G'day and welcome to Overnight Success. A warm welcome to the 46 new subscribers that have joined since the last edition! You’re in good company.

This week was dominated by BioTech and MarTech companies raising significant capital, plus a bunch of non-fundraise ‘wins’ for a diverse range of Aussie start-ups.

OS is gearing up for _SOUTHSTART // ODYSSEY next week. Are you heading to Radelaide? We’d love to catch up - reply to this email if you’ll be there!

BONUS: Make sure you check out the ‘guess the start-up’ quiz at the bottom of the email! 👇

Headlines

• 🎯 The RBA is exploring real-world use cases for a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in Australia (AFR)

  • While we won’t see the RBA roll out a live CBDC anytime (too) soon, their openness to testing the tech could open up interesting opportunities for innovation in Australian FinTech and digital asset tokenisation.

• 🟢 🧽 ACCC cracks down on greenwashing (AFR)

  • The ACCC will crack down on businesses making environmental sustainability marketing claims, finding 57% of those reviewed so far have made “concerning” claims that are vague or unclear.

• 📆 Monday.com opens its APAC HQ in Sydney (TechCrunch)

  • Sydney HQ, Status: OPEN

  • Monday has seen solid growth, with 13,000 customers in Australia and 50% revenue growth year-on-year.

  • They’re also hiring for a couple of local roles at the moment with more on the horizon!

• 📶 Investors are loving Australian IoT startups, with funding hitting all-time highs. (CRN)

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

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

⚡️Start-up Retro⚡️

BioTech

🥼 SpeeDx raises $26M to continue expanding its product and footprint

Founded in 2009, the Sydney-based BioTech firm SpeeDx has locked away $26M. $5M of this capital comes from Tenmile, Dr Andrew Forrest's new VC fund. SpeeDx is known for its diagnostic tools, which can interpret genetic information to diagnose diseases and products that can identify the bacteria in sexually transmitted infections. The latter helps doctors understand which treatments will be most effective against the infections. In recent times, the SpeeDx R&D department explored enhancing the capabilities of PCR tests to detect other ailments like common cancers and infectious diseases. The rollout of the PCR test during the pandemic helped SpeeDx ramp up its development pipeline through new demand and proof of concept.

Additionally, the company produces workflow solutions for labs, including automation and analysis improvements, increasing the output of research laboratories. This new capital will allow SpeeDx to invest in further products and expand its foothold internationally. SpeeDx has licensing and partnerships with Roche, GSK, Cepheid, Biocartis and LabCorp.

Due Diligence: Startup Daily & Business News Australia

MarTech

📈 Mutinex lands $5M at a $37M valuation

The marketing analytics platform that converts marketing spend into an ROI analytics dashboard has raised $5M of new capital. The funding comes from Equity Venture Partners (EVP) at a valuation of $37M. Mutinex challenges marketing and finance teams to come together and adopt a new methodology of attributing marketing and media activity to revenue. The platform then gives marketers a live dashboard to review and predict the performance of marketing spend. The platform, GrowthOS, provides insight across the performance of key sections like creative, geography, markets, and publishers. For example, one campaign may resonate strongly with the SME market in Australia, but that same campaign might not see strong results in NZ. This insight allows a marketing team to easily identify where to push more (or less) spend. EVP is extremely bullish on the investment, stating they expect the start-up to be valued at $400M shortly. Mutinex counts Samsung, MYOB, Dulux, and Bupa as clients. The big opportunity for Mutinex is for large MarTech cloud platforms to license the platform to their users and clients. For example, a partnership with companies like Adobe or Salesforce could drive significant value.

