Daily Precap

Hey I’m Domm, it’s Friday 24th August 2018, and this is your daily precap of the latest and greatest technology, startups, and business news.

Another day, another AfterYay. Afterpay is set to reopen this morning after the stock halted yesterday on their annual report and with news they are raising $100M to fund an acquisition and expansion into the UK.The company has gone from strength to strength in the last few years, and seems to now be accelerating their international expansion, after having just launched in the US in late May.

Chinese telecommunications and mobile giants Huawei and ZTE have been kicked out of Australia when it comes to building our 5G network. The federal government blocked them from participating citing unacceptable fears of government intervention from the Chinese government which would put Australia’s data safety at risk.It doesn’t seem to be because of existing vulnerabilities or any know problems with their tech, but rather because of Chinese government's ability to stranglehold Chinese companies into doing its bidding and force Huawei or ZTE into manipulating our national telecommunications networks in any way.

If you are a drone enthusiast, DJI has now launched its Mavic 2 Pro drone with an embedded Hasselblad camera and a cheaper Mavic 2 Zoom with 2x optical zoom, both available today.

Sony is bringing out an adorable little dog-like robot Aibo, and it will go on sale in the US in September!

Popular online ticketing company Eventbrite has filed for to list on the New York Stock Exchange. They are looking to raise $200M and had 2017 revenue of $201.6M, which was up 51% YoY, but they still managed to lose $38.6M.

Tim Kentley-Klay the Aussie founder and CEO of huge Silicon Valley based and funded autonomous car company, Zoox, has been fired. Zoox just closed a mammoth $677M investment round valuing the company at over $4B Aussie dollars. Australian tech giant Atlassian's founders were amongst the investors and just joined the board. No word on yet on what their positions were on the sacking.Despite the kick in the guts for Tim, he has already achieved more at Zoox than most Australian startups have in their whole term.

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Hey I’m Domm, it’s Thursday 23rd August 2018, and this is your daily precap of the latest and greatest technology, startups, and business news.

Wisetech, the Sydney based software provider to the logistics industry, who unlike rival GetSwift, is killing it on the ASX after releasing a huge result yesterday. They announced full year revenue of $221.6 million, up 44%.Net profit of $40.8 million, up 28%.And 2019 revenue guidance of around $320 million, projecting growth of nearly 50%.Rightly so, shares in WiseTech soared closing up 27.2% for the day.For all startups out there, this is a successful Australian tech company. A company that is delivering a 8 figure profit, for shareholders.That is success.

Sydney based Legaler, has performed a stunning oxymoron and raised $1.5 million of cash money. I saw an oxymoron, because the company is a a blockchain-for-legal startup and is planning an ICO or initial coin offering.But, much in the same way as Facebook advertising its apologies on TV and bus stops, it proves that in days of digital disruption, do not write-off traditional methods.

Saas Startup PractiFI has landed a $3M investment to expand its offering for wealth management companies throughout North America.

South Australia now has a Chief Entrepreneur replacing the Chief Innovator, and is backed by an office of the Chief Entrepreneur which will replace TechinSA which is the current driver of the SA startup community.Jim Whalley, the new Chief Entrepreneur is a co-founder of tech-centric defence services Nova Group and is a former fighter pilot.Jim has made some bold first words, suggesting that we need to be hailing entrepreneurs, especially, young entrepreneurs, as heroes.It seems to follow a similar path which Queensland’s Chief Entrepreneur Steve Baxter has, which is to acknowledge the entrepreneurs in a room, before government officials or other vip’s.As a startup founder myself, and a very keen observer of the space, I see an important distinction however, and do take issue with Jim’s comments, although seeing them as well-intentioned.The reality is that in Australia’s startup ecosystems we have a complacency, that is fulled by the pedestals that we put founders, on for simply beginning.The rewards we offer at the start to founders, help to discourage the drive for real business and economic outcomes. Being a founder and ceo is now used as a pickup line, when 15 years ago it was something you would hide.We must be weary of calling our founders heroes or giving them title and status before they have earned it.But, we should absolutely, give respect and show respect to every founder putting themselves on the line and having a go, from the start.Jim drew an analogy to athletes, but I would suggest that athletes get respect from competing, but only the winners get the medals and prize money.

