It’s an exciting time for 1835i as ANZ continues to invest in partnerships to drive better customer engagement and bring the best of breed solutions to customers.
This focus aligns directly with our mission is to create and invest in businesses that drive value for ANZ, our customers and our partners. We do that through building, investing and partnering with those that are transforming financial services and that help:
● People saving for, buying, owning and selling their homes
● Entrepreneurs starting, running and growing small and medium size businesses
● Companies moving capital, goods and services around the world
● Transforming businesses through data, analytics and digital technologies.
Our Creation Lab partners with founders at different stages of their journey to design, build and launch new digital ventures. Prior to 2022, we launched three businesses to market, OneTwo Home Loans, Propps and The LandingPad.
Our fourth spinout company, DataCo Technologies, launched in April this year. The DataCo Collaboration Platform is a pioneering new technology platform to address how organisations safely test and realise the value of collaborating on data. It addresses some key problems for enterprises seeking to collaborate safely and securely and utilise data in a way which benefits consumers, and we’re looking forward to seeing what this can deliver.
While we connect founders who have great ideas to more than just funding, through Ventures we invest in leading emerging growth fintechs. So far, we have twelve companies in our portfolio, including AirWallex, Lendi, Slyp and Valiant, and our team is always on the lookout for opportunities that align with our mandate.
What sits in the middle - and is at the core of what we do - is partnerships. In addition to building and investing, partnering is a key part of how we look at our business. We aim to connect our portfolio companies with ANZ, with each other, and with others in the ecosystem.
Our mission is to support the bank and its mission to help communities and people thrive, and we see engagement as critical to that. At 1835i we meet regularly with ANZ leaders to better understand how we can help them with their current needs. What can we do for ANZ tomorrow in terms of new products or solutions or new capabilities that the bank employees think would add value?
Over half of our portfolio companies are already successfully working or in conversation with the bank on problems and opportunities that have been uncovered. In addition, we want to look a little further over the horizon. We want to anticipate what’s coming and capitalise on those opportunities or potentially large disruptions because the world is changing dramatically every single day.
To do that we follow the money. We follow the global investment capital into specific sectors. We look at which companies are driving innovation through investment capital and then we filter for what is applicable to ANZ’s strategic direction.
So not only are we working with these companies to deliver products and services to our customers, but in some cases we ourselves are the customer. And in some cases we may acquire the whole company.
We invested a little over a year ago in Cashrewards, which is the leading cashback company in Australia, and a few months ago we completed an acquisition of the company. Cashrewards is now 100 per cent owned by one of the funds that we manage on behalf of ANZ.
Cashrewards credits members a percentage of what they spend when shopping, which can then be withdrawn as cash direct to their bank account. The company partners with more than 1,700 merchants including Apple, Myer, Liquorland, Adidas, Bonds, Target, Booking.com and The Iconic.
We're excited about this because it is the chance to integrate loyalty and cashback optimisation into the customer experience around ANZ’s Australia Retail business. We're in the process of going through this opportunity and articulating the strategic relationship outside of the commercial cash program. The idea is to see how we can extend it and utilise the platform for other things.
It is a pretty exciting proposition. Cashrewards is a growing company in a sector that has massive growth opportunities and we are very excited to have them in the family. And it is a great example of 1835i’s versatile approach and how we use different methods of investment to deliver results for ANZ and its customers.
