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Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Stuff happenning in VC in September according to Crunchbase
Virtual reality and venture capital in China
SHANGHAI, Sept. 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- China is leading the tech race with advances in virtual reality and investments from venture capitalists, plus a new generation of rising stars.
Silicon Dragon is hosting a well-timed tech innovation and venture capital forum in Shanghai, September 22. This program will explore the latest trends in how China is getting ahead with brands that are going global, raising huge financing sums, merging and acquiring, and inventing the future of tech with such leaders as Didi, Xiaomi, Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent.
This 6th annual Silicon Dragon forum takes place at the JW Marriott Tomorrow Square in the heart of Shanghai, a leading hub for venture capital.
Silicon Dragon's Shanghai program features panels with leading venture capitalists from DraperDragon, Lightspeed China, Fidelity and more.
They will discuss unicorns, financings, M&A deals and the future of China's technology landscape.
A special talk by Alvin Wang Graylin, who leads China VR at HTC, is a highlight of the program.
The Silicon Dragon forum in Shanghai also features a panel of rising stars -- female founders and investors who are making it in China. They include venture investors from 500 Startups and Cherubic Ventures.
Expecting to draw up to 200 participants, the Silicon Dragon conference brings together business leaders in China, well-known Chinese entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors and the startup ecosystem for discussions on what's next for China's up and coming companies. Participants will gain insights on how to raise financing and develop strategies to succeed in China.
Main Sponsors
KPMG Sidley Austin
Event Partners
AngelVest MobileMonday Shanghai Chinaccelerator DayDayUp YooPay WeWork SoGal NakedHub
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Why Atlassian raised $60m
Business software company Atlassian, now a $6 billion publicly-traded company on the Nasdaq took a $60m investment from Accel partners even though it had $55m in the bank.
Why? Mike and Scott wanted to build up their board for a listing, new they wanted Richard Wong from Accel Partners and negotiated a deal!
Flickr/JD LasicaAccel Partners’ Rich Wong
They tried keeping the round small, around $5 million, says MikeCannon-Brookes, but Accel wanted more equity in the company and Atlassian ended up accepting $60 million from Accel.
Where did the money go?
the lion’s share of that investment ended up being used for employee liquidity. In other words, Atlassian brokered the sale of stock options from its employees directly to Accel, with the cash going straight into its employees’ pockets.
Accel got the equity it wanted; Atlassian’s leadership didn’t give up control; Atlassian employees got to cash out their shares almost 5 years before the 2015 IPO; everybody was happy. A win - win .
Read more here http://www.businessinsider.com.au/atlassian-ceo-mike-cannon-brookes-accel-partners-2016-9
You can read Cannon-Brookes’ full interview with Recode/Decode here>> http://www.recode.net/2016/9/8/12854474/atlassian-mike-cannon-brookes-australia-recode-decode-podcast-transcript
Sunday, September 11, 2016
10 rules for equity investing
Great tips from John Cleese and Aberdeen
10 rules of equity investing - great video clips by Aberdeen and John Cleese
1. Who controls the company - are they aligned with shareholders - do you trust them
2. The most important asset is its people - what is quality of people and culture
3. Strong Balance sheet is key - a company has to sustain and overcome issues
4. Understand what you are buying - if something is too good to be true - and you don't understand it - it probably is
5. Think long term - avoid getting involved in daily noise of market fluctuations - gray investments need time to grow
6. Benchmarks are for measuring - don't just follow the crowd - think different to the benchmark
7. Be wary of over-ambition and companies delving into something that's not in their area of expertise
8. Do your own research - don't only rely on brokers - visit the company - make your own assessment
9. Take advantage of irrational Behavior - arbitrage - markets are driven by humans - humans are irrational - buy low sell high
10. Make sure that the competitive advantage of the company is sustainable
Saturday, September 10, 2016
State of Plat from Nab
