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- Aussie Startups Pulse Check - July 2024 💓
Aussie Startups Pulse Check - July 2024 💓
Funding the Balance Investor Leaderboard gets a shake up 👀 + A(I) bit of fun 😜
Welcome to the July edition of Pulse Check! 💗
A huge welcome to the 44 new subscribers who’ve joined us since last edition! 👯
What is Pulse Check?
Pulse Check is an initiative of Overnight Success (OS), powered by an amazing team of volunteer writers (“correspondents”) who have each contributed their own insights to bring you a comprehensive overview of what’s happening in many corners of the Aussie ecosystem.
In case you’re new here, you can get a weekly download of startup news from our OG newsletter 👇️.
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P.S. If this email gets cut short for you (thanks Gmail!), you can always read the online version here.
Inside this edition… 👀
⚡️ Industry Insights
| 🔥 Hot Topics & Trends
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Long Read: The Leaf Protein Co secures $850K to accelerate sustainable protein production
Melbourne AgTech startup Leaf Protein Co has found a way to extract protein from planet earth’s most abundant food source: the humble green leaf.
Co-founders Fern Ho and Connor Balfanny have just closed an $850,000 raise led by The University of Melbourne’s Genesis Pre-Seed Fund, with co-investment from LaunchVic’s Hugh Victor McKay Fund and Loyal VC. The startup is also supported by Big Idea Ventures – a global VC focused on alternative proteins.
With conventional food systems reducing the biodiversity of our agriculture, Fern says 75% of genetic diversity has been lost since the 1900s.
“This loss of biodiversity significantly impacts our global food security, as the demand for protein increases with the world’s population growth.”
“Our unique extraction process retains and preserves the functional nutrition held within plants to create sustainable protein sources. All by-products from this process are also marketable as other food ingredients, animal feed and packaging materials, meaning we essentially produce no waste streams from the leafy green input material.”
The investment will allow Fern and Connor to make their first hires at their pilot plant in Biloela and commence production to service interested customers. Watch this space!
The Leaf Protein co-founders Connor and Fern showcasing their product
To get in touch with Holly Clark, send her a message on LinkedIn.
🌟 National AI Centre Announces Winner of AI Sprint
A clear trend amongst the top 10 was founders with deep industry knowledge turning to AI to create solutions:
1st place: Dragonfly Thinking makes it easier for teams to think inclusively about business and policy problems. An ANU spin-out founded by Professors Anthea Roberts and Miranda Forsyth.
2nd place: Kindship utilises AI-powered personal assistant providing 24/7 guidance navigating the NDIS inspired by Summer Petrosius and her journey with autism.
3rd place: Empathetic AI provides scenario analysis, ATO ruling updates and automated legislation reference checks developed by CEO and accounting wizard Angela Shi.
✈️ AI Startups off to San Fran
Builders Club have shortlisted 6 AI startups who are off to San Fran!
For more accelerator info, check out Berenice’s epic coverage below!
A(I) bit of fun….
Wearable tech might not actually be hideous this time… with a collab between Wayfarer and Meta offering an AI-enabled sunnies.
Prince Charles Cinema in London cancelled its world premiere due to public outcry around its screenwriter: ChatGPT. Filmmaker Luisi said the intention of his film had been to “start a conversation” about the impact of AI on the film industry.
To get in touch with Georgina Healy, send her a message on LinkedIn.
2 solo gender-minority founders from Victoria receive funding
In a month with 34 deal announcements, 82% of the deals and 91% of the capital were directed to all-male teams. However, a bright spot emerged with Grace Brown and Renata Sguario, both solo founders from Victoria, successfully raising their respective Seed and Series A rounds.
Despite these successes, the mid-year data highlights significant funding challenges for gender-diverse and gender-minority teams. Men’s share of funding has increased from 86.1% in April to 89.8% in May, and now to 90.9% in June. This growing disparity underscores the need for continued efforts to bridge the funding gap.
For a detailed breakdown, see our blog here, and to understand how we disaggregate mixed-gender teams, see here.
Skalata makes it to the Leaderboard, knocking out SquarePeg and Airtree
Skalata has climbed to the number 2 spot on the leaderboard with 3 investments in mixed-gender and gender minority teams. Alice Anderson has also solidified its position with 5 investments, despite its mandate being Victoria-only.
This snapshot marks 6 months of data capturing funding announcements. The first two months of the year showed promise for mixed-gender and gender minority teams. However, as the year has progressed, there have been months without any funding for gender minority founders, leading to growing disparities in funding and deal volume across early-stage (pre-Seed & Seed) and growth-stage (Series A and beyond), with 85% of disaggregated funding going to men.
