Street Talk

This investing platform wants a piece of Australia’s $4trn super pot

Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport

Feb 13, 2025 – 7.34pm

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Pearler, the online platform which launched four years ago hoping to make a penny off the so-called get rich slow movement, has decided to look further afield. The platform, founded by friends Nick Nicolaides, Hayden Smith and Kurt Walkom, is weeks away from launching a superannuation offering.

The start-up has gone to its existing investor base – Canadian fintech investor Portage Ventures, Steve Baxter’s Ten13 and Archangel Ventures – to raise $3 million in a pre-series A funding round for Pearler Super. This comes two years after Pearler raised $7.8 million in seed funding.

Sarah Thompson has co-edited Street Talk since 2009, specialising in private equity, investment banking, M&A and equity capital markets stories. Prior to that, she spent 10 years in London as a markets and M&A reporter at Bloomberg and Dow Jones.

Kanika Sood is a journalist based in Sydney who writes for the Street Talk column.

Emma Rapaport is a co-editor of the Street Talk column. Prior to that, she was a markets reporter at The Australian Financial Review.