With a new year on the horizon, we are pleased to announce that we have inked a new deal.
VivoPower and our 51% subsidiary, Tembo e-LV B.V. (Tembo), have entered into a non-binding Heads of Agreement with GB Auto Group Pty Limited and GB Electric Vehicles Pty Ltd (collectively, GB Auto), in which the New South Wales-based GB Auto will be the exclusive Australia-wide distributor of Tembo’s current core products. These include the Tembo 4×4 e-LV:
Should Tembo offer any additional products for sale during the proposed seven-year agreement term, GB Auto will have first right of refusal for their distribution rights in Australia as well.
During the term, GB Auto has committed to purchasing at least:
Combined with the electric vehicles, these orders would be worth an estimated USD$250 million in revenues.
Kevin Chin, our Executive Chairman and CEO said: “We are very pleased to be entering this partnership with GB Auto in Australia, given their long-established track record and reputation with their customers, who comprise some of the world’s pre-eminent mining houses.”
VivoPower will maintain and own all operating data in the Tembo products, granting GB Auto a licence to use the data to sell and service the vehicles. The company will also be GB Auto’s partner of choice for delivering sustainable energy solutions (SES), meaning we will have the right to sell, build, install, and maintain all products and services supporting Tembo e-LVs. This aligns with our three-pronged sustainable energy solutions (SES) strategy, and includes products and services related to:
VivoPower will also be GB Auto’s preferred partner for any rental, lease, or other financing solutions for the Tembo products or above solutions.
Graeme Bensley, CEO and Founder of GB Auto said: “We believe SES to be ideally suited to the requirements of our mining sector customers. We are already witnessing strong demand from these customers for electric vehicles and are confident of the strong long-term growth outlook.”
Read the press release here.
EdventureCo, the wholly-owned education platform of AWN Holdings Limited, today announced the acquisition of ENS International, a global leader in virtual and face-to-face negotiation advice, support, and training.
Founded in 1978, ENS International has developed some of the most innovative negotiating and influencing methodologies in the market. The founders, Michael Hudson and Leo Hawkins, challenged the highly adversarial approach to negotiation that had long dominated corporate negotiation strategy and created organisation-wide negotiation capability platforms.
For over 40 years, ENS International has partnered with organisations to develop an organisational change management platform to address and develop collaborative negotiation skills and create a common influencing language that will accelerate growth. Through its network of negotiation process experts with real-world experience, ENS International provides negotiation skills and guidance to achieve desired outcomes while maintaining and building valuable relationships.
In addition, its team of highly experienced facilitators train employees to become effective, outcome-focussed negotiators who maximise results. ENS International offers both public and customised highly effective training programs with proven return on investment designed to improve participants’ communication and negotiation skills.
Across over 70 countries, ENS International has established a reputation as a trusted negotiation partner for some of the most successful organisations worldwide. Its clients in both the public and private sector range from finance (PwC), resources (BHP), and medical (Johnson & Johnson) to retail (Adidas and Woolworths) and government (Australian government).
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2020 highlights the disruptive nature of long-term technology trends and the impact they will have on the future of work. With automation expected to displace 85 million jobs in the next five years, skills such as persuasion, negotiation, emotional intelligence, and social influence are among the top 15 skills employers see as rising in prominence in the lead up to 2025.
The acquisition of ENS International will further EdventureCo’s goal of equipping students with relevant skills in a fast-changing world. It will be highly complementary to DDLS and the Australian Institute of ICT, two of EdventureCo’s market- leading IT training providers that address the skills shortages in the digital sector.
The increasing need for the workforce’s digital skills to be balanced by skills development in emotional intelligence, creativity, persuasion, and innovation is becoming more crucial, and EdventureCo’s strategy is focussed on addressing such a demand.
We are pleased to announce that Gemma Godfrey―a serial entrepreneur with global board experience in financial services, technology, media, public policy, and sustainability, as well as a degree in quantum physics―today joins our Board of Directors.
Kevin Chin, our Executive Chairman and CEO said: “Gemma brings a really unique mix of skills and experience. With a track record of building and advising fast-growing companies, her knowledge and expertise will be invaluable as we continue to hyperscale our electric vehicle and sustainable energy solutions offerings.”
Along with her extensive experience, Gemma was Founder and CEO of an award-winning fintech company enabling digital investing, served as Head of Investment Strategy at wealth management firm Brooks Macdonald, and advised Arnold Schwarzenegger in “The Apprentice” boardroom. During her tenure as CEO, she was named to the Innovate Finance “Standout 35” Women in the FinTech Power list. The company, which was later acquired by FTSE 250 insurance group JLT, also earned “Best Startup” at the Digital Entrepreneur Awards.
Based in London, Gemma has also served as an advisor to the UK government on its 10-year strategy to improve financial wellbeing country-wide. This complements her work launching The Times Money Mentor, a digital media business that helps consumers make smarter financial choices.
Gemma Godfrey, upon her appointment, commented: “I’m thrilled to join a company certified as “using business as a force for good” as it continues to accelerate its growth and harness the power of digital transformation. We can all understand the need to cut energy costs, improve efficiency, and help the planet. VivoPower’s electric vehicles and sustainable energy solutions help its customers to do just that.”
Gemma began her career at Goldman Sachs and later was responsible for Latin American investments at GAM. Currently, she:
Given Gemma’s track record in helping businesses achieve their strategic goals, we are eager to collaborate and execute on our hyperscale efforts.
Read the press release here.