To get in touch with Preethi Mohan or Kirstin Hunter, send them a message on LinkedIn.
A friendly reminder for would-be founders who are scared of risking it all and going out on their own: you don’t necessarily need to go ‘all in’ if you want to exit the traditional 9-5 and start a business successfully.
You can ‘ease in’ instead.
All in:
→ Taking a big risk
→ Quitting your full time job
→ Funnelling all of your resources - time, energy, effort, cash - towards launching your idea
→ Adopting a singular focus and pursuing it with everything you’ve got
Ease in:
→ Dabbling, testing and learning on the side of your full time job
→ Growing your confidence, capability and perspective in a new area without financial stress
→ Generating non-employment income incrementally
→ Scaling down your commitments (eg. a job) and diving in the deep end when you’re financially ready (sustainable income, debt financing, investment)
Going all in is an awesome strategy for some but it can feel out of reach unless you’ve got funding, a financially supportive spouse or a winning lottery ticket. That’s why the ease in method is so great - it gives founders permission to get the ball rolling even if they’re not yet able to give it their all.
Read why an inability to go ‘all in’ doesn’t mean you can’t start building:
To get in touch with Anna Mackenzie, send her a message on LinkedIn.
July Munchies 🍿
It's been budget month across the country, and we've seen a decent allocation of funds to the entertainment industry, with the music sector receiving much-needed support (see: budget announcements in QLD, NSW, VIC, WA & SA).
However, one glaring omission is the lack of funding earmarked for innovation and technology adoption. Over the past six months, we've clearly seen the pressure on the industry from artists to festivals, and as technological advancements continue to accelerate, the music industry finds itself in a familiar predicament - leaning back into what has worked in the past, rather than creating the future. We are spending too much time protecting existing ways of working, sacrificing potential future advancements.
Let's take a moment to explore one possible path for the industry's evolution from the artist/art worker perspective...
The concept of a new type of arts worker could emerge - one who builds alone or collaborates with others to develop tech products for the entertainment industry. The artprenuer is akin to the next generation of founders, called multipreneurs, who create multiple modest-sized products that can be managed by small teams.
The outcome is arts workers with multiple income streams, potentially more scalable than previous work. With visual programming tools, artprenuers won't need to know how to code; they'll only need to imagine, illustrate, and explain the functionality.
To get in touch with Gav Parry, send him a message on LinkedIn.
Is the NSW Government doing enough to support Regional Entrepreneurs?
The NSW Government announced the opening of the second round of its MVP Ventures Program this week. Though according to SmartCompany’s Tegan Jones, there’s regional equity concerns.
With a reported 80% of first-round recipients identifying as businesses based in metro Sydney, and a staggering number of the overall grant pool of $3 million going to Founders based in affluent suburbs in Sydney’s East and North.
In contrast, on Tuesday I got to see for myself the brilliant impact that the NSW Government backed Western Sydney Startup Hub is having on supporting entrepreneurship outside of Sydney’s CBD.
As a Judge for the finale of Spacecubed’s Plus Eight Accelerator Program, I witnessed first hand the positive impact that investing in physical infrastructure can have on a region’s startup ecosystem. You can read more about the 10 startups that showcased the best of the West here.
It’s important that publications like SmartCompany bring more transparency where and how Government money is being spent, especially if there’s concerns around the equity of it’s allocation to certain groups.
Though it’s also important to remember that the Government coffers for investing in Innovation are tight and only getting tighter. Resource allocation is going to continue to be an ongoing and evolving challenge.
To get in touch with Dickie Currer, send him a message on LinkedIn.
Just back from an incredible month in Europe, I found Overnight Success invaluable for catching up on last month's happenings. June was a standout month for Australian startups, particularly in ClimateTech/EnviroTech ($101M+), Tech ($43.4M), and Logistics ($35M).
One raise I’d love to talk more about is MyPremo which recently raised $1M on Birchal.
Open to content creators of all genres, MyPremo’s offer comes after a recent report from Creative Australia that found close to half of Australia’s professional artists earn less than $10,000 a year from their creative work, while two in five are not meeting basic living costs.
Having personally worked on MyPremo's raise, I saw firsthand how having Ice Cube on the cap table captured investors' attention. Typically, startups begin with smaller artists and investors, hoping to attract a big name later on. However, MyPremo flipped the script by starting with a major artist right from the beginning.