1. ‘World Population Ageing 2015: Highlights’, ESA, UN. 2. Facebook and Worldometers.info. 3. ‘Go on guess: The global rate-cut tally since 2008’, Financial Times. Note: As at 25 March 2016. The total covers central banks in developed economies, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, South Africa and Asia. Some smaller economies may not be captured. 4.‘Transforming World Atlas, 2015’, Bank of America Merrill Lynch. 5. ‘Negative-yield debt breaks $10 trillion level for first time’, Financial Times, https://next.ft.com/content/37eb6964-2908-11e6-8ba3-cdd781d02d89, as at 4 July 2016. 6. FactSet and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. 7. ‘China GDP growth slips to 6.7% as stimulus eases down’, Financial Times, https://next.ft.com/content/faa4576c-0203-11e6-9cc4-27926f2b110c, as at 4 July 2016. 8. ‘Private equity 2016 forecast and deskbook’, Probitas Partners. 9. Crude oil prices: West Texas Intermediate (WTI) – Cushing Oklahoma, Economic Research, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. 10. Quarterly Perspectives Australia 2Q 2016, JP Morgan Asset Management. 11. ‘HM Treasury analysis: the immediate economic impact of leaving the EU’, HM Government, May 2016, www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/524967/hm_treasury_analysis_the_immediate_economic_impact_of_leaving_the_eu_web.pdf, as at 12 July 2016. 12. OECD calculations. http://www.oecd.org/economy/the-economic-consequences-of-brexit-a-taxing-decision.htm 13.www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/negotiating-the-economic-cross-currents-20160311-gngezp.html, as at 5 July 2016. 14. Statement by Glenn Stevens, Governor: Monetary Policy Decision, 3 May 2016, RBA. 15. Catalogue number 6401.0 – Consumer Price Index, Australia, March 2016, Australian Bureau of Statistics and RBA. 16. ‘F4 - Retail deposit and investment rates’, June 2016, RBA. 17. 2016 Long-term investing report’, Russell Investments and ASX, May 2016.
Working crazy hours impresses no one . It helps no one
Donald Trump has been endlessly knocking Hillary Clinton for sleeping calling out her lack of stamina, as he brags about not needing much sleep!
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer ( now ex) , said in a recent Bloomberg BusinessWeek interview that she regularly pulls all nighters, and can judge a startup's chances for success by whether people are working on the weekends and 130 hours in a week, referring to the value hard work played in Google's success.
Working more than 55 hours a week is bad for you– in many ways This has got to stop. The idea that being well-rested could be a black mark against a leader is preposterous. And even if a super early wake-up time works for some people -- if you're having to get up at 4 a.m. to avoid distractions in your day, there's probably something wrong with how we're working.
4 in 10 Americans don't use all the vacation time allotted and a Gallup poll found that 50 percent of people work more than 40 hours a week, and the average, nearly 47 hours a week in 2014, and has been creeping up for years.
The expectation of crazy hours is strong enough that one researcher found some men pretend to work an 80-hour week, even when they don't.
Research, time and time again, shows negative effects on people's health, on turnover, on absenteeism, on productivity.
Studies have shown that after about 50 hours a week, productivity actually decreases
Amazon.will soon launch an experiment that sets up technical teams made up solely of part-time workers, earning benefits and salaries - naturally at lesser pay - and outputs will probably increase!
Pip Marlow's keynote saying that Microsoft is changing from Activity based focus to outcomes based focus really resonated with me . If you can achieve your outcome in 5 minutes while sitting on the toilet.... In my view .... Happy Days
People don't buy what you do .... They buy why you do it!
Article inspired from Washington post article by Jane McGregor https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2016/09/01/stop-touting-the-crazy-hours-you-work-it-helps-no-one-2/
Friday, September 09, 2016
Wednesday, September 07, 2016
The rise and rise of eWAY: Matt Bullock’s story
Sometimes you get the pleasure of being privy to the inner workings of a truly successful and driven person. This February saw Matt Bullock take the floor at Innovation Bay in Sydney. If you’ve ever purchased anything in Australia, chances are Matt’s company eWAY has processed your credit card payment. One dollar in every four spent online in Australia is processed by his company.
