💌 Aussie Start-ups & Venture Capital Summary! 22nd of October

G'day and welcome to Overnight Success, the newsletter that quenches your Australian start-up thirst. A big hello to the 251 new subscribers that have joined since last week! You've just joined 578 other legends learning about Aussie start-ups.

Below you'll find the headlines for last week, a summation of every start-up that raised capital and a few events sign-posted. At the very bottom of the email is a referral link you can share with a friend if you find this newsletter helpful!

Headlines:

• 💵 Aussie founders are looking to off-shore investors for much-needed funding, especially in the digital health space. (AFR)

  • Although there are plenty of seed investors, larger cheques are hard to find in Australia.

  • 85% of digital health start-ups plan on raising within the next 12 months.

• 💀 Uber kills off the Car Next Door branding to become Uber Carshare as Uber plans on taking the service to the US.

  • Car Next Door was founded in 2013 and has been used by over 1.1M people.

  • The main competitors in the space include GoGet, Flexicar and Popcar.

• 🖼️ Microsoft realeases free graphic design tool, directly competing with Canva.

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

2. Aussie Raisins: Companies looking to raise.

3. Grants: Updates on the world of free government money.

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

5. Accredited Tweeters: Snippets from Twitter.

6. (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 

FoodTech

🍔 Nourish Ingredients lands a delicious $43M Series A

Nourish Ingredients, a food tech company based in Canberra that creates animal-free fats and oils, has secured a Series A led by Horizons Ventures. Main Sequence Ventures and Hostplus also invested in the Series A. Nourish Ingredients differentiates itself from other food techs, like Beyond Meat, by focusing on developing the fats and oils that make alt proteins feel and taste more natural. Nourish Ingredients are selling the "picks and shovels" to the alternative meat trend. A big problem for the alternative meat industry is making the alt meat feel as close to real meat. Nourish Ingredients uses their fats and oils to replicate real meat across texture, cooking and taste. The capital will be used to scale out the production facilities. Additionally, cash will be used for R&D funding with partnerships with universities across The U.S., Australia, and the UK. Nourish Ingredients is partnering with the University of Queensland as they look to accelerate the production of next-gen foods in Australia. Main Sequence is bullish on alternative meats, previously backing plant-based burger business V2food.

Due Diligence: TechCrunch

Solar Power & Renewables

☀️ SunDrive charges off with $21M series B

SunDrive, which differentiates itself from other solar panel manufacturers by utilising copper, has locked away $21M in funding from various investors. The round was led by Main Sequence Ventres, the venture capital arm of the CSIRO. Following MSV were Blackbird, Grok V.C. and notable angels like Malcolm Turnbull and Cameron Adams (Canva co-founder). SunDrive's technology usage removes the reliance on silver in solar cells, reducing costs by over 50%. For context, approximately 20% of all industrial silver production goes into the creation of solar panels. This will only worsen as solar panel manufacturing is forecast to 5x in the next decade. To understand more about the technology, check out this youtube video here. SunDrive is also improving the actual efficiency of its panels. The drivers of this are again copper, which is 100x cheaper than silver. SunDrive will monetise its technology by applying its copper plating to partially fabricated cells and selling back to the manufacturer or selling directly to consumers. Check out the blackbird V.C. investment memo from their last round here.

Due Diligence: InnovationAus.com

EdTech

☀️ Clipboard lands $3.1M to catapult schools growth.

Clipboard is an extracurricular program management software for students and teachers. The $3.1M round was led by EVP but included Jelix Ventures and Sprint Ventures. The platform is five years old with a strong foothold in Australia, being used by over 100 Schools. The platform complements commonly used platforms found in schools, including a learning management system and a student information system. Schools love the platform as it saves time and increases child safety. Schools create activities they host for their students, like footy training or music rehearsal. Clipboard utilises an intelligent database so a school can create events in a simple and replicable structure. The platform is inherently sticky and has plenty of white space for expansion into other schools in Australia and overseas.

