G'day and welcome to Overnight Success!

A big shout-out to the 46 new subscribers who’ve joined since the last edition. You’ve arrived at an exciting time, as we’re celebrating the wedding of our co-founder Gemma to her husband Jon.

Before we dive into the news, we have a small favour to ask of you. OS has compiled two proposals for this year’s South by South West in Sydney and we need help getting them voted in.

1. Myth-busting Aussie Startup Culture: Uncovering what’s true, what’s fiction and the impact of the stories we tell each other about achieving success as a founder, operator or investor. Vote here!

   • The panel includes Kirstin Hunter (MD @ Techstars), Chris Gillings (Cut Through Venture & Five V Capital) & Alex Khor (Co-founder of Afterwork Ventures.

2. Australian Startup Casual Meet-up & Fireside Chat with Will from OS & Michael Batko from Startmate. Vote here!

   • This is just an excuse to host a meet-up in Sydney.

Also, we’re taking a break over the Easter weekend, so we’ll be in your inbox in two weeks.

Headlines

• 🦣 Vow creates a meatball from the DNA of the long-extinct Wooly Mammoth.

  • Vow is differentiating itself from the start-ups trying to replace meat by creating new kinds of meat proteins. Check out the Mammoth Meatball here.

• 🎨 Canva says no IPO soon, but private shares are in high demand despite devaluations. (AFR)

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

2. Aussie Raisins: Companies looking for funding & support.

3. Notice Board: Signposting key events and opportunities.

4. Wins: Highlighting wins, big and small.

5. New Fund, Who’s This: Fresh funds entering the ecosystem.

6. Vibe Check: An insider look at happenings across the ecosystem.

7. Accredited Tweeters: Snippets from mostly Aussie start-up Twitter.

8. (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⚡️

AgTech

🥗 Cauldron closes $10.5M seed round to revolutionise the way food is created.

Cauldron, a regional NSW-based hyper-fermentation start-up, has raised a $10.5M seed round led by Main Sequence Ventures with additional investment from Horizons Ventures. Cauldron utilises industrial-scale fermentation (dubbed “fermafacturing”) to create cheaper and scalable food, and more specifically, has developed a unique process that utilises bio-acceleration to quickly scale the production of livestock feed. The funding will be used to expand Cauldron’s pilot plant in Orange and set up new sites across Australia. Looking ahead, Cauldron’s fermentation tanks could be placed in metro locations, much like breweries, to generate commercial quantities of food, with other use cases including creating dairy-farm feed on-site using minimal starting feed and water, and creating animal-free ‘milk’ and plant-based ‘meats’. Notably, Aussie AgTech start-ups Loam Bio and ULUU are using Cauldron’s precision fermentation facilities to accelerate their own technologies.

Due Diligence: AFR

FinTech

📊 Lumiant bags $5M seed round to help financial advisors engage with their clients.

Lumiant, a cloud-based financial advisory platform that provides personal finance managers with better tools to engage with their clients, has raised a $5M seed round. The capital comes from independent advisory firms Invest Blue and Savant Wealth Management. While Invest Blue is Australian-based, Savant is based in the US, reflecting Lumiant's plans to enter the American market. In addition to international expansion, the capital will be used for further platform development, including building out phone applications. One of the defining differentiators for Lumiant is the use of stochastic modelling to transform non-numerical information into measured outcomes. Non-numerical information can be some of the most valuable for financial advisors, which are then able to customise their offerings to their clients, so Lumiant asks all new clients to take the values, goals and investment preferences surveys during onboarding. The platform is currently being used by 60 firms, with Lumiant’s client base growing 44% in 2022. The firm previously tried to raise $2M through crowdfunding in 2021, and closed out with $1M following an initial seed round of $1.17M.

Due Diligence: Start-up Daily

Training

🔥 Flaming great: FLAIM Systems finds $6.7M Series A to build firefighting training technology.

