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  • 💌 Aussie Start-up & Venture Capital Summary! 3rd of December

💌 Aussie Start-up & Venture Capital Summary! 3rd of December

Robotics, deep-tech, biotech & reg-tech. Try explaining what these startups do at family Xmas lunch.

December 03, 2022

G'day and welcome to Overnight Success, the newsletter that quenches your Australian start-up thirst. A warm welcome to the 40 new subscribers that have joined since last week! You've just joined 845 other legends learning about Aussie start-ups.

Headlines:

  • 🚀 Culture Amp makes some big announcements

    • CFO Sally Bruce says the company will likely list in the US when it goes public, as their valuation “soars” (AFR)

    • Australian startup PR heavy-weight Kate Dinon (previously Co-founder & Managing Director of Character + Distinction) announced as the company’s first VP of Brand & Communications (Kate’s LinkedIn announcement)

  • 📊 Canva’s valuation rise may signal the private tech market is stabilising.

  • 📣 Earlywork’s “next evolution” announced

    • Previously featured in an Overnight Success deep-dive, the company has revealed it is launching a high-growth tech sales Academy for early-career professionals. Read all about it via Substack. 

  • 🎨 Bluethumb founders go “all-in”, selling off their other startup.

    • George Hartley and Philip Slusarki sell their second company, SmartMail, to Relay Commerce (via The Australian) (See also: George Hartley’s LinkedIn post).

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

  2. Aussie Raisins: Start-ups looking to raise some money.

  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.

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Start-up Retro 

Semiconductor / DeepTech

💻 Morse Micro lands an extra $30M to cap off its $140M Series B

Australia's largest semiconductor company, Morse Micro, has added an extra $30M to its massive Series B. This additional capital comes mainly from superfunds like TelstraSuper, HESTA, Hostplus, NGS and UniSuper. The original $140M was led by the Japanese chipmaker, MegaChips, who invested $100M. Other investors included Blackbird, Main Sequence Ventures, Clean Energy Finance Corp, and Skip Capital. Morse Micro specialises in creating microchips called the WiFI HaLow. These chips focus on being energy efficient and having long-range connectivity capabilities. The WiFi Halow can enable better products to be developed for the IoT future where everything is connected. Actual applications could include automated warehouses, smart city infrastructure or smart homes. The devices themselves are typically surveillance cameras, lighting controls or tracking devices. The capital will enable the further expansion of its R&D and go-to-market teams. Check out this explainer by Forbes on what WiFi HaLow is and where the technology is going. Forbes WiFi HaLow Explainer.

Due Diligence: (AFR)

Fraud Detection / RegTech

🔒 FrankieOne secures another $23M to scale up its RegTech business

FrankieOne, a cloud-based verification and fraud prevention platform, has landed another $23M to continue scaling up. The round is the largest investment into an Australian RegTech business and builds on a previous Series A of $20M. The round was led by AirTree Ventures and Greycroft (USA). Other investors included Reinventure, Tidal Ventures, Apex Capital Partners, Binance Labs and Kraken Ventures. So what does FrankieOne do? The Melbourne-based company has unified several critical services for banks and fintechs through a neat API. A single API can identify and verify a customer, called Know Your Customer (KYC). FrankieOne has several anti-money laundering tools (AML), fraud detection and credit analysis to help make fintech more secure. FrankieOne also makes the onboarding experience as friendly as possible - but keeps security at the forefront. The business has been flying with revenue growth 4xing in the last year. The company counts Westpac, Shopify, Afterpay and Pointsbet as customers. The raise also comes following high-profile security breaches in Australia like Medibank and Optus.

Due Diligence: (Business News Australia)

LegalTech

⚖️ Josef raises $5.2M to automate legal work

Josef, the legal automation tool that allows legal professionals to automate their day-to-day work, has locked away $5.2M. The round was led by OIF Ventures and included investment from Carthona Capital, Flying Fox Ventures, Jelix Ventures and Saniel Ventures. A typical use case for the software would be customised and automated document generation with a long tail for saving time. Additionally, integrations with commonly used software cuts down on busybody administrative work. Josef now integrates directly with applications like DocuSign, Salesforce, Office 365 and iManage. The founding team has a deep legal background, with two founders working as lawyers. The product is already in the hands of several law firms and in-house councils. A few impressive clients include CoreLogic, Bupa and Who Gives A Crap. The capital will allow the team to invest in the platform and look towards international expansion.