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It’s Wednesday 22nd August 2018, and this is your daily precap of the latest and greatest technology, startups, and business news.

Today we are going to talk about the elephant, not in the room.

The Technology sector, is the largest business sector in the world, by market cap.

Just looking at the top 25 public technology companies in the world, they represent a combined value of $5.7 trillion US dollars.

To put that in perspective, Australia’s national stock exchange, the ASX, has around 2,200 listed companies with a combined market cap of around $1.5 trillion Australian dollars, or about $1.1 trillion US Dollars.

So the top 25 public technology companies in the world, are worth more than 5 times our whole 2,200 public companies, which includes our big banks, our big retailers, our mining companies, our tech companies, the lot.

This technology sector is not just large, it has become the backbone of every other business segment, and is absorbing revenue and talent from traditional industries at an exponential rate.

The issue I want to highlight today, is for Queensland.

Of those top 25 public technology companies, 80% have an Australian headquarters. This is important and also encouraging, given not one of these companies are Australian founded. So we are cementing ourselves as an important nation in the Asia Pacific.The issue we have is that of these 20 companies which represent more than $4.5 trillion, not one, 0% chose Queensland as their headquarters, with Sydney taking 85%, and Melbourne the remaining 15%.

When looking at the top 25 private technology companies, 44% have an Australian headquarters, but again, none, or 0% are based in Queensland, with Sydney taking just over half, and Melbourne the rest.

This is a very, very critical problem for Queensland.These companies attract talent, retain talent, develop talent. Their competition drives wages growth.They spur innovation and growth in the startup and technology sectors.They attract capital.They attract other technology companies.And, they result in huge amounts of state and local tax revenues, with commercial and residential land taxes, payroll taxes, and massive amounts of GST, which despite being a federal tax is distributed to the states in which the tax was derived.

So when we look at the segment and realise that Queensland is the third largest state, Brisbane the third largest city in Australia, and yet, we have none of the bases for these companies, we must realise the stark issue we have and immediately put in a plan to fix the problem.

Queensland cannot afford to continue having our talent flow South. Queensland cannot afford to have our traditional jobs replaced with jobs in Sydney and Melbourne based technology companies.Queensland cannot afford to have effectively no standing in the worlds largest industry sector.Queensland cannot afford to miss out on billions in state taxes which could go to our infrastructure, our schools, our hospitals, our aged care.

Queensland needs our premier and minister for trade, Annastacia Palaszczuk. Queensland needs the minister of innovation Kate Jones.Queensland needs the minister of state development Cameron Dick.

To all put in place and execute a plan now, to turn this around.

I have two kids in this beautiful state, I want to ensure all future generations can grow up and live here in Queensland, without the need to migrate to Sydney or Melbourne for a career.

We have a problem, but there are simple solutions we can put in place immediately, if we just give the issue attention.

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Hey I’m Domm, it’s Tuesday 21st August 2018, and this is your daily precap of the latest and greatest technology, startups, and business news.

Google invented a fake pizza brand called Doctor Fork, and created 33 fake video ads for Doctor Fork, then showed them to nearly 20M people on Youtube to test out how they reacted and what style of ad had the best conversions and recall.This experiment was developed in partnership with Nestle and Ryan Elder, an associate professor of marketing at Brigham Young University.They were a number of interesting findings, like people responded better to close up shot where the food was edge to edge on the screen!

The New York University has teamed up with Facebook, to use the social media giants artificial intelligence technology, to develop a way to accelerate the time an MRI takes. Currently an MRI routinely takes anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour, but these researchers have the goal of cutting down MRI durations by 90 percent through applying AI-based imaging tools.AI agents require lots of data to train up to effective levels, so the UNI has provided Facebook an anonymous dataset of 10,000 MRI images.Whilst reducing the time taken for MRI’s would be a great outcome, I wonder how the people whose samples were used, feel about Facebook being given a map of their brain, given all their privacy blunders.

