💌 Aussie start-up & Venture Capital Retro! 1st of October

G'day to the first edition of Overnight Success for October. Last week was one of the busiest weeks for Aussie start-ups being funded since the newsletter's inception. There were plenty of announcements following the long weekend. Let's get stuck in!

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Headlines: 

• 🫁 Digital respiratory health start-up, ResApp, is acquired by Pfizer for $179M. (Start-up daily)

• 🌮 Guzman y Gomez sells $100M of shares to Aware Super at a $1.35B valuation. Bien Hecho to early investors in Guzzy, who have crowned another Aussie unicorn.

• 👩‍🎓 The Albanese Government will look to give Uni-students a HECS-style loan to launch their own start-up. (Start-up daily)

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

2. Notice Board: Signposting key events and opportunities in the ecosystem.

3. Accredited Tweeters: Snippets from Twitter!

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

Start-up Retro 

FinTech

✨ Shaype raises a $33M series C from Regal Investment Partners

The Surry Hills-based, one-stop-shop finance platform has gone against the grain and raised a $33M Series C. Regal Funds led the round, which sees the software as an opportunity for disruption in banking and finance. The round closed with a significant uplift in valuation, with the Shaype team adding a solid pipeline of new business. The Shaype platform gives single API access to a suite of microservices for payments, KYC (Know your customer), data insights and real-time transaction monitoring. Shaype will utilise the funds to roll out specific functionality for financial services, HR, PropTech and the government. Additionally, the headcount, which is already over 100 strong, is set to grow.

Read more about it: (Australian FinTech)

e-commernce

 🛍️ Checkmate lands a 7.75M Seed Round

The Aussie-founded but US-based start-up has landed a seed round led by Fuel Capital. Amongst a sea of other VCs and angel investors was Blackbird. The tool, aptly named for a week full of chess news, helps online shoppers discover brands, apply discounts and manage their orders. The platform itself can be found on your mobile or as a Chrome extension and will automatically apply promo codes at checkout. Checkmate, e-commerce stores!! Checkmate has also created a few other nifty tools for bargain hunters, like gift-card storage and a ghost inbox that reads all your marketing emails and applies discounts while you shop. The company is well positioned as brands look for more personal connections with their customers following changes to privacy rules online. According to testing, users engaged 3.5 times a week with Checkmate and saved 27% on average vs 15% using regular savings apps. The business will do well as the first port of call for shoppers who are looking to save cash.

Go deeper: (Smart company)

FinTech

📈 Jacobi Inc. Closes $15.4M Series A

Jacobi Inc is a Brisbane born but San Fran-based fintech that helps its clients manage their funds. QIC (Queensland Investment Corporation) joined US-based Illuminate Ventures, 8VC and Western Technology Investment in the round. Jacobi has also picked up two new board members, Bill Miller (Makena Capital) and Crystal Russell (QIC). The platform is already making waves with substantial asset management firms use the platform with a total AUM exceeding A$7T. The platform allows fund managers to move beyond Microsoft excel into a cloud-based platform that helps build, manage and alter a multi-asset portfolio. A multi-asset portfolio is similar to your superfund; Jacobi allows the manager to swap out exposure to the British £, for example, and increase exposure to the technology sector. Jacobi can help a firm explain their rationale to a client and is part of the widespread digitisation of the asset management industry.

Go deeper: (Start-up daily)

FinTech

🧾 Thriday banks a $6M Pre-Series A

Thriday is a platform that automates small to medium-sized businesses' banking, accounting and tax. NAB Ventures led the round with significant follow-on investment from Lempriere Capital. Thriday has over 11,000 small businesses on its waitlist. In a previous life, the start-up was known as Thrive and raised a record $3M in 3 hours on the crowdfunding platform Birchal. The record raise may have been due to the pain over 2.3 million small businesses feel daily managing their finances. At last count, SME account for half of Australia's workforce and contribute a third of Australia's GDP. The platform helps a small business by combining a business account with addons like expense management, invoicing, tax and BAS (Business Activity Statement) lodgement. Users love the product as they save time and money through automation, with monthly prices currently set at $29.95

Go deeper: (NAB Press release)

MarTech / GameTech

🎮 Livewire lands a $4.7M Series A

The 16-month-old gaming company has developed integrated marketing solutions for video games. The Livewire Ad marketplace has partnered with large gaming companies like Activision Blizzard Media and Roblox. The cash is led by RealVC, managing partner Matt Berriman, who will join the board. For brands, Livewire’s GameTech products give them access to large gaming audience segments that opt in for location, demographic and behavioural data. The platform also provides real-time measurement of advertising campaigns which can display measurements and activations. The investment is targeting the large gaming TAM, which includes over 3 billion daily users, the Series A will allow investment into the product and team. Currently, Livewire holds offices in Sydney, London, Mumbai and Singapore and will continue to grow with its unique product.