Matt spoke about where he came from, where he is and where he’s heading
We’re introduced to Matt as a 16 year old Canberran. He’s at school writing code. He sells his code to mates who then on-sell it. He starts small. He then takes a consulting job - the last time he had a boss. He saved $50,000, left the government job, and became his own boss, launching his startup with that nest egg.
His first customer sold bicycle parts. His biggest customer paid for everything that was required in his business. It didn’t take long.
Matt’s ownership structure is simple: he owns it.
He’s never taken venture funding - and it’s been offered - but he’s never taken it, because he’s never needed it. Matt is open about his revenue model. The company takes a clip of each transaction, but it also has a capital arm; lending merchants money to complete ecommerce sites. So far they’ve lent $250K.
eWAY have grown fast, with 80 staff managed from their main office in Canberra with offices across Auckland, Edinburgh and Toronto. Their transactions were to the tune of $5.8bill last year. But there’s no time to stop, with each month’s numbers needing to be built upon in the following month. This has led Matt and the team to change processes, look at hiring more people. There’s a bigger opportunity for the company now than ever, with a huge proportion of Australian businesses not having an ecommerce functionality. His customer number is 24,000 and growing. The eWAY narrative is resonant of many fintech success stories, their agility as a business far eclipses the banks. It’s taking eWAY mere hours to do what it takes financial institutions weeks. eWAY align themselves with anyone who link the market and make it easier for someone to make a payment, so Visa, MasterCard, Amex and Paypal are all on eWAY’s Christmas Card list. Having said that, they’re also connected to 27 banks globally.
And they’ve never been broken. I’ll repeat that: eWAY has never been broken.
What sets Matt apart?
It’s a number of things. He doesn’t have a formal board, he’s his own Sole Director. If there’s a problem, everyone is involved in resolving it. He does have a coach though, who Matt says has “been a really important part of my life”. He’s found a coach that shares his dream and encourages him. When he first started with his coach Matt had 27 employees.
Matt started out coding, but his calling was elsewhere. As CEO he has a team with far more talent at writing code, but Matt’s background arms him with the knowledge to confidently call bullshit on development progress.
Day to day, Matt prefers to look at processes. Fixated with automating things, Matt tends to pick something that is broken and work hard to fix it.
After experimenting with other programs, Matt is entirely happy with Salesforce and attributes it to being able to provide the service that eWAY prides itself on. It’s the eyes and the ears for Matt and the team, knowing every single activity that the customer has taken. From there, the team can call the customer to expertly and explicitly engage with them in the right context. Salesforce synchronicity didn’t come easy: it took three goes for them to get it right. And now they’re hooked: literally. They have 72 TV screens in the office broadcasting all their data from Salesforce - big data. When a sale happens, it’s on the screen.
Right time, right place
eWAY has been fortunate to benefit from the right environment and climate. Their location in Canberra means that they’re a diamond in the rough, standing out amongst a litany of government and education job opportunities. They haven’t needed to lure people in with equity offerings.
Their attitude to recruitment and retention? They have built a culture and attracted executive and specialist talent to the business who are passionate about their mission. This has been their biggest draw, and as the business has grown they have been able to compete with market rates to hire top executives.
What Matt does have is bucket loads of vision, but he knows how to manage it. He focuses on one thing that he’ll build or fix for the year. We look forwarding to following the continued growth and successes of eWAY.