If you like streaming e-sports, then I hope you also like watching ads because Twitch Prime, the perks program for Amazon Prime members offering free loot, games and other benefits is ditching one of its best features: ad-free viewing. But, spending $9 a month on Twitch’s turbo plan will keep the adsd turned off.Existing members wont see ads until October, but new members will start seeing ads from September.

Infamous Silicon Valley venture capitalist, Mike Rothenberg been charged for fraud in the US for overcharging investors to fund personal projects.The SEC now alleges in a statement the investor and his firm had misappropriated up to $7 million dollars for personal enjoyment, meanwhile claiming the funds were from his own coffers to pay for lavish parties, hotels and sporting events.It’s an important lesson for both entrepreneurs and VC’s, don’t dip your hand in the cookie jar.Local startup investor Steve Baxter advises, don’t use your company as a cash register; and that all the money you pull out should be as a wage or a dividend.But its important to note that when other peoples money is invested, this is no longer just good practice, it might save you from being charged.

Fitbit is bringing out a new wearable, the Charge 3. They are blurring the lines of where a fitness tracker stops and a smartwatch starts with a better screen, swim tracking, and smartwatch-style features.The Charge 3 will come in two models: a Core version and a Special Edition that features NFC and supports Fitbit Pay for payments.

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Hey I’m Domm, it’s Monday 20th August 2018, and this is your daily precap of the latest and greatest technology, startups, and business news.

A Canberra based start-up Instaclustr has found a model of taking something free, and charging for it, successfully.Instaclustr provides open source technologies and software, and provides them as a service through cloud computing vendors such as AWS, or Google Cloud. The start-up has just raised $20.8 million from a number of investors, in a round led by New York City private equity firm Level Equity.Instaclustr counts huge companies amongst their customers like Campaign Monitor, and has seen revenue jump 300% in the last year.

A Sydney based farming software start-up AgriWebb has raised $14M, which comes with an acquisition tacked on, of FarmWizard, which is a UK company that provides Herd Management software.Agriwebb is designed to digitise the little book farmers have traditionally carried in their top pockets.Providing a tool to record notes and audit/compliance data.Agriweb, is used on nearly 3,000 farms, over 60% of which are in Australia.Yet, their investment was led by a UK investor, Wheatsheaf Group.

Having just got home from regional Queensland, and talking with local investors about the growing need and role of startups in their community, AgriWebb is a fantastic example.

Here, we have a metropolitan Sydney based start-up, providing services to regional Australia, backed by UK investors.

Our regions are shrinking, traditional industries are being disrupted and becoming more efficient through technology, replacing longstanding jobs in our communities.Australia as a whole has caught on, but now we need our regions to catch on.We need to be diversifying through our regions. We need to be developing technology from our regions.Technology is now the #1 largest segment of business worldwide by market cap, not looking to it as a primary, or at least significant investment strategy is naive.So, we need the investment dollars from our regions to be invested in technology.Both locally developed technology and technology developed from afar.

Our regions have forever been known as producers: of resources, and crops, and food.Yet, when it comes to technology, our regions are thought of as consumers, by outsiders and from within.Well this does not have to be the case. Our regions can be producers of technology. Incubators of technology.We need to be changing the dialog and be searching for high-growth regional based start-ups and technologies.And we need to start injecting far more of our regional investment dollars into technology and startups.And, it needs start today.

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Hey I’m Domm, it’s Friday 17th August 2018, and this is your daily precap of the latest and greatest technology, startups, and business news.

A 16 year Melbourne based teenager has faced caught after being caught hacking into Apples secure network and downloading 90gb of secure files and accessed customer accounts.Of course, he stored the files in a folder on his computer called “hacky hack hack”.The Australian Federal Police executed a search warrant on the teen’s home last year and Two Apple laptops were seized and the serial numbers matched the serial numbers of the devices which accessed the internal systems.

