This Month
- Opinion
- Funding
The ‘missing middle’ stopping Australia from being a deep tech force
To see bold ambitions in areas like quantum computing, robotics and AI come to fruition, Australia must match rival countries and grow the “M” of its SMEs.
- Sally-Ann Williams
- Exclusive
- Quantum Computing
Quantum organisations to compete for $18.5m in funding
Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic is opening applications for the grants to Australian firms to create a national centre for quantum growth.
- Paul Smith
November
- Opinion
- Fast 100
Seven enduring lessons from 33 years of top start-ups
Over more than three decades, the Fast 100 has had its share of one-year wonders and flame-outs. But the success stories are staggering.
- James Thomson
- Opinion
- Fast 100
Three pieces of advice for growth companies
Against a tough economic backdrop, high-growth companies may get limited help from external sources of capital.
- Mark Summerhayes
This moonshot tech firm is Australia’s fastest growing company
Fleet Space Technologies, with a compound annual growth rate of 582 per cent over three years, is top of the Fast 100 class for 2023.
- Michael Bailey
Finance upstarts step in where banks fear to tread
Making it easier to send money back to family overseas was the key driver for the founders of EzyRemit.
- Alexandra Cain
- Opinion
- Fast 100
The category killers that defy any slowdown
Technology innovations can catch on no matter the economic weather, as this year’s lists show.
- Michael Bailey
Tech wreck pessimism no match for AI and Australia’s pet obsession
Mad Paws is struggling to win over ASX investors despite robust growth, while Aussie firms making autonomous vehicles and AI road cameras are thriving.
- Paul Smith
Lab-grown food may be the next great investment boom
It is no longer science fiction to envisage a day when half the world’s meat and dairy industry is displaced by food grown in vats.
- Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
‘Lifestyle businesses’ holding back the economy
The Albanese government’s innovation adviser has recommended better targeting small business grants to avoid risk-averse businesses that have no real ambition to grow.
- Ronald Mizen
China claims world’s fastest web with 1.2 terabits-a-second network
Huawei and China Mobile have built a 3000 kilometre internet system that they say is several times faster than typical speeds around the world.
- Bloomberg News
Australia and UK sign quantum computing accord
While in the UK for a global AI summit, science minister Ed Husic has signed a new agreement to co-operate with the UK on quantum computing technology.
- Paul Smith
October
Why your Lululemon yoga pants could be a good investment
An Australian start-up has found a way to turn plastics otherwise destined for landfill into yoga pants and T-shirts. And fashion brands are seeing an opportunity.
- Julie Hare
- Explainer
- Cryptocurrencies
Why banks are looking at real-world asset tokenisation
Banks spend billions each year on systems to track and finalise millions of trades. Could crypto help to streamline processes?
- James Eyers and Jessica Sier
Tokenisation of real-world assets is the killer app for crypto
What if crypto was not only a speculative asset class but a new technology stack for financial markets?
- James Eyers and Jessica Sier
Big ideas trump commercialisation for new CSIRO boss
Doug Hilton has laid out plans for it to help answer the big questions facing society, while also making some money along the way.
- Updated
- Tess Bennett
How crypto is forcing banks, funds towards new digital asset markets
The market cap of cryptocurrencies is $1 trillion. But real-world assets are valued at $800 trillion. How much could be “tokenised” onto blockchains to create efficiencies?
- James Eyers
Why this Australian seaweed farmer is setting his sights on Europe
The intense pressure on British and European farmers to cut methane emissions has opened up a major market opportunity for Tasmanian start-up Sea Forest.
- Hans van Leeuwen
September
Cardboard drone maker used in Ukraine is Australia’s top innovator
Sypaq has won the 2023 AFR Boss Most Innovative Companies Award, for its flat packed cardboard drones, which have been serving on the front line in Ukraine.
- Paul Smith
- Analysis
- BOSS Most Innovative Companies
Old hands can be disruptors too
Some of the finalists in the 2023 AFR BOSS Most Innovative Companies awards are not start-ups, but companies that have been around for a few decades or more.
- Sally Patten