Due Diligence: (AFR)

Analytics

📹 Nola, the google analytics for people, has raised a $200K pre-seed

Nola, a platform that helps businesses and event planners understand the movement of their guests at events, has raised $200K with Skalata Ventures accelerator program. Nola's cofounder, Victoria Zorin, came up with the idea at a festival while waiting in a queue. Nola is an anonymous by-design software platform that can analyse live or historical footage. The software can provide insights into visitor count, marketing engagements, queues and wait times. While the obvious use case for Nola is large events like sports and music festivals, there is potential for uses across retail and hospitality. In these circumstances, the software will focus on the visitor experience. The company is very conscious of how it handles data as it takes footage of large crowds - Nola doesn't track or store any form of unique identification. Interestingly, the platform can help businesses like retail stores understand future demand using historical footage of public holidays which can help with rostering.

Due Diligence: (start-up daily)

VR

💉Smileyscope locks away ~$4.2M to reduce fear around doctors visits

Smileyscope is a V.R. software that provides patients with a tool to help minimise stress, fear and anxiety. The founder, Dr Evelyn Chan, found that 75% of kids, 50% of adolescents and 25% of adults fear needles. This fear means they're less likely to seek medical care, which can affect long-term outcomes. The platform uses evidence-based digital therapeutics with over 20 virtual reality experiences. Focusing on the fear of needles, Smileysope uses real-world sensations that are reframed in the V.R. simulations. Smileyscope was founded in Melbourne but has partnered with over 40 U.S. Hospitals, including Boston Children's Hospital. This real-world application contrasts with other V.R. uses like the Metaverse, which has recently come under heavy fire. It'll be interesting to see if Smileyscope utilises its platform for other phobias down the road.

Due Diligence: (Forbes)

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

Aussie Raisins: Companies looking to raise

• 💳 Stay or Go: The FinTech that helps customers understand if they should take on their current bank offers or look elsewhere is looking to raise following their pre-seed. (AFR)

  • Stay or Go uses the opening banking regime to display alternative offers from other lenders.

  • The start-up wins if you stay or go. If you move, they will take a commission for the referral, but if you stay, they also get a reward.

  • Customers are set to win as it's estimated that $6M Aussies are paying $1.5B in unnecessary credit card fees and interest.

• 🍔 EatClub: the marketplace for restaurants with spare tables and customers who are hungry for a deal, is looking to land a pre-Christmas capital raise. (AFR)

  • EatClub hopes to grow into a few other Aussie markets and expand overseas.

  • The founders are looking for a series A of between $5M - $10M.

  • The start-up kicked off with a $1.2M round in 2017, a $2.5M round in 2018 and $2M in 2019 before slowing down over Covid.

  • Shareholders include Alium Capital, EVP Partners and Marco Pierre White.

Grant Action

• 🏭 Flinders University Factory of the Future facility will receive $10.1M from the Federal Government to ramp up the development of the Factory of the Future. (Start-up Daily)

  • The factory should unlock 4000 jobs over 5 years and will focus on manufacturing support for small businesses and defence start-ups.

Notice Board

• Giant Leap is partnering with Impact Victoria for the Impact Pitch Night on the 25th of October 2022. The night will showcase for-profit and for-purpose start-ups; tickets are here.

• The Startmate Accelerator is looking for start-ups for its next cohort. Get in quick; applications close on the 30th of October. Apply here.

• 🎪 Spark Festival is rolling into its last week. Make sure you check out the program here.

  • Two Sydney-based events to check out:

    • Future Proofing you Start-up

    • The History of the Australian Start-up Ecosystem, doumentary launch.

• My Start-Up Gig: Over 3,000 Australian Start-up jobs are currently listed here.

A guide through the unique mindset and approach that drives Silicon Valley-style disruption at scale

Accredited Tweeters

(KaaS) Knowledge as a Service

• Most People won't by Bryce Roberts. Most people won't read that, but you might. (Short blog post)

  • Bryce highlights the imporatance of a leap of faith.

• SaaS Metrics that matter by David Sacks (Longer blog post)

  • So continues the education on software investing. David does a great job of simply explaining what metrics matter and why. Highly recommend.

• Jessy Wu on LinkedIn discusses if the Australian Start-up ecosystem is too nice. Worth a read here.

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