Brisbane’s tech whiz kids seal billion dollar deals amid investor bonanza

It’s been a big week for Queensland’s tech sector, with mega deals boosting the fortunes of the young guns behind three of the state’s most successful start-ups.

Swyftx founders Angus Goldman and Alex Harper. Pictures supplied.

Brisbane’s financial wunderkinds are leading a billion dollar bonanza in the city’s tech sector with several deals this week showing the smart money is backing their business vision.

Swyftx founders Alex Harper and Angus Goldman on Wednesday sealed a $1.5bn deal to merge their cryptocurrency platform with Sydney-based finance firm Superhero.

Swyftx, started by the two 27-year-old men in 2018, becomes the first Australian business to bridge the gap between digital and traditional finance.

The deals comes as Logan-based workplace training firm Go1 raised over US$100 million from investors, boosting its value to more than $2bn. 

Audit firm SafetyCulture, which was founded in a Townsville garage and is now worth $2.5bn, meanwhile announced a multimillion dollar investment in a smaller tech start-up.

Swyftx’s Harper says the deal with Superhero, which specialises in equities and super, underscored the growing acceptance of cryptocurrency in the investment community.

“It was always part of our plan to create a financial ecosystem where people could trade different asset classes,” says Harper. “We envisage a platform where people can trade their Bitcoin for Tesla stock.” Goldman say that customers are increasingly demanding platform that are “one stop shops” for various investments.

Angus Goldman and Alex Harper from cryptocurrency platform Swyftx.

“About 64 per cent of customers on Swyftx also trade equities,” says Goldman, Swyftx was created after a chance meeting by the two men at a science camp a decade ago.

Cryptocurrency is increasingly being embraced by investors in the big end of town with monthly trades on the Swyftx platform averaging $3bn last year.

Harper, who says the company’s headquarters will remain in Brisbane, says that recent volatility in cryptocurrency had not driven the merger. “The deal with Superhero shows we are not taking a step backward,” he says.

GO GETTERS

Logan-based workplace training firm Go1 has raised over US$100 million from investors, including AirTree Ventures, Blue Cloud Ventures, and SoftBank, that now values it at more than $2bn.

Go1 chief executive Andrew Barnes says the new capital will help Go1 meet its goal of reaching a billion learners with upskilling, reskilling and knowledge tools.

North America recently emerged as Go1’s largest market while the company also has announced a further step into the European market with the acquisition of Coorpacademy.

The e-learning company also had offices in Malaysia and Singapore.

Go1 co-founders Chris Hood, Chris Eigeland, Vu Tran, and Andrew Barnes. Picture: Liam Kidston.

The new investment round coincides with key appointments to Go1’s leadership team. In addition to recently welcoming Marc Havercroft, formerly of SAP SuccessFactors, Go1 has hired Ashleigh Loughnan as chief people officer, Ben Allen as chief marketing officer, Anatomy Ugoni as chief data officer and Jared Goralnick as senior vice president.

SAFETY FIRST

A tech firm that grew from a one-man show in a Townsville garage almost two decades ago into a billion dollar “unicorn” continues on the acquisition trail.

SafetyCulture, which developed the workplace inspection and checklist app iAuditor, this week announced a $3m investment in Sydney-based data software company Inauro.

Launched in 2020 by Craig Kesby and Angus Kennard, Inauro uses Internet of Things (IoT) technology across a range of industrial applications.

Luke Anear, founder and CEO SafetyCulture.

SafetyCulture chief executive and founder Luke Anear says Inauro will help the company automate many of the equipment checks for customers. SafetyCulture collects data from 800 million workplace checks a year, a lot of which are conducted manually.

SafetyCulture is now valued at more than $2 billion, making it one the newest members of the Australian unicorn club. A unicorn is a start-up company valued in excess of $1 billion.

Anear founded the company in 2004 after a career as an investigator for Workers Compensation. “I got tired of seeing everyday people injured in the workplace and decided to do something about it,” he said. “Being a company from regional Queensland, you have to be disciplined as you don’t have the support systems provided in the big cities. You live or die by the strength of your product if you are operating from a garage in Townsville.”