💌 Aussie Start-up & Venture Capital Summary! 12th of November

G'day and welcome to Overnight Success, the newsletter that quenches your Australian start-up thirst. A big 'how are ya?' to the 72 new subscribers that have joined since last week! You've just joined 741 other legends learning about Aussie start-ups.

Headlines:

• 🚀 Blackbird hosted Sunrise 2022. The Australian start-up ecosystem's corner of the internet couldn't get enough. Get a glimpse of the fun, according to Twitter, below!

• 🇺🇸 Aussie start-ups look to move to the US to avoid financial statement reporting requirements. (AFR)

  • SafetyCulture founder Luke Anear calls for mandatory financial disclosure requirements to be eased by the Australian Government.

  • His issue is that Australian private companies must report information their international competitors don't. Those competitors can then use public information to their advantage. Which overall hurts Aussie business.

• 🏃‍♂️Ultra-fast delivery start-up Voly offloads staff to survive. (AFR)

• 🍀 Hemp-based skincare start-up Hey Bud scores a massive distribution deal with Priceline. (Smart Company)

• 💰 It was an absolutely huge week of raises - we counted $45M+ across Aus & NZ from the ones we’ve covered below!

1. Start-up Retro: Australia's start-up raises with a smidge of context.

2. Best of Sunrise: Our favourite Twitter posts about the event.

3. Notice Board: Signposting key events and opportunities.

4. Accredited Tweeters: Snippets from Twitter.

5. (KaaS) Knowledge as a Service: Articles to make you smarter. Or to share with co-workers to make them think you’re smart.

Start-up Retro 

Med-Tech

🫀Vexev imagines a bright future thanks to $8.5M injection for medical imaging tech

San Francisco-based deep-tech investor Neotribe Ventures, alongside existing investor Blackbird, backed medical imaging company Vexev with $8.5M for their commercial launch, despite the company being pre-revenue. Perhaps it’s because what the company has developed is potentially life-saving for millions of people, or because most of their team has PhDs, or maybe it’s because one of the founders has a truly fantastic beard (check it out via AFR). According to the Health Department, around 1.2 million Australians have one or more heart or vascular conditions. Vexev’s tech, which helps with early detection in a simple, low cost and non-invasive way, could be a game changer as it improves patient life expectancy and reduces the cost of healthcare delivery. Other investors in the round included Rory San Miguel (Propeller co-founder) and Benjamin Humphrey (Dovetail co-founder), as well as vascular surgeons and imaging businesses.

Due Diligence: AFR

Med-Tech

👩‍🔬WearOptimo bags $5M for clinical trials

The Woolloongabba-based wearable med-tech company, WearOptimo, has secured $5M of investment from the Queensland University of Technology, allowing them to proceed with clinical trials. The company is developing technology that detects dehydration, allowing for earlier intervention. Their wearable sensors have microscopic electrodes that painlessly penetrate the skin (approximately a hair-width deep) to measure biomarkers in real time. They could replace frequent blood tests and invasive implantable monitors. There are countless potential applications across various industries, such as mining, aged care, construction and sport, where dehydration can significantly impact safety, well-being and performance.

Due Diligence: Press Release

AdTech

📺 Zitcha raises $4.7M to let retailers sell prime advertising spots

Zitcha, a start-up based in Melbourne, has raised $4.7M at a valuation of $14.8M. Impressively, the company was founded in March of 2022 and was officially launched in June of this year. OIF Ventures led the seed round. The platform allows retailers to gain extra revenue from three primary sources. Onsite, like on a company's website or application. Off-site, such as company social channels and email and in-store, such as digital screens, activation events and in-store radio. There's no hiding anymore! Current customers include Adore Beauty and The Warehouse Group. Impressively, the retailer pockets most of the new revenue with margins in the region of 90%. The company will target large retailers like Woolworths and Coles, who are ripe prospects as they operate across Zitcha's three channels. Retailers will balance the risk-reward of using the service compared with cheapening their brand experience. The Zitcha team has rapidly grown to over 24 staff across three offices, with expansion plans put in place for the US.

Due Diligence: Tech Crunch

Renewables / SaaS

💡Orkestra raises a $1.1M seed round to help energy companies optimise their deployments

Orkestra Energy, a Melbourne-based SaaS platform, has raised a $1.1M seed round. Tidal Ventures led the seed round with a series of Angel investors supporting the investment in the energy industry. Orkestra is a feasibility analysis platform for large energy producers to understand potential projects better. A feasibility assessment is part of understanding if a project is viable. Orkestra will replace excel spreadsheets and focuses on renewable energy projects like solar, battery and e-mobility. The SaaS provides digestible data used by analysts, salespeople and managers when kicking off a new project. Already, the platform is used by prominent players in the market like Origin, Energy Australia and Green Peak Energy. Orkestra will also be utilised to understand the decentralisation of energy in local markets, with more Australians every day opting for rooftop solar and batteries installed in the home. The seed capital will be used to build the team and market the product across the Australian market, growing their 30-strong customer base.

Due Diligence: Renew Economy

Fraud Detection

🚔 Darwinium lands $15.6M seed round to tackle fraud

Darwinium is a US-based start-up but has secured investment led by Airtree and Blackbird. Included in the round were prominent angel investors such as Naval Ravikant, Jeff Fagnan and Dean McEvoy. Darwinium provides a low-touch integration into websites, apps and APIs that can continuously assess users' interactions. This constant monitoring can detect if a user acts maliciously or like a bot. The tool encompasses both general cybersecurity and fraud prevention. The main uses include bot detection, fraudulent accounts, stolen accounts, payment security and scam detection. Customers of Darwinium get visibility of all their traffic and potential issues presented to them so they can act quickly. The start-up has locations in California, London and Sydney and will utilise the funds to expand product offerings and market into new markets. Presently, the platform is utilised by fintech and e-commerce sites that handle large traffic volumes. If you work in cybersecurity at Medibank, the Overnight Success referral code is here.