Go Deeper: (Bandt)

Automation

🤖 ybot, the voice-activated automation start-up raises a $4.6M seed

In a round led by US VC Florida Funders, ybot has locked away $4.6M to continue to create an automated work assistant for out-of-office workers. Ybot, described as the “Siri for work”, allows employees who are deskless to speed up requests with the back office. For example, workers in trucking and warehousing may use ybot while on the move. This workforce represents 80% of the global workforce and unlocks potential productivity by reducing the time to complete repetitive tasks. Ybot already works with tools like Teams, Zoom and Slack and comes in 40+ languages. According to the website, ybot has already saved 12 million minutes of productivity and will utilise the funds to move its head office to Florida.

Go deeper: (start-up daily)

eBike / Transport

🚵‍♀️ Lug+Carrie lands $5M in bridge funding to take on the US

Lug+Carrie is an eBike subscription business looking to disrupt urban car trips. The company has launched in Sydney & Melbourne, expanding to Brisbane and Canberra by the end of 2022. The bikes are un-shameful about their attempt to replace the family car with one with two children and a rider called The School Bus. Their bikes look to slot into any lifestyle and even have a build-a-bike section on their site here. Lug+Carrie will utilise the capital to tackle the US market following high growth in Melbourne and Sydney.

Go deeper: (Business News Australia)

FinTech

💵 Paytron wins Xccelerate 2022 and lands a $250,000 SAFE Note from x15 Ventures

Paytron, a platform that replaces several services with an encompassing platform, has landed $250K and gains access to the CBA ecosystem to ramp growth. The platform previously raised a $4.35M seed round which Carthona Capital and German Picus Captial backed. Initially looking to solve pain points around international payments, Payton has matured into an all-in-one payment service that can manage transactions across accounts payable, international transfers and payroll. Clearly, the $250K is more than just cash; x15 Ventures, the venture capital arm of CBA, will look to help grow the Paytron user base and platform.

Go deeper: (CBA press release)

RegTech

🔍 6clicks secures $10M Series A

The RegTech platform (Regulatory processes technology, for the un-initiated), 6clicks, has closed a $10M series A from Centrestone Capital. The capital will be used to help grow the already worldwide platform. With over 3000 users and 80 partners on board, the platform is utilising AI and advanced reporting to help organisations manage their governance, risk and compliance. Although the use case may be a little un-exciting, the growth with users quadrupling in the last year is exciting. A typical client for 6clicks could be a large consultancy firm that is looking to improve its offerings through the use of technology.

Go deeper: (smart company)

Consumer Data

🧑🏻‍🤝‍🧑🏻Adatree closes a second funding round

Adatree provides turnkey solutions for businesses wanting to participate in the Consumer Data Right (CDR), Australia's highly regulated consumer data sharing program. The CDR may be more familiar with its industry names like Open Banking, Open Finance and Open Energy. Adatree is the brainchild of ex-Tyro Payments and Volt Bank employees Jill Berry and Shane Doolan. This latest round will allow Adatree to develop its market-leading Open Data marketplace and look to expand internationally with targets set to Canada.

Go deeper: (Australian Fintech)

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

MedTech Actuator is calling MedTech, BioTech and HealthTech innovators to join MedTech Actuator Origin and transform your innovation. Apply by Oct 7!

Notice Board

• Spark Festival is Australia’s event for startups, innovators and entrepreneurs happening both online and in person. 12-27 Oct. Check it out!

• Blackbird Sunrise Australia has announced their dates for November in Sydney. Check it out!

Accredited Tweeters

(KaaS) Knowledge as a Service

• DALL-E has removed their waitlist. Sign up here to start creating some amazing AI art. Check it out here. Please see below for my Koala on a rocket heading to space, a beautiful demonstration of Aussie founders.

• A great article on why contracts are still so hard to understand for the layperson despite becoming more common than ever.

• Tim Brady from y-combinator on how much equity should you give early employees. Youtube video!

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