Tuesday, September 06, 2016
Car fanatic cashes-in: Blog started by a 21-year-old that grew into the Car Advice website sells for $35million
- The CarAdvice website started as a car blog in 2006 by a 21-year-old
- Alborz Fallah started it in his parents' Brisbane home and it became a site
- Now the website has an annual turnover of $15m and has about 40 staff
- Channel Nine acquired a majority stake after making an offer of $35m
- The 21-year-old was just nine when he came from Iran to Australia
By Tanya li - For Daily Mail in Australua
The CarAdvice website, which was obtained by Channel Nine for $35 million on Thursday, came from humble beginnings.
When Alborz Fallah started a car blog a decade ago at 21 in the spare bedroom of his parents' Brisbane home, little did he know it would grow into a website with an annual turnover of about $15 million.
Nine Digital acquired a majority stake in the website after making an offer to shareholders who voted to accept the offer in a meeting in Sydney, news.com.au reported.
Monday, September 05, 2016
Sprooki going for growth
Picture from the Australian
Sprooki offers a location-based mobile engagement platform for malls and retailers to engage with their customers - and is well positioned to capitalise on the huge impact of mobility on commerce, says Miss Mula
“All the retailers I speak to in Australia say that up to 50 per cent of their online traffic is coming from mobile devices,” she said.
Sprooki is planning on launching its first deployment in Australia at Sydney’s Manly Wharf precinct, as well as an ASX listing in the “near future.”
To prepare for this growth, former Westpac and Commonwealth Bank CIO Bob McKinnon has become chairman, and will join the board along with Jack Hanrahan who just completed an eight-year role as General Manager of Retailer Relations at Scentre Group Limited, an ASX-listed company with a portfolio of more than 40 retail shopping centres across Australia and New Zealand.
Watch this space!!!
Saturday, September 03, 2016
Are Gold Stocks Are In For the Rebound Of The Century?
• 22 Likes • 7 Comments
This Chart Predicts $4,000 to $8,500 Gold! – What Happens If The Current Gold Bull Market Performs Like Previous Ones
The current gold bull market is just over 6 months old, and while it has not been a gentle ride, it is very much expected considering the volatility of previous bull markets. That being said, we are just getting started. Using a sports analogy, according to our estimates we are not even halfway through the second inning using the average duration of the previous three bull markets.
Here is what the current gold bull market could look like if we used previous gains as a proxy:
Historically, the longer the preceding bear market, the longer the bull market that followed. When the bear market ended in December 2015, it marked the end to the longest gold bear market in centuries. We predict the current market will match the 2001-2008 bull and then some, and gold will break $5,000 an ounce when it’s all said and done.
On another note, the entire Palisade Global team will be in Toronto at the end of the month for the Mines and Money conference. If you have any mining related opportunities or would simply like to meet, shoot us an email at info@palisadeglobal.com
Do you like our work? Sign-up for free at www.palisade-research.com
Very Best,
Sean
Thursday, September 01, 2016
Wyatt's new job
Former assistant minister for innovation Wyatt Roy has landed himself a new gig, as an independent director at H2Ocean, a proposed publicly listed venture capital fund that will be investing in financial services technologies. The fund is being launched by the founders of H2 Ventures, Ben and Toby Heap, and Roy is one of three directors, alongside TV presenter David Koch and Beyond Bank chair Anne O’Donnell. It’s Roy’s first gig since losing the seat of Longman to Labor’s Susan Lamb on July 2, and the H2Ocean prospectus says that he will receive $60,000 a year for the job, as well as holding 10,000 shares.
Founder Ben Heap told StartUpSmart that Roy’s youth is a strength: “Diversity is really important with what we’re trying to do with H2Ocean, and that includes age diversity. He is someone who knows the challenges, experiences and ambitions of millennial-style innovators, founders and entrepreneurs.”
The ex-MP told StartUpSmart:
“If you look at the tech disruption or increased competition in the financial technology space we’re seeing an incredible opportunity to give customers and consumers a better experience and better outcome, and Australia is well placed to do this … H2Ocean represents an exciting and new opportunity to play a role in that space. This opens up the alternative investment space for retail investors and that predominantly hasn’t been the case today.”
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