In this news special we cover Adore Beauty’s ASX debut, lots of recent local raises from the likes of Linktree, Sundrive, Zero Co, v2food, and SafetyCulture and the downfall of Quibi. Elections are up for discussion, including how the outcome of the US election could affect local startups and the results of the Queensland election. We also discuss Antler Sydney’s hot streak and the arrival of the “no-code” generation.

As always, we cover recent local and global deals like 99designs being acquired by Vistaprint, an oversubscribed Epi Minder Series A, Hopin raising a new round at a valuation of as much as $2 billion, and two new deals from agtech-focused VC firm Tenacious Ventures.

Chris Hitchen is the Germany-based, Australian-born Founder and Managing Partner of Inventures. Inventures invests €100k – €500k globally in early stage tech companies and actively helps founders reach their first institutional VC Round.

Today’s guest is Melissa Widner, an experienced founder, CEO, investor and board member. She very recently left NAB Ventures to join Lighter Capital, one of NAB’s portfolio companies, as CEO. Lighter Capital is the pioneer and leading provider of revenue based financing to SAAS companies.

Our panel discussed the explosion of e-commerce in Australia, changes to the JobKeeper program, and recent revelations about the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Some other topics include the launch of Amazon’s new indoor home drone, Airtree’s new explorer program, and easing restrictions in Melbourne. We also talk about recent raises from companies including Airwallex, Airbirds, Snapper and Catalyst and IPOs from Adore Beauty, Palantir and Asana.

Daniel Darling is the founder and managing partner of Darling Ventures, an early stage VC firm based in San Francisco. Daniel is an Aussie that’s been working in the California tech scene for over a decade. He started his journey on the founding team of Mobile Interactive Group, an advertising tech startup that was acquired by NASDAQ-listed Velti for $60M.

Some of the biggest headlines our panel discussed are the continuing war over media bargaining between the Government and the tech giants, and what to expect from the the Federal budget in a few weeks. We also talk about the Safety Culture’s first acquisition of EdApp, Atlassian’s announcement of a new $70M venture fund, plus Snowflakes record breaking IPO with predictions on which other unicorns will go public.

Large buildings are both economically and environmentally costly to operate. David Walsh saw lots of data flowing in and around these inefficient buildings but there was no focus on using this data to find or fix the root causes of wastage. That’s why he founded CIM in 2013. CIM’s platform analyses building data to detect faults and inefficiencies that are wasting energy, saving their customers money and improving environmental outcomes.

Olivia Humphrey is the founder, former CEO, and current executive chairman of Kanopy, the award-winning video streaming service for universities and libraries. She worked in media rights management at the BBC and Village Roadshow for 10 years before founding Kanopy in Perth back in 2008.

Some of the biggest headlines our panel discussed include the federal government’s news battle vs. Facebook and Google, recent volatility in tech stocks, and big upcoming tech IPOs. We also talk about the launch of Second Quarter Ventures, the new secondary fund from David Tarascio, Andrew Spykes, Ian Beatty, and Leigh Jasper, the role tech jobs will play in Australia’s economic recovery, and Elon Musk’s Nuralink chip.

Olympia Yarger, founder and CEO of GoTerra, is converting food waste into livestock feed by using robots, AI, and maggots. Yes, maggots. After years of working across many different agriculture sectors, Olympia knew she wanted to find a new way to help farmers and make farms more efficient. It was only when she starting farming insects to feed her own poultry that she stumbled upon the solution.

Our panel covers recent funding news, including raises by See Mode, Buildkite, SpaceX and Blackbird’s new fund. Some other key topics include Canva and Atlassian blasting changes to R&D tax scheme, the COVID-19 Global Venture Funding report from Crunchbase, and AirBnb’s upcoming IPO.