Done Deal: A collation of recent fundings secured, contracts inked and deals did, for the tl;dr crowd (16-5-16)
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9 Spokes has confirmed a A$25 million initial public offering that could raise the value of the company to A$70 million.
According to the prospectus, the IPO will fund the business for at least the next 15 months. The company is yet to turn a profit. In 2015, it lost $6.6 million and expects to lose $5.4 million this year.
The company has also appointed former Telecom CEO Paul Reynolds as director.
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Image: Paul Reynolds
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The Chow Brothers have just opened the doors to the largest serviced office business in Wellington.
Michael Chow says the brothers have secured at least 25% of the leases for their architecturally designed Urban Hub situated over three floors of their Westpac building in Lambton Quay.
“Our architects Designgroup have done a great job in turning gutted floors into the trendy Urban Hub complete with corporate amenities, suitable for businesses with from one to 10 staff.”
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Image: The Chow brothers
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Wellington PR-person Katie Mathison has been voted in as president for the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand (PRINZ). She replaces outgoing president, Bruce Fraser who has held the role for the past two years.
Mathison says the she intends to uphold standards and encourage continual professional development pathways for PR professionals.
“PR and communications professionals work very much behind the scenes to enhance reputation and relationships,” Mathison says. “Done well, it’s a position of quiet trust and confidence, not glory and limelight.”
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NZ online payments provider Latipay has struck deals with two Chinese online payment platforms that could open the doors to New Zealanders wanting to sell to Chinese buyers.
New Zealand-based Latipay allows purchases of Kiwi products to be paid for in Chinese currency, and NZ business to be paid in Kiwi dollars.
The company says the agreements with Alibaba and WeChat will be a boon to New Zealand exporters, particularly the tourism and education sectors, and e-commerce providers.
“With exports to China worth $11.3 billion last year, every Kiwi knows about the importance of China as a trading partner,” say Latipay CEO Leigh Flounders. “Less known is how difficult it is for Chinese consumers to pay for our products in their own currency.”
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New Zealand Planning Institute chief executive Susan Houston takes up a new role next month as the first executive director for the New Zealand Defence Industry Association (NZDIA).
Houston has more than 20 years’ experience in leadership roles within government and not for profit organisations in New Zealand and Australia.
For the past six years she has driven change at NZPI, transforming the organisation into a highly regarded national institute that contributes to the direction of the country.
Houston says she will focus on “forging strong relationships with NZDIA’s partners such as the New Zealand Defence Force, the Ministry of Defence and wider national security and border protection agencies.
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Image: Susan Houston
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Social and digital listening platform Zavy has announced its agreement with DataSift that it says will provide direct access to aggregated and anonymous Facebook topic data from 1.59 billion active Facebook members.
Head of Zavy development, Antony Ede, said the partnership was a “game-changer” for the industry:
“Social media listening continues to grow globally as businesses and brands see the potential to gain insight into customer behavior. Zavy’s relationship with DataSift means for the first time we’re able to build a complete picture of how customers see brands.”
Through the partnership, Facebook topic data will be aggregated, anonymised and analysed by demographic profile of users across 60 attributes to deliver insights into human behaviour and brand performance.
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Done deal!
Done a deal we should know about? Get in contact and we’ll get it out there.