Video games have a long history of polarising the community. Back in 1999, when it was revealed that the shooters of the Columbine massacre were players of Doom — a retro first-person shooter with satanic themes — it created a moral panic about the impact of violent video games. Further to this, an R-rating for video... Read more ..read more

Two-thirds of startups don’t believe their security and compliance are up to scratch. And you can get by until the moment when you’re on the brink of massive success. Vanta sales engineer Oscar Watson-Smith sees it all the time, when founders come to him in a state of panic when they’re trying to scale quickly... Read more ..read more

Swedish electric speedboat startup Candela is finally in Australia, making its debut at the Sydney International Boat Show next week. While New Zealanders have been enjoying the Candela’s electric boats (EBs) for two years , they’ve now crossed The Ditch, thanks to luxury boat distributor Carbon Yachts. Carbon’s Mary Bickley said they’ll be will be... Read more ..read more

Swedish electric speedboat startup Candela is finally in Australia, making its debut at the Sydney International Boat Show next week. While New Zealanders have been enjoying the Candela’s electric boats (EBs) for two years , they’ve now crossed The Ditch, thanks to luxury boat distributor Carbon Yachts. Carbon’s Mary Bickley said they’ll be will be... Read more ..read more

Rocket developer and satellite launcher Gilmour Space Technologies will kick off a new suborbital flight test service in Australia next year for commercial and defence customers that require hypersonic speeds above Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound). The move comes amid frustrating delays in approval to launch the first Australian-made orbital rocket, developed... Read more ..read more

Australia may get the world’s first quantum computer by 2027, but within 12 months, PsiQuantum plans to build a second one in Chicago after scoring another massive government funding deal. The California startup’s latest cash injection of US$500 million (A$760m) over 30 years, funded by the Illinois government, Cook County, and the City of Chicago... Read more ..read more

Hospitality entrepreneur Stevan Premutico is stepping down from the board of me&u, the ordering platform he founded, and away from the business in the wake of its merger with Mr Yum. “I am immensely proud of what the team has achieved. We began with an ambitious idea to transform how we order and pay in restaurants & bars around the world,” he said on LinkedIn, calling last orders on his time at business he founded in 2019,” he said in a post on LinkedIn. “Today, we are the #1 order and pay platform globally with $2 billion in annual sales and 6,000 restaurant partners across three con ..read more

While social media has created a chimera of connection, isolation and loneliness have been on the rise. In response there’s been an upswing in IRL (in real life) alternatives such as run clubs where people connect around shared passions. And while apps such as Tinder and Bumble have mostly focused on finding a date and/or booty call, a new digital solution to help people find their tribe has emerged to solve the problem of finding new friends to share moments with. Butter is the brainchild of Melbourne entrepreneur and Founder Institute alumni Sam Richardson. She set out to create a social imp ..read more

The discourse is awash with advice for founders, from lifestyle (getting up at 4am/cold plunging/meditating/one meal a day) to the musts of making an enterprise viable (study your customers; focus on problems, not solutions; build a great team; mission beats ego).  In my experience, having been a founder, an early leader at Canva, and a mentor to many startup founders, some of the best advice is quite contrarian. For globally-focused startups, which are by definition aiming for a 5% growth rate week-on week, this advice can outright contradict what is widely thought founders should be aim ..read more

Square Peg is raising for a sixth fund, as well as a new “Opportunities Fund 3”, but cofounder Paul Bassat has promised more money will go back into investor pockets than they will invest in the years ahead. Twelve years on, Bassat said in Square Peg’s half-yearly update to June 2024 that “the last two years have been the toughest since our inception”, and “perhaps” the toughest for venture investors in two decades, but the VC has seen its “best years of performance” in the last 24 months. “We have seen our best-performing portfolio companies continue to create significant value, we have ident ..read more