Overnight Successes

G'day and welcome to Overnight Successes.

Today is election day. For a summary of how politicians are looking at science and technology, check out this article by our friends from Start-up Daily.

Make sure you grab a democracy sausage. Overnight Successes is looking to reward our early subscribers with referral bonuses. Since it's voting day, chuck a vote on potential awards here!

Weekly Recap

The tech stocks (and the market) continued to get smashed. Below is a gif summary.

GlobalData reported that APAC deal volume across Venture, PE and mergers in April saw a decline of 29.4%. Looking closer at Venture financing deals, there was a month-on-month decline of 28%. Although this data covers the APAC region, it highlights a general tightening of deal flow in Aussie Venture. Like the US. falling valuations caused by public markets will trickle down to early-stage investors.

All that being said, builders will contine to build and there's still capital available for founders. This week we still saw several great companies receive funding.

Start-up Retro

Consumer

• 🌱 Blinq, a Melbourne based start-up that helps share contact information via QR codes, has raised $5M from Blackbird Ventures and Square Peg. Blinq was born in 2017 and creates a live profile that can be shared via QR code, NFC, web link, and email signature. The profile can continuously be updated so if you ever meet someone at a networking event, their information will always be up to date. Blinq hits the sweet spot of appealing to both individuals and enterprises. The $5M seed round marks the first collaborative investment between Blackbird and Square Peg since Canva. (AFR)

Business

• 🌱 Curious Thing AI, a Voice AI platform has raised a $7M pre-series A round led by Hawkstone. Curious Thing can make outgoing phone calls and have real-time conversations with customers focusing on surveys, wellness check-ins and payment reminders. The AI caller sits on top of a suite of automated calling and personalised SMS tools. Curious Thing posts 1340% year-on-year growth and will continue to expand in Australia and the US. (itwire)

• 🌱 Clear Dynamics, an artificial intelligence-enabled software system, has raised $35M in a Series B from existing investors Colinton Capital Partners and OIF Ventures. Clear Dynamics helps software scale and focuses on industries like financial services, energy, government and healthcare. CD builds on composable business solutions - meaning a solution built with interchangeable building blocks. (AFR)

• DataCo Technologies, a start-up that helps organisations to connect and collaborate with their customer data, has raised capital from 1835i. 1835i is ANZ's Venture Arm. DataCo helps an organisation navigate customer privacy laws and helps ensure they remain compliant. (Start-up Daily)

FinTech

•  Yondr Money, a fintech & Neobank with slick UX, has raised $558K in a Seed Round sourced mostly via crowdfunding platform Birchal. Yondr is offered as an alternative to mainstream banks and hopes to help customers understand and manage their money better. The former CEO of ANZ (a mainstream bank), Mike Smith, sits on the advisory board. (FinTech Aus)

HealthTech

• OncoRes Medical, a cancer detection company, raised $12.5M in a Series A round. OncoRes Medical has developed a probe that identifies cancer tissue vs healthy tissue and can be used during surgery. Ensuring all cancerous tissue is removed helps stop the spread down the line and fewer repeat surgeries. OncoRes has already been granted FDA approval which helps pave the road to market. Definitely, one to watch. (AFR)

• Age Up Health, a care package service for elderly people, has secured investment from the Alice Anderson Fund. The AAF is LunchVic's $10M which targets female entrepreneurs and matches capital up to $300K. (Start-up Daily)

Venture Wrap

• 🚀 SecondQuater Venutres has almost closed it's $100M second fund. (AFR)

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Notice Board

• LaunchVic, Victoria's startup agency, is looking for founders to tackle healthy eating problems. Apply here for $10K in equity-free funding.

• Startmate has opened applications for their Winter 22 accelerator. Applications close on the 29th of May. Apply here.

Accredited Tweeters

Knowledge as a Service (KaaS)

Potential of No-code. I love technology. As someone who's tried to learn how to code several times and given up, no-code tools give me enough to get started. Creating an MVP has never been easier. Sure, when you scale developers will be needed. It's possible to create a pretty slick minimum viable products with Airtable, Zapier and a front end tool like Softr. Heck, this newsletter is another example of no-code tools. I'd implore anyone to understand where a no-code solution could save time or money (or both!).

State of crypto report by a16z. You can't spell crypto without cry. However, developer activity remains strong and growing. As do total active users and locked in value. While this report should be read with a grain of salt as a16zcrypto clearly have a vested interest, their findings are never the less interesting. Try forwarding this report to your parents. Best email back from a parent gets a mention in next week's edition.