Victorian-based FLAIM Systems has raised $6.7M, in a round led by Breakthrough Victoria. FLAIM Systems has developed training technology that utilizes VR and AR to help train firefighters. The system uses virtual environments, physical and sensory experiences and biometric measurements during simulations to make them feel real and provide feedback. As the training is virtual, there is no carcinogen exposure to the firefighter or instructor, which ensures safety in the long run, and the simulation removes the need for water and the CO2 emissions of real fires. The system is also incredibly intelligent and can track virtual water usage. Instructors love the platform as it can simulate many different scenarios, including bushfires, fires on residential properties, aircraft fires and fires on industrial sites. The raise comes at a valuation of $21M and follows rapid growth, with FLAIM Systems already working with more than 300 organizations in Australia, the UK and the US. The clients aren't just firefighters either; oil and gas companies including Saudi Aramco see value in the technology to train their employees. The raise was supported by existing investors Deakin University and Significant Capital Ventures, as well as FLAIM Systems staff.

Due Diligence: CRN & AFR. Breakthrough Victoria Media Release

FinTech

💸 Paypa Plane lands $10M+ Series A to improve payments.

Paypa Plane, a start-up under the PayTo umbrella, has received Series A funding of more than $10 million from several investors, the majority of which are major financial players, including Commbank, Tyro Payments, the Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC), Cuscal, Mastercard, and Sprint Venture Capital. Paypa Plane is developing a white-label payment solution for banks that offers customers instant processing times with better security. The platform is compliant with the PayTo payment system mandated by the Reserve Bank of Australia. Banks must choose between updating their systems internally or using the Paypa Plane platform. Paypa Plane's go-to-market strategy is unique in that it uses a top-down approach to enter major banks and then get deployed to the banks' clients. Commbank, which invested in this round, is already a major customer.

Due Diligence: Sprint Venture Capital Investment Notes

If you're a founder or investor who has just closed a round, please reach out to us at [email protected]

This week’s newsletter is brought to you by…

You have mere days to get your application in for Techstars' first-ever Sydney accelerator. Click here to apply or learn more!

Aussie Raisins

• AirSeed Technologies is looking to raise a $15M Series A to expand its drone-powered seed-planting technology. (Business News Australia)

  • AirSeed can rapidly regenerate land, helping companies to quickly improve their carbon footprint.

Notice Board

• 🤘 Startmate Demo Day is happening on the 19th of April in Sydney at the Factory Theatre in Marrickville, and we’ll be there!

  • You can grab tickets here.

  • Use the code SMOVERNIGHT to get 10% off tickets and to let them know we sent you.

• 👉️ The Startup Shakeup is taking EOIs for their upcoming 16-week accelerator program.

  • Check out the program here.

  • Best suited to: early-stage founders looking for advice early in the process.

• 🐟 Optus Fishburners Scholarship

  • Want 12 months of co-working space & support from Australia’s oldest start-up community? Apply for this awesome opportunity worth over $7,000 in benefits and much more! Applications close on the 9th of April, apply here.

  • Best suited to: Sydney-based start-up founders looking for a place to work & community to lean on.

Have something to put on the Notice Board? We're always looking for upcoming events & opportunities across the Aussie start-up ecosystem. Reach out to [email protected] to add yours!

New Fund, Who’s This?

• Purpose Ventures, a new VC fund focusing on Western Australian start-ups, has secured $37M within 5 weeks. (Business News Australia)

  • The firm will invest in companies from pre-seed to Series B over the next 3-5 years.

  • Purpose Ventures has also committed to investing 70-80% of its capital into WA start-ups.

Vibe Check

• Quiet Achievers is a platform that shares and celebrates authentic stories of Asian Australians.

  • If you’re curious to learn more, read Abby Shen’s recent LinkedIn post on why she launched the platform and some of the challenges she’s faced.

Accredited Tweeters

KaaS (Knowledge as a Service)

• A founder’s guide to community by Lenny Rachitsky & David Spinks

  • This blog covers when a start-up should invest in a community, how to get started, and setting goals and strategies.

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‘Til next time,

👋 Will, Gem & Bronte!