Due Diligence: Mi3 & Mumbrella

BioTech

💚 Provectus Algae secures strategic investment from CJ BIO to help biotechnology blossom

Provectus Algae, a biotechnology company that programs microalgae to produce valuable biochemicals, has secured an undisclosed strategic investment from South Korean food and bio company CJ BIO. The investment will provide Provectus with additional funds to accelerate its commercialisation efforts and bring innovative specialty ingredients to market. CJ BIO, a leader in sustainable biotechnologies and biomanufacturing, owns the largest share of the global lysine, tryptophan, nucleic acid, valine, and soy protein concentrate markets. Presently, CJ BIO manufactures goods across six countries. The strategic investment and partnership will help Provectus Algae gain access to an experienced biomanufacturer. The Provectus Algae team has core technologies, including Precision Photosynthesis, Microalgae Synthetic biology, industrial biomanufacturing and a growing microalgae library. This combination of technologies could allow Provectus to identify, modify, grow at scale and market new bioproducts. Provectus Algae aims to make photosynthetic bioprocesses commonplace across the life science sector for economic advantages and natural carbon capture capabilities.

Microalgae: unicellular photosynthetic micro-organisms, living in saline or freshwater environments, that convert sunlight, water and carbon dioxide to algal biomass.

Due Diligence: Business Wire

If you're a founder or investor who has just closed a round, please reach out to us at [email protected]

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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

• 👼 Victorian Angel Network Reverse Pitch, 16th March

  • Eight of Victoria’s top angel networks will pitch their syndicates to the VC Catalyst network in this ‘Reverse Pitch’ hosted by the Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship and LaunchVic. Register here!

  • Best suited to: VIC-based founders looking for future VC partners

• 🌱 Taronga Ventures' ESG Impact Innovation Program

  • Taronga Ventures is a leading technology and innovation investor focused on real asset sectors and the wider built environment.

  • This program offers participants access to new corporate customers and opportunities, media exposure, program workshops and a global community with networking opportunities. Learn more about it here and apply here before the 17th March!

  • Best suited to: Founders/ operators of companies focused on providing positive ESG outcomes through RealTech

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

• Diolog 🤑 “The world’s first two-way retail investor communication software”, wins the Melbourne Pitch and takes home $100k, sponsored by AWS, Venture Crowd & Startup Victoria. (Women’s Agenda)

• Savic Motorcycle 🏍 Is getting ready to launch Australia’s first full-sized electric motorcycle in April. It only took the founder 16 years to see his dream come to reality - talk about an “overnight success” 😜!(Daily Telegraph & Business News Australia)

• Bardee 🪰 Is about to launch their 100% certified organic fertiliser in Bunnings. It’s made of fly larvae that are fed a diet of food waste that would otherwise go to a landfill! (LinkedIn Post)

• Linktree🌲 Appoints three senior operators - a new CTO, CPO and CMO - to its leadership ranks. It sounds like the tech unicorn decided they need some fresh faces to lead them into their next stage of growth now that they’ve well and truly entered the scale-up phase. (LinkedIn Post)

• Roomstay 🛌 Has developed an integration with fellow Aussie start-up PlanPay to launch the first digital lay-by option for hotel stays via hotel chain Ovolo. It’s great to see two relatively early-stage companies coming together to disrupt an industry! (Australian FinTech)

Accredited Tweeters

KaaS (Knowledge as a Service)

• The History of the Australian Startup Ecosystem podcast, presented by Day One, is a great wrap-up of how we got here and might give you some ideas about where the ecosystem is going next. Give it a listen. (Spotify)

• The Sachin & Adam Show with Eucalyptus’ Tim Doyle. (YouTube)

  • A great conversation around Tim’s journey from Koala to Eucalyptus and his thoughts around the broader ecosystem.

• How to choose a ‘good enough’ name for your startup, from Alan Jones and Startup Daily.

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

Guess the Aussie Start-up

Congratulations to Alan J and Rayn O, who correctly guessed the following riddle with the answer below. This week’s riddle is further down!

Old Hint: They were founded in 2014, have raised over $20 million, and are headquartered in Sydney. They provide solutions for mining and construction and have a cloud-based platform for collecting, processing and analysing data.

Answer: Propeller Aero

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

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