Super fund Spaceship removes Atlassian’s Cannon-Brookes from ads
Millennial super fund Spaceship has removed all references to Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes from its marketing.
Millennial superannuation fund Spaceship has removed all references to Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes from its marketing, as two of its co-founders were reportedly pushed out of the venture.
The Australian understands the tech-focused super fund, which had used Atlassian co-founder and one of Australia’s wealthiest entrepreneurs Mike Cannon-Brookes heavily in its social media and website marketing, was asked to remove his image.
Spaceship’s website previously featured quotes from Mr Cannon-Brookes and splashed his face across advertising on Facebook and Twitter, imploring millennials to “invest your super where Mike Cannon-Brookes invests his super”. Spaceship has since rebranded its marketing to remove all references to Mr Cannon-Brookes.
It is understood the entrepreneur only recently invested his superannuation into the venture. A spokeswoman for Mr Cannon-Brookes said he has “a large portion of his super with Spaceship”.
Spaceship CEO Paul Bennetts declined to comment.
Spaceship, which has described itself as “Australia’s fastest growing financial services start-up” and claims to have more than $100 million in funds under management, has also seen management upheaval with former Goldman Sachs associate director Paul Bennetts ousting Spaceship co-founder Andrew Sellen to become CEO late last year.
Mr Sellen and fellow co-founder Dave Kuhn are no longer involved in the management of Spaceship.
According to a Spaceship press release issued last year the two came up with the idea “over a beer” in late 2015.
All references to them have been removed from Spaceship’s website, and Mr Bennetts contradicted that account when he told The Australian earlier this year “Kaushik (Sen, ex-AMP, ANZ) and I co-founded Spaceship”.
Both Mr Sellen and Mr Kuhn declined to comment.
Mr Bennetts said “Spaceship recently closed $19.5m in venture funding and we have a number of exciting announcements to come out over the next 12 months”.
The company this year raised a $19.5m funding round in the form of convertible notes from Peter Thiel’s venture capital fund Valar Ventures, Seqouia Capital and US firm New Enterprise Associates, as well as local investment group Airtree Ventures — Mr Bennetts’s former employer.
The upheaval comes after Spaceship parted ways with AFSL holder Grosvenor Pirrie Management, reportedly over a disagreement with the direction of the fund.
Documents show Spaceship’s new AFSL holder is Mark Thompson Advisory Services.
Grosvenor did not respond when contacted for comment on the change.
Only recession can make ‘ruthless’ Victoria great again
Not all is lost. Victoria has a clear competitive advantage across four world-beating exports and these mines won’t run dry. But first there will be pain.
Silence to settle NAB ‘boys club’ suit
Allegations that NAB’s markets business had a ‘boys club’ culture or that a former trader was threatened with a baseball bat will not be tested in court after the bank settled a long-running case.