Lakeba Track Record Attracts Global Investor

Lakeba’s track record attracts global investor

Lakeba has positioned itself as a start-up studio focused on the development and rapid commercialisation of digital solutions and the company’s co-founder and chief executive, Giuseppe Porcelli, said Mr Ruppert’s international experience would be a key asset.

“Todd’s real-time global insights and his experience with start-ups around the world in smart securities, on-demand insurance and crowd-funding will be invaluable as Lakeba grows,” he told The Australian.

Mr Ruppert, who was chief executive of T. Rowe Price Global Investment Services and co-president of T. Rowe Price International, is a venture partner at Greenspring Associates, a US venture-capital firm with more than $5 billion under management.

He is also a senior adviser to financial services industry accelerator Motive Labs, as well as SenaHill, a merchant bank focused on the financial services industry.

Lakeba is not Mr Ruppert’s first foray into the Australian technology scene. He has a board position at recently listed marketing tech start-up Mobecom. The company has also won the backing of Sydney’s Tulla Private Equity Group, the investment vehicle of the Maloney family.

Mr Ruppert said he was attracted by Lakeba’s potential as an industry disrupter and hailed the studio as a quiet achiever in the Australian innovation landscape. “Its rapid prototyping of diverse and highly scalable ideas with applications to numerous industries offers significant monetisation opportunities for the business, and the team has a proven track record of execution,” he said.

Lakeba is a partner of Microsoft Australia and two of its ventures, 360dgrees and ezidox™, are running pilot programs with top-tier global businesses. Ezidox is designed to make document exchange and verification easy and 360dgrees enables the creation and delivery of interactive reality training in workplaces to reduce injuries.

Mr Ruppert is the latest addition to Lakeba’s recently established board and the company also recently bolstered its management team. “I am excited to be joining the board at this critical time,” Mr Ruppert said. Mr Porcelli said cybersecurity, blockchain and cryptocurrencies were on Lakeba’s radar through its Quixxi platform.

The platform was recently chosen as one of 10 global finalists to compete at BlockShow Asia’s ICOscar at the end of November in Singapore. Quixxi is also planning a Token Generation Event in the first quarter of 2018.

This article was originally written in The Australian by Supratim Adhikari.

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About Lakeba

Lakeba builds businesses that are optimised for high returns from low investment, at low risk when compared with the start-up sector. It utilises proprietary artificial intelligence (AI), decades of business and technology experience, and scalable shared services, to support each phase of business building. So far it has ‘conceived, created and commercialised’ 15 ventures, of which three have already been spun-out.

The unique Lakeba AI ‘neural network’ ‘conceives’ opportunities by continually interrogating the internet to establish patterns which suggest a business ‘need’ that could be solved digitally. Its entrepreneurs then double check this analysis and determine the viability of the business idea and its commercial potential.

To ‘create’ a venture, Lakeba works with partners, industry, and the wider innovations ecosystem to create digital technologies that eliminate the frictions identified by the neural network. A team of technologists, designers, and entrepreneurs build out the value proposition and establish the business. Lakeba invests its time, capabilities, capital and resources to craft ideas into reality.

‘Commercialise’ is the final stage of the Lakeba process. Once the digital proof of concept delivers on its promise, it is enhanced with radical intelligence. Working with partners, investors and the customers, Lakeba’s team refines and optimises the operations and distribution to rapidly commercialise the venture. This ensures the business continuously delivers value to customers as it scales and diversifies across industries and the globe.

Lakeba Group was founded by Giuseppe Porcelli, Entrepreneur and Visionary of Future Technology.