Another recently surfaced hack, but one that had much more dire consequences was one in which current and former US officials say CIA's communication system used for sources in China was compromised, leading to China executing ~30 US spies between 2010-2012.

Residents in Arizona from today can have their online groceries orders delivered by an autonomous vehicle. Self-driving car startup Nuro is ready to put autonomous vehicles on the road in partnership with Kroger to deliver groceries in Scottsdale, Arizona. This comes a couple of months after Nuro and Kroger announced their partnership to offer same-day deliveries.Nuro’s intent is to use its self-driving technology in the last mile for the delivery of local goods and services. That could be things like groceries, dry cleaning, or really anything within city limits that can fit inside one of Nuro’s vehicles. Nuro has two compartments that can fit up to six grocery bags each.

It seems food delivery startups are hot property because another food deliver company DoorDash just announced that it has raised $250 million, just five months since the company announced a $535 million round.In a blog post, the company said it’s had a good 2018, with deliveries increasing 250 percent year-over-year, restaurant chains like Chipotle and IHOP signing up and last week’s launch of the DashPass subscription service, where you can pay $9.99 per month to get unlimited free deliveries.

As I have well covered, Global smart speaker shipments have increased by 187 percent year-over-year for a total of 16.8 million units, with 10% of the US now owning a smart speaker. Yet, China is the fastest growing smart speaker market. China accounted for 52-percent of the total growth worldwide, with Alibaba and Xiaomi accounting for the majority.The growth is large, in part, due to the fact that the category effectively didn’t exists a year ago and now the country is on track overtake the U.S.

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Hey I’m Domm, it’s Thursday 16th August 2018, and this is your daily precap of the latest and greatest technology, startups, and business news.

I am coming to you today from I-NQ, or Innovation North Queensland, Townsville’s innovation centre and co-working space. I-NQ is home to Jesi Journey, the award winning journey management startup, founded y Joe Hoolahan that counts huge companies like Rio Tinto, Orica, Sandvik… and more as its customers.

Today is Afteryay Day, Afterpays once, or twice a year sale day. And it really is Afterpays day, because yesterday the company closed trading at a record high of $16.39 up 8.54% for the day!The growth is likely fueled by rumours from credible sources that Afterpays US transaction numbers have rapidly grown to more than $60M for July alone, well exceeding the $11M they turned over in the first 6 weeks of trading in May and June.And today, for Afteryay day they are expected to process more than $150M in transactions, that would be a great day for Aussie retailers.

Another Australian company killing it in the buy now pay later space is Zip, yesterday they announced a massive deal partnering with Virgin Australia to offer their buy now pay later finance for flights with the airline. Its big news for the company and Virgin’s customers!

Regional Queensland founded biotech startup, Paragen Bio which was born our of James Cook University in Cairns has just raised $6M at launch, from 3 prominent venture capitalists. Paragen Bio is working on “the next generation range of therapeutics” and wants to continue developing new treatments for autoimmune diseases, using secretions from parasitic hookworms.Ambitious goals, which is exactly what startups from regional Queensland need to have.

Uber has released their latest quarterly earning report, and it should be called losses report because they are in the red for a staggering $404M in the last quarter.A loss which is is actually growing, in fact by 32% from last quarter.This despite the fact that their revenue increased by 8% from last quarter, and more than 50% from last year.Now, investors are stamping their feet and demanding Uber sell off its self-driving car division, which is losing between $125-200M a quarter. Although, it does seem counterintuitive, as in the long run, replacing human drivers with autonomous vehicles will by far boost the profitability of the company.So time will tell if Uber can keep investors calm and continue playing the long game.

