G'day and welcome to Overnight Success. A warm welcome to the 56 new subscribers that have joined since the last edition!

As participants and official media partners, we were absolutely stoked to be part of _SOUTHSTART // ODYSSEY this week. We pinched ourselves every time we met someone who turned out to be a subscriber and loved the enthusiasm of new connections who were quick to subscribe. We’re pushing through some extreme fatigue this week, thanks to your ongoing support and encouragement ❤️️. (We know you’ll forgive any typos this week…!).

The competition is heating up…! 🔥 Congrats to Jon G, Fathia T & Brendon E for correctly guessing last week’s start-up in our weekly quiz. Want to join the OS hall of fame? You’ll find this week’s clue at the bottom of the email. 👇

Headlines

• 💔 Founders of Australian tech-darling Atlassian ‘deeply sorry’ to announce ~500 redundancies.

  • The cuts come off the back of the company just six months ago promoting a large recruitment drive, complete with a camper van touring the country to find its newest remote-working talent. (The Guardian)

  • NZ-headquartered Xero also announced it will reduce its headcount by about 15% this week, although exact numbers around those to be impacted in Australia are unconfirmed. (SMH)

• 🤔 Silicon Valley Bank shut down in $300B collapse. (AFP)

  • What happened? SVB has faced headwinds due to lower start-up capital raising, with many more customers burning through cash balances than depositing big VC-sourced checks. This recently forced them to cash out US$21B of safe bond assets at a loss and led them to raise $US1.8B to preserve asset-to-liability ratios - or in other words - to plug the gap.

  • The TL;DR for Aussie founders: The AFR has confirmed with at least 15 anonymous start-ups that they have pulled out some, if not all, of the funds they had sitting in the US-bank. But many big names in Aussie VC were confident SVB was in a good position to pull through and are not urging immediate action.

• 🐌 Australian Government takes “scenic route” regarding crypto regulation & Web3 innovation.

  • The Treasury has been undertaking a “token mapping” project involving industry consultation as the first step of a regulation drive, with legislation not expected until next year. (AFR)

  • This week, the Reserve Bank Governor said he is “very sceptical” about CBDC implementation in direct consumer applications, seeing more short-term potential in wholesale use cases. (AFR)

• 🤓 LaunchVic releases its annual Victorian start-up ecosystem mapping report.

  • The report showed that Victorian start-ups employ around 41,500 staff but that female founders are still underrepresented in the state. (Business News Australia & Smart Company)

• 🤑 Investors in the open-banking app, Basiq, get an exit.

  • NAB and Westpac were among 6 major investors to be bought out by Cuscal for an undisclosed amount. (AFR)

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

2. Notice Board: Signposting key events and opportunities.

3. Wins: Highlighting wins, big and small.

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

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

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

7. Guess the Aussie Start-up: A series of hints to guess an Aussie start-up. How well do you know Australian start-ups?

⚡️Start-up Retro⚡️

FinTech / ClimateTech

Sumday raises $2M in pre-Seed to expand the value-add of accountants

The Tasmanian accounting software start-up, Sumday, has raised $2M in pre-seed funding. The round was backed by Blackbird, Possible Ventures, Canva co-founder Cameron Adams, and CEO of Wedgetail Ventures, Lisa Miller. The platform enables accountants and bookkeepers to provide non-financial advice to their clients. Carbon accounting is the first service to be offered, making it more accessible for companies (or accountants) with carbon-neutral targets to measure their impact. The founders discovered this problem after launching their accounting business in Burnie, Tasmania. The platform calculates the carbon footprint based on audit-ready data already produced by the accountant, which prevents "greenwashing" from happening. With this fresh capital Sumday plans to expand internationally and empower accountants worldwide to join the carbon neutrality movement.

Due Diligence: Startup Daily

FinTech

Till Payments lands $70M Series D pre-IPO but post layoffs

Sydney-based fintech Till Payments has secured a $70M Series D. While the massive round arrives with its sights set on public markets, it further demonstrates that strong companies weren't immune to macro-factors. In January 2023, Till Payments cut 120 staff (40%). Silva Fortune led the round with support from Touch Ventures, Avenir Growth, Woodson Capita Akuna Capital and Regal Funds Management. Till Payments allows businesses of every size to accept payments across various touch points but connects them into a single backend platform. The capital raise follows strong growth with a 300% year-on-year increase in transaction volumes. In 2022, Till launched in New Zealand and saw solid adoption. This capital will be utilised for further international growth, including integrations with AliPay, WeChatPay and the Australian Payment Plus (EFTPOS) Network.

Due Diligence: FinTech Futures

HealthTech

SimConverse secures $1.5M Seed to help doctors better communicate with patients.

SimConverse, a healthcare start-up that uses generative artificial intelligence (AI) to simulate real-life patient conversations to improve healthcare professionals' communication skills, has raised $1.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Folklore Ventures and included Artesian. This capital will allow for further market penetration with customers already in Australia, the UK and the US. SimConverse follows research that ineffective communication in the healthcare sector is a primary reason for medical errors. Similar to poor doctor handwriting. SimConverse is positioned as a digitised healthcare education platform that disrupts the slow and expensive current solution of using actors as patients. SimConverse already counts several healthcare networks as customers, including Queensland Health, NHS Lothian and King's College London. It will be interesting to see how they expand their customer base up and down the educational stack from university students to more experienced professionals.

Due Diligence: Startup Daily

HealthTech

Kali Healthcare lands $250K to monitor pregnancies more closely.

