Carl Prins

Want to find $3,000 in your budget? Start with your UberEats habit. The Australian Financial Review published an eye-opening analysis on food delivery apps, and if you're serious about fighting cost-of-living pressures, you need to read it (I’ll share the link in the comments.) Australians are paying 36% more when ordering through delivery apps compared to picking up the same food themselves. That $40 order becomes $54 before delivery fees. We're spending an average of $60 per week on food delivery in Australia, that’s over $3,000 annually on convenience alone. And while we're paying more, restaurants are earning less. They hand over 33% of every order to platforms like UberEats, DoorDash, and Menulog. One Sydney owner admitted that if app orders exceed 60% of his business, he'd operate at a loss. These are the same businesses that barely survived COVID lockdowns. They adapted, fought to stay open, and now we're inadvertently undermining them by choosing convenience over community. I know I'd rather cook at home and occasionally eat out at local restaurants to genuinely support them. When you dine in or pick up directly, you're investing in the economic fabric of your community. Cutting back on food delivery is one of the easiest ways to fight inflation in your personal budget. That $3,000 a year could go toward your emergency fund, your super, or your next holiday. Our local economy depends on small businesses thriving, not just surviving. Let's support them properly.

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When we started Fundsorter we were trying to make funding easier for recipients. Turns out we can also give the sector unprecedented insights into where funding actually goes as well. Checkout this report for analysis of where 68 million over 6,000 grants in the Christchurch region went. I've been working on tooling to make it easier for us to do this for other regions and sectors - hit up Lani Evans MNZM if you want to see more of this.

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The delta between opportunities for startups and the founders themselves is huge. There are government grants, startup programmes and private funding opportunities that don't get maximised because they can't find the founders and projects. What Founders Want is bridging that gap and I'm happy to be able to help Lane Litz connect the dots as an Ecosystem Expert. DM or tag me with opportunities that help founders raise, save or make money and I'll get them to the founders via WFW Monthly. Founders - check out WFW March edition. Link in comments.

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If you haven't listened to this one yet, add it to your list. Jeanne DeWitt Grosser, our COO at Vercel, on what it actually takes to scale a go-to-market motion in the AI era. Zero fluff. Thanks Georgie and the In The Blink of AI team ✨

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SERD Report Recommends Changes to the R&D Tax Incentive: A Matter of Complexity The wait is over (and we know you've been waiting)! The Expert Panel for the Strategic Examination of R&D (SERD) has released its Final Report: Ambitious Australia. As far as the R&D Tax Incentive (RDTI) has been concerned, it's been a bumpy ride. Left out of the original Terms Of Reference, a wave of submissions were received highlighting the role of the RDTI as a central tenet of Australian innovation policy and one that needed to be front and centre of any systemic review. As a result, the Panel produced an R&D Incentives Issues Paper that made a series of recommendations and many of these appear in the Ambitious Australia report. Rather than reproducing the recommendations in this Update, MJA will review the details in the coming days and provide analysis via future editions of the MJA Update. However, at first glance, it is difficult to alter the conclusion we reached earlier with regards to the position taken in the Issues Paper. The stated aim in both the Paper and the Report was to simplify and better target the existing RDTI system. If that's the case, then these recommendations fail to achieve the objective. In fairness, there are some sensible improvements and changes recommended, and we will highlight these in subsequent editions. But there are real problems with some of the assumptions made by the Panel, the basic nomenclature used and the fact that several of the ideas put forward (e.g., quarterly rebate payments in certain circumstances) have previously not survived the pathway to being legislated. The arm's length nature of the SERD review process, where only limited public consultation sessions occurred and interested parties were confined to written submissions only, has led to a feeling that the SERD Panel has been playing catch up since they forgot to include the RDTI in the original Terms Of Reference. This lack of engagement has resulted in several compounding errors in its recommendations. There is an acute irony in the fact that these recommendations have emerged the day after it was announced that DISR and the ATO had 'retired" the RDTI Stakeholder Reference Group, ending the last remaining consultative mechanism available to the Australian innovation community with respect to the program. As we head next to the political reaction, the word, 'engagement', must be front and centre. MJA will do its utmost to ensure that this happens. Should you wish to discuss any aspect of this article, do not hesitate to contact me on 0411 171 596 or at kris.gale@mjassociates.com.au

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Some of Australia's most notable fintech founders say the ESVCLP scheme should not just grow, but provide clearer guidelines for investors.

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In the last video, Josh explained how your SMSF setup impacts your borrowing potential. Now, he breaks down how lenders actually assess borrowing capacity based on employer contributions and additional contributions like rental and investment income. 👉 Follow us for practical insights to make your SMSF work smarter for you. #SMSF #Superannuation #FinancialPlanning #InvestSmart #FinancialFreedom #EfficientCapitalSolutions #WealthManagement #BorrowingCapacity

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Fintech startup Kiwi secures $24 million from Vertex Ventures SE Asia & India and existing investors Existing investors Nexus Venture Partners, Omidyar Network and Stellaris Venture Partners also participated in the round. The company plans to use the fresh capital to launch credit lines on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) within the next six months, a product that has been in the works since the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) gave its approval in September 2023.

