Welcome to another week of The Inner Loop. Jump right in:
Australian Fintech and Startups
There’s a new fund on the block - Galileo Ventures. It’s a $10m fund for emerging founders with a focus upon growth and sales. Awesome. Link
Swift is looking to move from purely transaction messaging to offer a range of transaction management services. Link
Quickfee and Splitit partnered to expand into the US. Link
86400 released an Open Banking product, similar to what Up did recently. Link
Big Tech
Apple announced some new hardware - a new Watch that measures your blood oxygen level. Nothing on new iPhones for now. Link. But, as Apple moves towards a service-driven company…
…they have released a whole bunch of new subscription bundles, including ‘Apple One’ which aggregates a bunch of services, e.g. Apple Music + Apple TV + Apple Arcade. Link
Musk and Cannon-Brookes are looking to collaborate on an eco-friendly response to ScoMo’s gas power plans. Link
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Potpourri
Qantas is offering travellers the opportunity to do a ‘scenic flight’, travelling nowhere, essentially for a fairly pricey joy ride. “Economy tickets were priced at $787, premium economy at $1,787 and business class was $3,787 but still the flight sold out in under 10 minutes yesterday.” Link
New neobank (tautology?) ‘Letter’ with the swankiest website I’ve seen in a long time. Link
Really interesting read: Central place theory. Random similarity to Settlers of Catan here. Link
Photo Archives
A look into the OG Stripe Office, in a room in San Fran. Link
Trivia
a) Beginning with P, what is the territorial unit within the church under the jurisdiction of a priest?
b) What area is greater? The total land area of the earth, or the total surface area of the moon?
c) The world’s southernmost McDonald’s is located at 110 Elles Road in what country?
d) Name the three US states that border California.
e) Beginning with the letter G, what is the official state dish of Louisiana that is believed to get its name from an African word for okra?
f) What word can be combined with place, wood and spit to form other words?
Jimmy’s Notes
Wrapping up another big week in tech - have a great weekend. If you’re looking for a good read this weekend, I’ve picked up ‘Outliers’ by Malcolm Gladwell. The book’s been around for a while but it’s a ripper read. Highly recommend.
Trivia Answers 👇
***
a) Parish
b) Land area of the earth (by a long shot) Earth
c) New Zealand
d) Arizona, Nevada and Oregon
e) Gumbo
f) Fire