Kali Healthcare, a female-founded healthcare start-up co-founded by Associate Professor Fiona Brownfoot, has received pre-Seed investment from the University of Melbourne. Kali Healthcare has developed a small wearable device and sensor patch that monitors the baby's heart rate during pregnancy. This is particularly important for women in regional areas where ultrasound equipment is often still unavailable. The $250K investment will further develop the product and ensure accuracy before entering the clinical trial phase in 2024. The investment is part of the University of Melbourne Women's Founder Network. The device also comes in handy during telehealth consultations, which can be far more convenient than visiting a doctor. The other use case is during active labour. This allows midwives and obstetricians to stay on top of the babies' heart rate during birth. Tragically, over 2,000 families are impacted by stillbirth each year in Australia.

Due Diligence: University of Melbourne Announcement

HealthTech / Research

Torch Recruit receives $500K to improve diversity in clinical trials.

Torch Recruit is creating a clinical tool to identify eligible patients for clinical trials automatically. The overall goal is to improve participant diversity. Recruiting participants for clinical trials is typically a significant pain point, and over 80% of trials fail to enrol enough patients. The funding was split equally between the University of Melbourne and Western Health. Torch will try to bring clinical trials to communities across Australia, including regional and rural locations. If successful, more trials will go to market, leading to faster research and iteration in the health space. Additionally, a more diverse clinical trial basis provides a deeper understanding of how the product works across diverse communities.

Due Diligence: University of Melbourne Announcement

Defence

ASX-listed DroneShield raises $40.3M.

DroneShield (ASX:DRO), the counter-drone defence company that monitors, detects, and defeats drones, has raised $29.4M from a share purchase plan, in addition to a $10.9M placement last month, bringing the total amount raised to $40.3M. After initially planning to raise ~$3M from shareholders, the company's board decided to keep applications open due to the overwhelming response. DroneShield will use the funds to increase inventory short-term sales and expand its team. The funds will also accelerate the development of the company's technology. The company has matured since 2013, and recent events in Ukraine demonstrate the effectiveness of drones and why specialised defence systems are essential.

Due Diligence: The Market Herald

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…

Overnight Success is now offering various affordable & flexible sponsorship packages for any organisation contributing to the Aussie start-up ecosystem. Interested? Reply to this email for more information!

Notice Board

• 🐸 Bullfrog Media offers female founders 6-month residencies via their new ‘Fair Advantage’ program.

  • This includes 24-hour access to the company’s co-working space and in-house production facilities.

  • Interested? Learn more here, or get in touch with the team at [email protected].

  • Best suited to: Melbourne-based female founders needing expert strategic, brand, creative & production support.

• 🚀Startmate Launch Club applications close this Sunday!

  • Get plugged into the centre of the ANZ startup ecosystem with practical, actionable programming on how to get started.

    • Form genuine relationships (inc. prospective co-founders)

    • Want to learn more about what it is and why you should consider joining? Read this article.

  • Best suited to: Aspiring start-up founders that are looking for a supportive ‘kick up the bum’ to get their venture off the ground.

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!

Wins

• Prophero 🏠 The prop-tech start-up has promoted Sophie Hayek to CEO for Australia, while the founders focus on global expansion. (Startup Daily)

  • Hayek joined the company in September last year as Global COO amidst a rapid growth period. Previously she worked as an early employee of used-vehicle platform CARS24 as well as in multiple strategy-focused roles at nbn Australia and Woolworths Supermarkets.

• AWS Healthtech Accelerator 👩‍⚕️ Announced the 11 start-ups accepted into its newest cohort. (Inside Ageing)

  • The founders embark on their ventures at a time when the need for innovation in the Australian health and aged care systems is more needed than ever before. You can read about them here.

Vibe Check

• 🌶 Skalata and Startmate were at loggerheads this week over the wording of a Google Search ad.

  • Startmate CEO Michael Batko called out their VC competitor via LinkedIn & Twitter for directly comparing the two firms in a Google Search ad titled “Startmate? Skalata mate. - Your better startup mates.”

  • Skalata’s CEO replied directly to the post to say there was “no malice intended”.

  • What’s your take? Let us know in the poll below! 👇

• 🎪 If you weren’t at _SOUTHSTART // ODYSSEY you were probably experiencing some serious FOMO this week.

  • Feedback for the annual festival has been overwhelmingly positive, with many sighting the keynote from Marc Randolph (Netflix co-founder and ex-CEO) and the highly-engaging use of an airhorn from Jess Walker (Airtree) as their personal highlights.

  • Overnight Success is excited to bring you some post-event content over the coming weeks, so even if you can’t make it, you can still absorb some of the juicy insights!

Accredited Tweeters

KaaS (Knowledge as a Service)

• Docker: A Whale becomes a Phoenix by Jax Vullinghs

  • This a neat analysis of how Docker pivoted, raised again with a substantial down round and now sits at a growing $50M revenue rate.

• How did _SOUTHSTART grow out of ‘little-old’ Adelaide?

  • Our resident Radelaidian explains (in a completely non-biased way 😜) how SA is emerging as an innovation powerhouse, earning it the right to host one of the country’s best and biggest start-up festivals.

What is the best thing you read or published this week? Reply to this email to be featured.

Guess the Aussie Start-up

Last Week’s Hint: Founded in 2015 to create products out of sustainable materials. D2C & wanted to disrupt dedicated retail stores. Smudge invested.

Answer: Koala

New Hint: A shortcut to all things digital, a hub for creators that's quite pivotal, A single line that connects you all. What am I, can you recall?

Shoot a reply with your best guess; those who guess correctly will gain eternal glory in next week’s newsletter! Reply for an extra hint.

Have we missed something? Got some feedback? We love emails, so send one over!

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‘Til next time,

👋 Will & Gem