal (peaked at $95B in 2021, then down to $50B in 2023). They released their annual founder letter. Growth continues with total payment volume topping $1 trillion in 2023!

🍏Apple

Cancels its autonomous electric car project after investing in this project for 10 years and let a few thousand people go.

📈Share prices

Microsoft ($3.1T) bigger than Apple ($2.7T) – NVIDIA ($2.2T) bigger than Amazon ($1.8T) and Alphabet ($1.8T)

👨‍💻Elon Musk

Sues OpenAI and Sam Altman over ‘betrayal’ of non-profit AI mission (OpenAI also announcing new board members including CEO Sam Altman)

Former Twitter CEO and execs sues Elon Musk – Elon Musk loses world’s richest person title for the first time in more than nine months to Jeff Bezos – but he is still going multi-planetary with a successful launch of Starship last week.

ABOUT

Tobi Skovron and Gavin Appel spearhead our monthly vlog – a must-watch for those seeking insights into the local startup and VC sphere. Captivating audiences with their infectious enthusiasm for the startup and venture capital landscape, Tobi and Gavin unpack the latest trends and events.

The vlog consistently delivers high-quality, engaging content, covering everything from fundraising, M&A, product launches, new venture funds, and more. Tobi and Gavin rapidly explore each topic, while making complex concepts accessible. It’s an indispensable resource for those hungry for knowledge about the local startup and VC scene.

Gavin is the Founder and CEO of Ignition Lane, where he advises founders and leaders growing tech companies. He has 25 years of experience in the technology industry across startups, corporates and venture capital. Gavin was a founding VC Partner at Square Peg, an SVP of Product and Technology at Experian, and was one of the first employees and CTO at Hitwise – a venture-backed startup that was acquired for US$240m in 2007.

Tobi is the CEO and co-founder of CreativeCubes.Co, and has over 20 years of entrepreneurial experience across Australia and the U.S. Links:

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