Phone carriers beware, a US cryptocurrency investor has sued major US telco AT&T for $224M in damages, after $24M was stolen from them in a SIM swap fraud!SIM swapping fraud tricks a telco into transferring a subscriber’s phone number to a SIM card controlled by someone else. Once that person gets the phone number, it can be used to reset the subscriber’s passwords and access online accounts.Michael Terpin the plantiff accusing AT&T of fraud and gross negligence in connection with the theft of digital currency tokens from his personal account. Michael had three million stolen tokens were worth $23.8 million, and is also seeking $200 million in punitive damages.

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Hey I’m Domm, it’s Wednesday 15th August 2018, and this is your daily precap of the latest and greatest technology, startups, and business news.

Tinder founders and early staff have stopped swiping right and are now throwing right hooks at the company’s parent company, IAC.They have filed a lawsuit in the New York State court for damages of at least 2 Billion.The lawsuit is because they allege IAC manipulated data to keep a company valuation done in 2017 at the same value of $3Bn which the company was valued at 2 years earlier.Although the suit does not offer an alternative valuation their suits seems to hint at a valuation of around $12Bn.Why does it matter, because the value of the company directly affects the value of the staffs contractual entitlements due under the buyout.It is absurd that Tinder’s valuation would remain unchanged over a two year period, when in the last year along revenue has grown 136% in the last year, as well as an 81% increase of subscribers, that’s a lot of horny swipers by the way. But, conversely, it seems that a figure of around $12Bn is unrealistic, as the parent company of Tinder Match, is a public traded company with a total market cap of only around $13.5Bn.Seems like there is good ground in the middle for a settlement!

Apple really wants your app to be sold as a subscription not bought upfront. Last year Apple held a secret invite only event for around 30 app development studios, some with as few as 1 or 2 developers.The entire point of the event was the get these developers to stop charging upfront for their apps and instead to charge a subscription free.The purpose is to actually increase developers overall returns on apps so they continue to build high quality apps. As there is a downward pressure on the price of apps due to large availability and competitiveness, and developers have ongoing costs for app well beyond the initial purchase.So Apple is betting that subscriptions for apps will help alleviate that downward pricing pressure and maintain a high quality of apps.It seems to be working, they now have 30,000 apps on the App Store generating $300M in subscription fees. It only represents around 2% of overall but it’s a growing and promising metric.

Elon Musk might be trying to take Tesla private using Saudi Arabia's Sovereign fund, but their Chinese competitor Nio, another electric car manufacturer backed by China’s Tech giants, has just done the opposite, listing on the New York Stock Exchange in a bit to take the company public. Nio is looking to raise as much as $1.8 Billion from the float.Nio is by far the challenger company here, with revenues of just $6.9M as at the end of June this year up from no revenue last year, with a loss of $502M year to date.

Smart speakers, which are now in 10% of all homes in the US, are set to become even more popular with sales forecast to grow by 50% by next year. I know I tend to harp on this, but where are our startups focused on this space? Imagine if 20 years ago when Google launched, if Googles search had no way of indexing most of the sites in the world. Or if today, there was no way a Google search could direct you to an online store where you could buy things?But billions of people still used Google and wanted a way to find and buy things.Well that is effectively the state of the smart speaker environment today.So Aussie entrepreneurs, go build networks and marketplaces connecting businesses with smart speakers. Pick a industry or sector and run like the wind.

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That was your daily precap, I am Domm, thanks for listening.

Hey I’m Domm, it’s Tuesday 14th August 2018, and this is your daily precap of the latest and greatest technology, startups, and business news.

Today is Brisbane news day with locally based startup Go1 Learning announcing a massive $10M round, led by Seek. The round which actually closed last year was only just announced because of Seek’s disclosure obligations as a public company.And the money could not be being spent better, with the cash being used to expand internationally, especially in the US.We have to remember, as we just passed 25M people in Australia last week, the US has 325M. That’s the market we need to be targeting.Good luck with the expansion to the whole team with the expansion, led by founder and CEO Andrew Barnes.

