☕️Gut Feel

Good morning.

Are Australian VCs way behind the curve on using AI to screen out bias? Apparently so. While US VC firms are already leveraging the tech, Aussie counterparts still rely heavily on “gut instinct” to make decisions about founders and investments.

Bronwen Clune reports that we’re at risk of “pattern recognitioning” our way to a landscape filled with startups that look the same and tend to solve for familiar problems. It will take guts, but perhaps we should leave the unpredictable organs at the door during pitches in 2024?

🏆 LOI Subscriber #TBD

Market movers

Whispers have broken into shouts as an all-out bidding war whipped up interest in the beleaguered tech communications firm, Whispir on Wednesday. Pendula and Soprano have both upped original bids this week, with Pendula’s 60 cents per share offer currently favoured by Whispir’s board over Soprano’s 55 cents per share (contingent on achieving at least 27.5% aggregate interest in the company by Friday). Whispir stock closed at $0.56 Wednesday, up almost 9%.

Together with Stake | Invest on Wall St and the ASX

The quick sync

• Investors price in more UK rate cuts as inflation unexpectedly plunges to 3.9%. (Capital Brief)

• Apple is on track to become the first US$4 trillion market cap by the end of 2024. (AFR)

• Rinehart’s $1.7b bid for Azure Minerals sheds more light on her lithium strategy. (Capital Brief)

• Group CEO of Alibaba Eddie Wu strengthens his grip on the tech giant, taking control of its ecommerce division, on top of his cloud business responsibilities. (Financial Times)

• UK court rules that AI bots cannot be named as inventors for patents as they are not “natural humans.” (Bloomberg)

• Google implements sweeping ad sales restructuring as it increases its reliance on machine learning tools. (The Information)

Trading floor

M&A

• Orica acquires Terra Insights for $559m to complement Orica Digital Solutions, including GroundProbe technology. (Capital Brief)

• The collapse of Adobe's attempt to acquire Figma has poured cold water over any potential acquisition of Canva. (AFR)

CAPITAL MARKETS

• Ofload has reportedly completed a $27m financing round to expedite its efforts in digitising Australia's logistics industry. (AFR)

• PEXA shares drop 8% after the Smoove acquisition announcement. (Capital Brief)

• Shaw and Partners initiated a block trade for Gentrack Group, offering a 10% stake in the software maker. (AFR)

VC

• None

People moves

• PointsBet CFO Andrew Mellor to step down, replaced by Alister Lui after H1 earnings release in February. (Capital Brief)

• John Cincotta, will join the ANZ Bank board as a non-executive director from February 15, stepping down from his role at Barrenjoey. (Capital Brief)

The watercooler