A few key takeaways from the MyPremo raise:
Public Relations: PR was essential in spreading the word and generating buzz.
Credibility: The Perth-based founders added significant credibility to the venture.
Big Names: Having big artists like Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg relate to the problem they’re solving was a game-changer.
User Growth: During the couple of months that MyPremo was live on Birchal, their user signups increased by 100%!
We discussed this unique approach in a recent webinar, and you can watch the recording here.
To get in touch with Leila Oliveira, send her a message on LinkedIn.
🌍 Through the Global Lens
PitchBook has released their first report on the Australian and New Zealand private capital markets. We love seeing the continual expansion of the Australian ecosystem, but it’s also important, especially for ambitious Australian founders looking to expand overseas, to build startups with the knowledge of where we’re at and how we’re viewed in a global context.
To illustrate the importance of total addressable market (TAM) in driving results, here are two standout quotes from the 30-page report:
“But relative to larger economies, the two countries remain a small market—roughly 20% smaller than the population of California—and their private markets contend with unique challenges for growth…This leads to an expectation that companies in Australia & New Zealand will expand overseas, especially for VC return expectations.”
TL;DR: Remember to consider international markets when calculating your TAM, but also the nuances of international competitors, when pitching to investors.
“For VC-backed companies in Australia & New Zealand, the ability to drive VC-like returns is challenged by the size of the market. There is a high need for companies to expand abroad to deliver the outsized returns desired.”
My take: If Australian founders want to emulate the successes of Canva and Atlassian, understanding the global opportunity, challenges and expectations should equally be focused on from the inception of the business.
For another take on this report from an investor-lens, check out friend of Pulse Check, Maxine Minter’s post, to get her take.
To get in touch with Lea Rausch, send her a message on LinkedIn.
Rising inflation, and in particular the price of food and energy is top of mind for most people today.
Making matters worse, increasing cases of global food insecurity and energy shortages brought about by supply chain disruptions, war, and the climate crisis are amplifying each other and continuing to feed inflation. These forces are adding urgency to efforts to confront the cost and availability of these staples, while tackling these issues presents massive technical obstacles but also vast opportunities for industry. This month two Aussie startups recently announced milestones that show how our ecosystem is responding to these global challenges.
The maker of modular fly larvae-based robotic food recycling systems has secured a deal with the City of Sydney to begin a trial later this year that could see the startup helping convert up to 600 tonnes of food waste into material which can then be used for crop fertiliser and animal feed. “We know food waste represents around 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. If it were a country, its emissions would be the 3rd largest in the world”, according to Founder Olympia Yarger.
Wireless power transmission startup Aquila has raised $2 million follow-on funding led by Alua Group. This follows the development of their first product, called Lightway Sentry, which is able to wirelessly power drones at distances 10 times further than any other tech. The team plans to scale this technology first to aircraft, and then to satellites, on the path to creating a dynamic energy distribution constellation in Earth orbit. This technology is expected to help mitigate current problems like the large distances between where power is generated and where it’s needed.
To get in touch with Andrew Harding, send him a message on LinkedIn.
🔥 Inside Google’s AI First Accelerator: An Exclusive Interview with Program Lead Kristine Song
We’ve scored an exclusive interview with Kristine Song, Program Lead for the Google for Startups Accelerator: AI First program.
“We’re at an exciting time in history in AI innovation and we hope to support potential Aussie startups to advance AI technology through our program”, she said about AI First, which launched in Australia last month.
AI First is a 10-week, equity-free program for AI and ML-focused startups at the Seed and Series A stages. For successful applicants, “Google offers unique AI expertise, tools and resources, which is what sets this accelerator apart.”
As Program Lead, Kristine is involved in selecting, onboarding, and supporting Australia’s first cohort as they navigate the program.
Find out more from Kristine about:
What she does as an accelerator program lead at Google
What really sets AI First apart from other accelerator programs
What’s involved in the AI First program
And speaking of AI…
In April, I interviewed Stone & Chalk’s Ben Dunn about AI Sprint, which was established by Google, Stone & Chalk, and CSIRO.
Who were the winners of AI Sprint? Check out Georgie Healy’s round up above👆️.
To get in touch with Berenice Chong, send her a message on LinkedIn.
What did you think of this edition of Pulse Check? |
If you have feedback on what you liked and didn’t like about this edition of Pulse Check, we’d love to hear from you! Just reply to this email 😃 .
‘Til next time,
The Pulse Check Team 💗