Arowana Impact Capital has partnered with Jollibee Group Foundation to help mitigate the impact of the pandemic by promoting access to food. More than 1,000 food packs are being distributed to the families in Tondo, Manila with the help of St. John Bosco, Grameen Pilipinas, and Dana Asia. As part of a certified B Corporation, we are determined to use our business as a force for good.
As we explored in our last instalment of Education Data & Insights, the education sector has never had to confront a challenge as wide and deep as the COVID-19 pandemic. As some countries reinstitute lockdowns and school closures, others are starting to focus on the long-term landscape.
In this report, we examine a Citi Research report on EdTech across the education industry. We assess the industry’s adoption of EdTech and online learning, and the potential impact of the pandemic on future use.
We can say firsthand that at EdventureCo, the pandemic has accelerated both our adoption of EdTech and the digitisation of our businesses. Just as digital classroom initiatives will continue to have a place in the classroom long past COVID-19, we expect the impact across the industry to have lasting effects well beyond the end of the crisis.
The Energy and Mines Virtual World Congress is just a few days away. Visit our virtual booth and check out our content pod, "Decarbonising Material Movement" to learn how our Tembo e-LV and other sustainable energy solutions can power your mining operations while reducing your carbon footprint.
To read more on this, head here.
Earlier this week, Australia and 14 other countries signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). The agreement, which includes 30 per cent of the global economy, marks the largest trade deal in history.
At the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit last year, the ASEAN country delegation heads accepted the terms of the agreement that took eight years to negotiate, but they did not formally bring it into effect until just this week. For Arowana and our vocational and professional education and training (VPET) business, EdventureCo, the RCEP validates our expansion into and across the ASEAN region. EdventureCo’s ICT training business, DDLS, recently opened a campus in Manila, and is focussed on continuing to grow in the Philippines and South East Asia over the next decade.
The Arowana Impact Capital team has also recently focussed on business opportunities in the ASEAN region.
The RCEP will bolster EdventureCo’s growth trajectory by supporting its current and future investments in ASEAN’s 10 member states―Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam―which have some of the fastest-growing middle classes in the world who place a premium on the value of education.
While the partnership does not give Australian businesses access to new markets, it does remove non-tariff barriers to trade by consolidating existing multilateral and bilateral trade agreements into a uniform set of trade rules. These rules make it less risky for companies like ours to participate in the abovementioned emerging markets.
According to the Australian Government, the main benefits for the country will be:
“Greater openness within our region, as well as the greater integration of value chains and more common rules of origin―which this deal delivers―will make it easier for Australian businesses and investors to operate throughout our region, helping Australia to continue to grow our exports,” said Trade Minister Simon Birmingham.
“There are particular gains for Australian providers within the financial services sector, education, health, engineering, and other professional services, who can become better integrated within the region and have more access within RCEP countries.”
Alicorn Global Ventures has completed an investment of up to $3 million in Anodot, a global software company recently included in Forbes’ Top 20 Machine Learning Startups to Watch. A leading vendor in the fast-expanding AI analytics space, Anodot is helping companies such as Vimeo, Atlassian, and T-Mobile to leverage artificial intelligence to surface business incidents much faster and prevent loss.
Anodot’s Autonomous Business Monitoring leverages patented machine learning algorithms to independently monitor metrics and detect anomalies in real time, correlating related anomalies across the business - a game-changing capability for companies who operate at scale. Customers use Anodot to reduce their time to detection by as much as 80 percent, consequently safeguarding revenue, minimizing operational costs, and improving customer experience.
Anodot is headquartered in Israel and Silicon Valley, with satellite teams located worldwide, and is entrusted by Fortune 500 companies in finance, telecommunications, and digital enterprise.
Alicorn is the London-headquartered venture capital arm of Arowana. Anodot represents the second investment in its Israel venture capital strategy this year, following its $6 million investment in Glassbox in June. The team’s expertise lies in secondary investments and bespoke primary funding rounds in VC-backed technology companies at a late growth stage. Alicorn works with these companies, their existing venture capital investors, and other stakeholders to facilitate secondary investments to solve liquidity requirements in addition to participating in unique primary rounds.
The onslaught of Typhoon Ulysses, the 21st typhoon of this season, led Manila to experience its worst flooding in over a decade. With the economic impact of COVID-19 lockdowns still hurting many families, this climate event could not have come at a worse time. To help some of those affected, Arowana Impact Capital activated its third emergency food relief programme in partnership with Grameen Pilipinas, and more than 500 household survival packs were distributed.
The Arowana logo appeared alongside 70 other B Corps in the newspapers this week, as we publicly declared our support for the Climate Act.
The Climate Act is a proposed law that will ensure the long-term safety, security, and prosperity of Australia by achieving Net Zero emissions by 2050.
Zali Steggall, OAM MP, introduced it to Parliament on Monday, 9th November 2020. This Act would ensure that Australia has a clear and positive national response to the challenges of climate change. That is what a large and growing majority of Australians call for, and what Australia needs.
In putting the bill forward, Zali Stegall noted: "The impacts of climate change represent the greatest threat to our national security, our economy, our health, and our environment. But if we implement an effective plan now, we can create a safe and prosperous future for ourselves and our children."
The Climate Act will make certain that Australia has:
In putting this law in place, Australia will be amongst several other countries with effective climate laws in place, including the UK, Germany, France, and New Zealand. Pledge your support here https://join.climateactnow.com.au and join us in safeguarding Australia for all.
"The impacts of Climate Change represent the greatest threat to our national security, our economy, our health and our environment. But if we implement an effective plan now, we can create a safe and prosperous future for ourselves and our children."
Zali Steggall, OAM MP