Due Diligence: (Fintech Global)

Project Management / SaaS

🥫 Blackbird & Airtree give a fair shake of the Sauce bottle to help project managers

Sauce, founded by Atlassian, SafetyCulture and Eucalyptus alums, has raised $2.3M. Blackbird led the round with participation from Airtree Ventures. Additionally, product leaders from the Aussie start-up ecosystem participated along as Angel investors. The start-up is a management control room for product-led companies and allows collaboration across teams. The investment came in a SAFE note so that the valuation will be determined at the next fundraising round.

Interestingly, the raise itself was reasonably straightforward. Sauce founders were able to test the product within the Giants accelerator program run by Blackbird, and therefore, Blackbird had a pretty intimate knowledge of the team and product. The team is well equipped to tackle problems, having worked in project management teams and dealing with the issues first-hand in their previous roles. In fact, Sauce is an excellent example of two things. One, the Australian ecosystem flywheel in action. Start-up employees are spinning up more start-ups (as highlighted by Yolanda Redrup). Secondly, Sauce is also a textbook example of the Lean Start-up Methodology. The MVP was initially a how-to e-book on becoming a product manager. Following this, the team developed the software product, which was trialled within the Blackbird Giants program. Airtree and Blackbird will likely recommend Sauce to other portfolio companies where appropriate

Due Diligence: (AFR)

Hospitality

🍝 Ordermentum snags $6.2M to help restaurants manage their stock

Ordermentum, founded by Adam Theobald (Hey You) and Andew Low (Toby’s Estate MD) in 2014, has formally announced it raised $6.2M in funding in July. The team is also celebrating hitting $1B in annual gross merchandise value (GMV), demonstrating their strong performance despite the various challenges faced by the hospitality industry over the past 24 months. The company is Australia’s largest wholesale online order management platform for food and beverage, allowing suppliers of 550+ products to connect with over 32,000 hospitality venues (according to its website). Venues can easily make digital payments to suppliers directly through the platform, streamlining the ordering process and providing powerful business insights to both sides. The company is undeterred by interest rate rises threatening discretionary consumer spending and claims to be on track to reach $3 billion in GMV in the next 6 months. The new capital they’re raised will help them keep up with the product demands and challenges of this rapid growth.

Due Diligence: Busy Continent & AFR

Disability

📱Kindship harnesses community with $1M crowdfunding campaign

Adelaide-based start-up Kindship officially closed their crowdfunding campaign on November 10th at just over $1M from over 600 investors. It seems FOMO got the best of some, with the company more than doubling the total amount raised in the final 48 hours of the campaign. The first social networking app built for parents raising children with disability in Australia, Kindship received $360k earlier this year as part of the South Australian Government’s Seed-Start program. The latest funding will go towards launching the company’s next big feature - the Kindship Wallet - which helps parents budget, track and spend their allocated NDIS support funding. The company is tapping into a huge potential market, with its revenue coming directly from Government reimbursements. And it couldn’t be a more topical time to be tackling innovation in the NDIS space, with the program consistently in the news cycle over recent months...!

Due Diligence: Birchal

Disability

👂Kara Technologies raises NZ$1.3M to improve visual communication for the Deaf

Kara Technology has raised NZ$1.3M to fuel its mission to build a more equitable and accessible global communications system for the Deaf community through a combination of motion capture, AI, and neural network algorithms. Investors in the round included Investible, Te Pae ki te Rangi, Quident Ventures, Icehouse Ventures, and Startmate. In times of emergency, or when critical information needs to be conveyed en-masse, the media relies on closed captions and sign-language interpreters to ensure the message gets across to Deaf individuals, with the latter often unavailable at short notice. To disrupt these imperfect methods, Kara Technologies has created avatars with high-fidelity faces and emotional expressions that are easily comprehensible to their audiences and translate media content such as video, audio, or text into sign language. If you’re having trouble imagining just how hyper-realistic these avatars are, head to the company’s website and take a look for yourself. Mind. Blown.

Due Diligence: Investible Investment Note

If you're a founder or investor who has just closed a round, please reach out!

Best of Sunrise

Notice Board

• Run a SaaS business that wants to expand to the USA? Eligible businesses can apply for free support from the NSW Government. Applications close Nov 20th.

• _SOUTHSTART START/UP WEEK kicks off next week (Nov 14th) at multiple locations across South Australia, providing a taster of the March festival program (7th - 10th March). Get tickets here.

• My Start-Up Gig: Over 2,838 Australian start-up jobs across 573 Aussie companies currently listed here.

• Venture Capital Careers lists all the Australian Venture Capital Jobs available here. There are currently 17 opportunities.

  • Breakthrough Victoria is looking for a head of Portfolio Management, Blackbird wants accountants, Marketing and IT. Square Peg is still looking for portfolio analysts, and Aura Ventures is looking for an Investment Associate.

Accredited Tweeters

(KaaS) Knowledge as a Service

• Happy talk vs Hard Talk by David Sacks. (Blog Post)

  • When people get Happy Talk instead of Hard Talk, it doesn’t reassure them. In fact, it does the opposite: it causes them to question the credibility of their leaders, which heightens their anxiety and makes them feel rudderless.

• For B2B SaaS companies considering a website re-fresh in the New Year, here are 2000+ B2B SaaS landing page screenshots for inspiration. (LinkedIn Post)

• How to be a good product manager by Brian Armstrong. 1 Page PDF

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