Entrepreneurs
Mr Beast acquires teen banking app Step
YouTuber Mr Beast is delving into fintech by buying a consumer banking app geared at teens. His company, Beast Industries, is acquiring Step, an all-in-one money app for teens and young adults to manage money, build credit and access financial tools. While it is not a bank, Step has partnered with banking services in the past. “Nobody taught me about investing, building credit, or managing money when I was growing up,” Mr Beast posted to X. “That's exactly why we’re joining forces with Step! I want to give millions of young people the financial foundation I never had.” In a media release, Beast Industries said Step’s missions and 7 million users would complement its large digital audience and philanthropic initiatives. "Financial health is fundamental to overall wellbeing, yet too many people lack access to the tools and knowledge they need to build financial security," Jeff Housenbold, CEO of Beast Industries, said. "This acquisition positions us to meet our audiences where they are, with practical, technology-driven solutions that can transform their financial futures for the better." It has not been disclosed how much Beast Industries paid for Step. In 2022, Step said it had raised US$500 million in equ
Musk seeks US$134bn from OpenAI and Microsoft
Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, is asking OpenAI and Microsoft to pay him US$134 billion (A$201 billion) in wrongful gains from his investments in OpenAI. The Tesla and SpaceX Chief Executive Officer, whose net worth has been estimated at $750 billion, is making the claim in legal action he has launched against the two companies in a United States court. In a court filing Musk cited a financial expert’s estimates of OpenAI’s and Microsoft’s gains from his “critical contributions” to OpenAI from the time he helped found the artificial intelligence (AI)-focussed research and technology company. The contributions included the $38 million, or about 60% of the non-profit’s seed funding, in its early years, and non-monetary contributions such as recruitment, introducing contacts and teaching his co-founders about running a business. The early contributions were critical to OpenAI’s ability to achieve the $500 billion valuation it reached over the last year, he claimed. The expert calculated OpenAI’s gains as the product of the value of OpenAI’s for-profit entity, OpenAI non-profit’s share of the for-profit and the portion of the non-profit’s value attributable to Musk’s contributions, which he estimated at 50% to 7
The Founders: Growing the Fintech industry in Australia
Dylan Winik used his entrepreneurial experience to make Nayax one of the largest cashless payment providers in the country. After successfully founding and building two strong tech businesses in South Africa and Australia, Winik became Operations Director for Nayax Australia. He joined while the Australian branch, which services both Australia and New Zealand, was just in its infancy and after the business acquired VendCheck. According to KPMG, the payments sector, which Nayax is part of, accounts for 20% of the total Australian fintech landscape. Winik also entered the sector as cashless payments became the most common method of payment in Australia. The use of digital payments has grown from A$746 million in 2018 to over $93 billion in 2022, with cash payments accounting for 13% at the end of 2022 compared to 70% in 2007. Nayax has entered the market through offering cashless vending solutions that support both card payments and payments through services like Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay. Overall, Nayax’s global revenue rose 32% to US$95.6 million in Q2 of 2025. The company expects revenue to grow between 30% to 35% to a range of US$410 million to $425 million for the full year 2025.How Winik grew N