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In a tightening SME lending environment, speed alone isn’t enough anymore. What brokers and SMEs are really looking for is clarity upfront - clear credit insights, consistent decisioning, and fewer surprises once a deal is in motion. That’s why access to real-time commercial credit data at the point of application is becoming critical, helping brokers understand how a deal is likely to be assessed before it’s locked in. As CEO Nick McGrath puts it: “Speed will always matter, but in the current environment, certainty matters just as much.” By integrating Equifax’s commercial credit data directly into our market leading broker portal, brokers see the same information that informs our credit view - creating alignment early, reducing friction, and enabling more confident advice to SMEs. Read more on how credit decisioning is evolving and why upfront visibility matters more than ever - https://lnkd.in/eT572thq

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Kogan.com (ASX: KGN; Kogan, or the Group) announced its results for the 6 months ended 31 December 2025 (1H FY26) this morning.  As a non-executive #director of the Group, I am proud of the result delivered by the entire team, led by Ruslan Kogan and David Shafer. 1H FY26 saw Kogan.com firing on all cylinders, generating strong growth in revenue and expanded EBITDA margins, highlighting the operating leverage within that business, the major part of the Group.  At the same time Mighty Ape stabilised as the turnaround strategy continues to be executed. The Group enters the 2H FY26 with a clear objective of continuing to invest in long-term sustainable growth.  The team's focus remains on delivering growing earnings margins within Kogan.com, cementing the recovery of Mighty Ape, and targeting further process and cost optimisation.  Along with this, the Group expects to continue the strong momentum of its Platform-based Sales and Kogan Products performance. #eCommerce #StrategicFocus #ASX

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This one's been a long time coming. Today we're officially announcing that AiGentic Group has acquired a majority stake in Discovery Alert - Australia's fastest-growing mining and energy media platform. In just 12 months, DA has scaled to 400,000 monthly readers with zero paid traffic, partnered with over 100 ASX-listed companies, and picked up multiple global awards for AI innovation. But this isn't just about what Discovery Alert has already done. It's about what comes next. I founded AiGentic Group six months ago with a clear thesis: the companies that embrace agentic AI now will build the media brands of the next decade. We're not adapting legacy systems. We're building from scratch, AI-native from day one, using the best models available at every layer of the stack. Discovery Alert proved the model works. The speed, the scale, the quality of output - it validated everything we believed about what AI-native media could be. Bringing it under the AiGentic Group banner was the obvious next step. And we're just getting started. AiGentic Labs, our technology arm, is already building tools and capabilities that will take Discovery Alert and our other platforms to another level entirely. We've secured Google Cloud funding to accelerate that development. But the thing that excites me most is that every time the underlying AI models we use improve, our entire ecosystem upgrades with them. That's the power of building AI-native. To the Discovery Alert team, our clients, and every reader who helped us get here - thank you. More announcements coming very soon. Watch this space. 🚀 #AiGenticGroup #DiscoveryAlert #AiGenticLabs #AgenticAI #ASX #FounderJourney #AIMedia #StartupAustralia #MiningNews #EnergyNews

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There is a significant opportunity for Australia to become the world’s clean manufacturing engine. Our work with Powering Australia has identified the areas where we hold strong advantages — and what we must do to unlock this intergenerational opportunity. This report is the first in a series that explores, in depth, the actions needed to make this a reality. Thanks to Shannon O'Rourke for entrusting us with this important analysis. Will Symons Andrea Culligan Peter Holt Matt Judkins

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I recently talked to a founder who told me: "At this point, we are going to prioritise cash investment." It’s a valid strategy. For a long time, raising a "priced round" to extend the runway was the only tool in the founders' toolkit. But as the Australian ecosystem matures, I’m seeing a shift in how some sophisticated founders approach their runway. They are moving from 𝗖𝗮𝗽𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗥𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 to 𝗖𝗮𝗽𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴. The difference is subtle but important: • Capital Raising asks: "How much equity do I need to sell to survive 18 months?" • Capital Stack Thinking asks: "What combination of tools will get me to the next milestone most efficiently?" When you keep an open mind to the full stack, you realise you have more levers to pull than just "selling shares for cash to extend the runway". For example, a capital stack may look like a layer cake: 🔹 𝗘𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘁𝘆: The foundation. Essential for high-risk growth and operations. 🔹 𝗩𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝗯𝘁: The bridge. Great for managing working capital or extending runway between rounds. 🔹 𝗥&𝗗 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴: The accelerator. Bringing forward tax incentives to smooth cash flow. 🔹 𝗘𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗖𝗮𝗽𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹: The resource. Using equity to secure capabilities (like team augmentation) directly to scale up while preserving cash for commercial growth. The goal isn't to replace cash. The goal is to 𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗲 it. By mixing these tools, founders often reach the same destination (18 months of runway) but with more optionality and control at the finish line. The market has evolved. The toolkit has expanded. Make sure you aren't leaving tools in the box.

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As we've built Exitwise, we’ve spent the last three years talking to founders. Not the "everything is great" PR-version of founders, but the "we almost went bankrupt on Tuesday" version. Along the way we've come to realize two things: 1/ The best advice happens when the cameras aren't supposed to be rolling. 2/ We're about to stop keeping those conversations to ourselves. Coming soon. You might want to clear some space in your ears. 🎧

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The roll-up strategy is virtually nonexistent in the Aussie ecosystem — which is a massive missed opportunity. I've led an ecommerce roll-up before. The value from valuation arbitrage and operational streamlining is real. AI roll-ups could be even more compelling. The thesis isn't complicated: acquire undervalued AI-native or AI-adjacent businesses, centralise ops, apply a repeatable growth playbook, capture the multiple expansion. In more mature markets, this is already happening. In Australia? Nothing. For it to work here, someone needs to nail 3 things: — Deep sector expertise — A rigorous diligence playbook — An airtight integration playbook The opportunity is real. The execution bar is just higher than most people realise. If you're working on this, thinking about it, or know someone who is - drop a comment or DM me. Actively trying to find my people on this one.

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