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Here's everything you need to know today - in under 3 minutes.

Today's big stories:

🤑 Culture Kings and Princess Polly founders are headed for a billion-dollar payday

🏆 Airwallex hits US$4 billion valuation

✅ Microsoft approves US$60 billion share buyback program

Oh and get this...

Typos happen to the best of us, Flux fam. Yesterday, we said Facebook bought WhatsApp for $21.8 million. We actually meant $21.8 billion. You can read more about that acquisition here.

And in one of the most unlikely partnerships...luxury fashion house Balenciaga has partnered with video game Fortnite to make a line of shirts, jackets and hats. But the price-tags are eye-watering. You might want to sit down for this.

Culture Kings, Princess Polly founders prep for billion-dollar payday

Background: Culture Kings is a streetwear fashion brand that was founded back in 2008 in Brisvegas. Ya know, the company that used Mike Tyson's image without his consent? And Princess Polly is a women's fashion brand that was founded back in 2005 on the GC. 

What happened: These two companies are owned by private equity firm Summit Partners, under a company called a.k.a Brands.

What else: Summit Partners is planning to list a.k.a Brands on the New York Stock Exchange. And, if they're successful, the IPO will value the company at a whopping US$2.3 billion...which means a massive payday for the Aussie founders and the private equity firm, who share ownership of a.k.a Brands.

So what's the key learning?

💡Private equity (or PE) is a blanket term that's used to describe investments made into (often underperforming) companies. 

💡Private Equity is often associated with buyouts of public companies - like Virgin Australia or Dick Smith (#RIP). But it can also be investments in private companies, like Culture Kings.

It works like this: 

• PE purchase underperforming company with growth potential
• PE rebrand, repackage or rebuild the company
• PE invest capital to speed up the company's growth and make it more successful ~theoretically~
• PE sell the company to another company or IPO the company 

💡 In the last few years, PE firms have been taking their private companies public thanks to a big boom in IPOs. In fact, PE firms lodged US$74.5 billion worth of IPOs in 2020 alone.

Airwallex hits US$4bn valuation - and let's hear it for Aussie unicorns

Background: Airwallex is the payments platform that started off offering businesses a new way to make international payments. But it's since expanded to offer bank accounts and borderless debit cards. 

What happened: This crew started off in a Melbourne coffee shop back in 2015, and four years later, they became a unicorn - aka, they cracked a US$1 billion valuation. 

What else: Now, Airwallex have raised a further US$200 million thanks to a fresh funding round, taking them to a whopping US$4 billion valuation. It comes days after Aussie-born Atlassian cracked the US$100 billion-mark.

So what's the key learning?

💡2021 is shaping up to be a cracker of a year for Aussie tech companies. In fact, it's the biggest financial boom in the tech scene ever. 

💡Aussie unicorns (i.e. companies worth more than US$1 billion) have raised more than $1.6 billion from investors in the last six months.

💡And it’s fair to say, the Aussie tech industry has reached a new level of maturity. We’ve seen the creation of the Tech Council of Australia which could help more startups like Airwallex reach insane heights in the not so distant future.

Microsoft approves US$60 billion share buy-back scheme

Background: We all know Microsoft as the OG software company which now specialises in the cloud operator - it's worth a huge US$2 trillion. 

What happened: Microsoft's shares are sitting near record levels (after soaring 38% this year alone), and the company is sitting on a sizeable stash of cash. We're talkin' US$130 billion under the bed.

What else: With great cash comes great responsibility. They could acquire new companies (oh wait, they already did), or invest in new companies (oops, did that too), or they could return more value to shareholders. And after approving a US$60 billion share buy-back, well that's just what they'll do.

So what's the key learning?

💡Share buybacks are when companies re-purchase the shares that they had previously issued to others. And these buybacks often become a big present to existing shareholders.  

💡It's simple supply and demand: if you reduce the supply of something, but the demand stays constant, then the price of that something is bound to go up in response. 

💡Share buybacks are also a strong signal to the market. It indicates that a company is confident in its future prospects. So this buyback is a major flex by Microsoft to the rest of the market.