💌 Aussie start-up & Venture Capital Retro! 20th August

G'day and welcome to Overnight Success, the weekly newsletter that levels you up on Aussie start-ups.

Welcome to the 23 new subscribers who join 241 other legends learning about Aussie start-ups. 

Just before we get stuck in, would love to hear your thoughts. Click a preferred time to vote!

Headlines: 

• 🐨 Koala, the mattress company cuts 30 jobs and dismisses claims of a listing. Koala’s employees count over 200 and the cuts stretch internationally with 10 South Korean staff being cut. (News.com.au)

• 🚕Gig economy workers will be classified as independent contractors. This means they’re not fully entitled to the Aussie minimum wages & protections.. (SMH)

• ✂️ Swytfx, the crypto exchange, cuts 74 (21%) of staff, reducing the total workforce to ~250. (Start-up Daily)

• 🥘ChefPrep acquires rival Co-Lab Pantry and rebrands as CoLab. Is this recipe a winner? (Start-up Daily)

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

2. Aussie Raisins: Aussie start-ups looking to get some investment.

3. New Fund, Who's this? New VC Funds!

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

5. Crowded House: A crowd funding pick of the week.

6. Accredited Tweeters: Snippets from Twitter!

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

Start-up Retro! 

SaaS

🚗BaseUp

News: The start-up that enables companies to better utilise their spare car park spaces, BaseUp, has raised $4.25M. The cash comes from original investors and Marbruck Investments. BaseUp’s founders previously sold a parking business called Parallel Parking in 2017. BaseUp hopes to democratise parking in the workspace. It differs from Parallel Parking significantly. BaseUp chases higher value corporate car parks while PP looked at consumer car parks. At a high level, Parallel Parking looked more like Airbnb enabling consumers to rent their spare space. BaseUp’s hybrid clients love the service as it allows better asset utilisation. BaseUp is already profitable but will use the cash to speed growth in the US.

Read more about it: (AFR)

Data Management

💻💽  Biza.io

News: Biza.io, the data management platform that helps companies comply with consumer data rights rules has raised $7.5M. The cash comes from OIF Ventures and Jelix Ventures and is the first external cash into the business. They've been bootstrapped till now making the most of a very uncompetitive market. The start-up targets any business that holds important consumer information. First on their list was the banking sector. Current clients include Bank First, Australian Military Bank, and Family First Bank. Biza will look next to the energy sector which will fall under similar reporting standards soon. Stuart Low, the founder, said there is minimal competition at the moment. Low has made hay while the sun shines and expanded his team to 16. Ultimately, the consumer data rights rules (CDR) have opened a new set of standards to comply with. It's a delicious opportunity for businesses like Biza to take advantage of. It does beg the question, why isn't anyone else working on this?

Read more about it: (fintech global)

Real Assets

🏘️ View Media Group

News: Seven West Media's VC arm has invested in View Media Group, a mix of several real estate digital media and agent businesses. The group includes a few labels like The Today Business and Catalano. In the mix as well is houseandlanddevelopments.com.au which is a website, that you guessed it, lists house and land developments. While the capital will be used to consolidate and grow the View Media Group, it's clear that Seven West is interested in the opportunity to leverage their preexisting media business. VMG will include a buyer portal, adtech, lead generation and media planning and buying under one roof. For VMG, the choice of the investor was simple with personal relationships key and Seven West allegedly touching 91% of all Australians every month.

Read more about it: (start-up daily)

Aussie Raisins: Start-ups looking for 💵!

• Datafarming, a Queensland-based company that provides real-time insights to farms looks to raise $5M. The platform provides satellite imagery that is updated every 5 days. Current, it services over 40% of Aussie grain farms. Farmers are able to zoom into 70cmx70cm resolution of their paddocks to check crop health.

  • The platform helps agronomists, which generally every large farm has, reduce their costs and increase output. (Techau)

• Aptly named, FrontYa, the start-up that doubles your deposit in return for 25% of any capital gains, is looking to raise a cool $25M. (AFR)

  • The capital will come in a mix of equity and debt with the majority of funds used in deployments.

  • While a substantially large amount of for a Series A, the investment is essentially a long play on real estate with a extra kicker for capital gains.

  • FrontYa expects a 6 year turn around for their original money in plus the 25% capital gain bonus.

New Fund, Who's this?

• EVP has banked $60M of its new $100M fund. EVP, unlike many funds, hasn’t written down any investments yet. Fund partner, Howard Liebman, said they've invested at a valuation close to 8.4x ARR and therefore didn’t need to reevaluate due to public markets lowering. 

  • EVP generally invests in around 8 companies a year and targets B2B software. 

• Tenmile, the health tech fund, secures $250M in funding. The funding comes in no small part from Aussie mining magnate, Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest. Tenmile focuses on seed round capital for health tech companies with provisions to provide follow on capital. (Business News Australia)

Notice Board

• The Startmate Women Fellowship has been extended and closes tomorrow! (More info here)

Crowded House: Raise with you

Crowdfunding update!

• Rent Rabbit, the Brisbane-based start-up that gives renters the power to review landlords is looking to raise some crowdfunding cash on the crowdfunding platform Birchal.

  • The platform is in the EOI phase and monitizes in several ways like paying to read a full landlord review. A small price to pay when rental contracts average out at $26K annually.

  • You can check out the EOI here.

Accredited Tweeters

(KaaS) Knowledge as a Service 

• Run Fast & Efficient Meetings: Check this quick blog post on how to run efficient meetings from 1v1s, board meetings and all hands. I particularly enjoy the advice of delete all meetings that you don't need.

• Going deep on burn rates. With a challenging funding enviroment at the moment, many start-ups are looking to extend their runway by reducing burn. Burn is dynamic and understanding the levers of you start-up or investments burn is critical for future planning. Worth a read as many companies are up against it.

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