Due Diligence: (Press Release - Josef)

Robotics

🤖 Artesian invest in Australian Droid and Robot

As the saying goes, "pressure makes diamonds", and there aren't too many industries facing greater pressure to evolve from traditional practices than the mining industry. They face increasing pressure to adhere to rising ESG expectations, and there's also growing demand to improve efficiency and safety standards. Australian Droid and Robot is focused on solving the latter. Australian Droid and Robot is at the "cutting edge" of automation in the mining sector. Earlier this year, the company enabled a robot-led safety inspection (otherwise unsafe for humans to conduct) that saved the business from collapse and the economy of the local US small town it supported. Artesian came in as a key investor, but value and valuations are not yet disclosed. While still in its early stages of growth, the company sees potential applications for its technology across various dangerous working environments, from mines to caves and marine and remote areas. Want to learn more about how robots are used in mining rescue operations? Here's a deep dive article into the topic.

Due Diligence: (The Australian)

Sports Tech / Health Tech

🏃‍♀️ Vald ditches IPO and raises $36M instead

Brisbane-based hardware start-up, Vald, develops human performance and health measurement technologies. The tech has already been battle-tested by demanding customers like professional athletes and defence organisations. The company works off the mantra that if you can't measure it, you can't improve it and gives researchers and sports teams high-tech resources. Vistara Growth, who participated in the round, felt the product suite was very compelling as it helps users understand their movement and improve performance or rehabilitation. The company that was spun out of Queensland University of Technology has come a long way since its inception in 2015, now boasting almost 200 staff and 1200 professional sporting organisations as customers. The customer list already includes 20 EPL clubs, 27 NFL & 25 NBA teams. The capital will fund international expansion and grow the team further, with an additional 100 team members on the cards. This fundraising event was originally planned to be an IPO. However, the founding team felt the current culture, communication style, and extreme growth plans would lend themselves poorly to being under the public microscope.

Due Diligence: (Financial Review)

BioTech

🧬 Celosia Therapeutics secures $2M Seed round

Celosia Therapeutics, an Australian biotechnology which has been spun out of Macquarie University, has raised a $2M Seed round. The company is currently in the Macquarie University Incubator program and is looking to tackle neurodegenerative diseases like MND, epilepsy and dementia. A handy bonus of being so associated with Macquarie University is the exclusive access to key patents developed by the Uni's researchers. The next step is to enter clinical trials for the 'gene therapy for MND' solution, but the process could take over five years. The start-up is leaning on research that has been in the works for over 20 years. Despite this, the company will look to commercialise life-saving technologies for other neurodegenerative diseases.

Due Diligence: (Startup Daily)

EdTech

☁️ Saasguru closes a $4M Seed round

Saasguru, a Sydney-based content management and EdTech platform, has raised $4M. The round is still considered a Seed round despite having raised a $1.3M Seed in January this year. Square Peg led both raises, with Black Nova and Antler also investing. Saasguru automatically designs a personalised learning experience for each individual and leans on several engaging methods. Typically, shorter videos are used and supplemented with gamified learning and one-on-one mentoring. Most current courses are cloud-based certificates for companies like Salesforce, Google Cloud and AWS. Saasguru already has 40,000 students on the platform and a solid pipeline for growth with another 20 cloud consulting companies lined up. It's interesting to think of other speciality industries with specific training requirements and solve for those. Cloud consultants need to be up-skilled with the relevant software, and Saasguru delivers that experience across all the major suppliers. A recent report by AWS shows that cloud computing skills demand will triple between 2020 and 2025, hitting 109 million.

Due Diligence: (Tech Crunch)

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

Notice Board: Companies Looking To Raise

  • Willow is looking for a small equity round at a large valuation cut.

    • The company was previously valued at USD$170M but is rumored to be closer to US$70M.

    • Willow creates digital twins of property and infrastructure assets so data led decisions can be made about very expensive assets.

Notice Board

  • Startmate Athlete Fellowship applications are now open. Find out more & apply here.

  • Airtree Explorers Program to learn about angel investing is taking applications here for the Feb start.

  • Looking for a new gig in 2023 (or know someone is?). Here are four places to find one with an awesome Aussie or NZ startup:

    • Earlywork: join this community for young people interested in tech, startups & social impact to get access to free events & career resources, and build relationships with other Earlyworkers!

    • Startmate Talent Engine: recently launched and is absolutely free to create a profile and start searching!

    • My Start-Up Gig: Over 2,569 Australian start-up jobs across 573 Aussie companies are currently listed.

    • Venture Capital Careers lists all the Australian Venture Capital Jobs available here. There are currently 7 opportunities. For the New Zealand VC Jobs, head here.

Accredited Tweeters

(KaaS) Knowledge as a Service

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