Having another chomp of the equity pie in this round was popular Venture Capitalist Steve Baxter, through his Transition Level Investments, who had already participated in an earlier round.

It’s big fundraising news for a blossoming Brisbane startup ecosystem.

But one Brisbane startup which isn't blossoming is Shoes of Prey.

The custom footwear manufacturer is in dire straights, Shoes of Prey were desperately seeking financing, and had hopes of executing a revised business plan.But after more than 5 months of searching for financing or an exit, they haven’t got a result.

Blue Sky, the Brisbane fund manager which are in a world of hurt themselves after a shortseller decimated the company, triggering a chain of events that saw the exit of the CEO, an 80+% reduction in the stock price and massive asset value drops, have themselves recently written down the value of their shareholding in Shoes of Prey; But, if Shoes of Prey does go under it could mean a much bigger write down is still to come.

It is important to remember though, if Shoes of Prey does go under, we must acknowledge the incredible growth and journey the companies founders have navigated through over the past 9 years.

Startups are high-growth, high-risk businesses. Some make it and some don’t.

Failure is fantastic in the startup ecosystem, as, like a bushfire, it leads way to new growth. But, failure is hard for founders, and exponentially more difficult because of Australia’s horrific tall poppy syndrome.

So if you know the founder Jodie Fox or people involved with Shoes of Prey, or even if you don’t, why not reach out today and let them know how incredible their path has been to date, how admirable their successes have been, and how much good they have done for the Brisbane and Australian startup communities in the last 9 years.

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That was your daily precap, I am Domm, thanks for listening.

Hey I’m Domm, it’s Monday 13th August 2018, and this is your daily precap of the latest and greatest technology, startups, and business news.

Spotify is using us fellow Aussies as its unofficial beta testers, letting us skip any ads we want, as much as we want.The music streaming company says it's running a test in Australia that will allow listeners to skip audio and video ads any time they want, as often as they want, allowing them to quickly get back to music. Listeners who don't pay for a subscription currently can't skip ads at all.Spotify’ hypothesis is they can use the data to fuel their streaming intelligence, and deliver a more personalized experience and a more engaging audience to their advertisers.

If you are dodging a baliff, stay off Twitter. The Democratic National Committee in the US on Friday officially served its lawsuit to WikiLeaks via Twitter.The DNC filed a motion with a federal court in Manhattan requesting permission to serve its complaint to WikiLeaks on Twitter, a platform the DNC argued the website uses regularly, as the elusive group had been uncontactable through other mediums.

Amazon’s unde fire in the UK for its unlimited next day delivery claims with its Amazon Prime membership, because well it hasnt been giving unlimited next day delivery. Amazon failed to deliver next day for a significant number of products in the lead up to Christmas.Also, Amazon had not made clear that the claim did not cover items it was not itself responsible for dispatching. Now it might seem like a subtle distinction, but if you paid for a next day delivery service from a company, then you would expect next day delivery for items you purchase through it.

Intel may be releasing its 9th generation Core processors, as early as October 1st. Its hoped that the new i9 will make 8 core computing more affordable.The highlight for many would be the Core i9-9900K, the first mainstream desktop Core i9 chip and you wouldn't have to pay a fortune for an X-series or Extreme Edition CPU.

Australian cricketer Michael Clarke is under fire for having endorsed a Blockchain startup and linking to their ICO, or initial coin offering, from his twitter account.He has been slammed for promoting an unknown unproven company, in a space where a huge number of ICO’s has been proven as scams, and for something he knows nothing about. With one tweeter sticking in the boot and telling him to “just buy sandpaper. It will do less damage to your reputation”.

Freelancer.com CEO Matt Barrie has revealed his long-term plans for a spin-off IPO of its fast-growing Escrow.com payments business. Freelancer bought the payment company for just $10M in 2015, and to put that in perspective Escrow turned over $158 million in transactions in the last quarter alone.At a time when Freelancer.com’ revenue growth has slipped, it seems the stellar performance of Escrow.com comes at an opportune time.

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