G'day and welcome to Overnight Success. A warm welcome to the 36 new subscribers that have joined since the last edition!

Headlines

• 👋 Another ~40 staff day goodbye to Mr Yum

  • The start-up is letting go more staff, not long after making 17% of its team redundant just 7 months ago.

  • Co-founder Kim Teo says profitability is now the company’s primary focus - a growing sentiment across the entire ecosystem as everyone adjusts to tightening market conditions. (Smart Company)

• 🎨 Canva launches ‘Canva Create’, with over 1.5M tuning in…!

  • The co-founders of Canva were channelling a distinctly more Australian and bedazzled version of a Silicon Valley product launch at their event earlier this week, which attracted over 1.5M viewers.

  • The star of the show was the company’s new AI-powered work suite, giving users the tools to generate, edit, translate, magically erase and replace images as well as write content with the help of AI. Read more from Forbes.

• 🧑‍🚀 Space tech was top of mind as NASA touched down in Oz.

  • NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy spoke at the National Press Club this week, saying Australia plays a key role in space exploration, providing more fuel to the burgeoning local space tech industry. (News.com.au)

  • A big focus was on two Aussie start-ups developing tech to help us get back on the moon (check out ‘Wins’ to learn more! 👇).

  • The National Indigenous Space Academy was also announced, which will support five students studying STEM to travel to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA JPL) in California for a 10-week full-time summer internship program. (Industry.gov.au)

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

2. Aussie Raisins: Companies looking for funding & support.

3. Notice Board: Signposting key events and opportunities.

4. Wins: Highlighting wins, big and small.

5. New Fund, Who’s This: Fresh funds entering the ecosystem.

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

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

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

9. 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⚡️

MedTech

Hypnotherapy application Mindset Health raises $17.8M Series A

Melbourne-based medical technology start-up, Mindset Health, has raised a $17.8M Series A. The round was led by King River Capital and included Tattarang's Tenmile, Perennial Partners, Giant Leap and Alberts. Mindset Health offers three hypnosis-based apps that help users with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) (Nerva), menopausal hot flashes (Evia), and quitting smoking (Finito). The start-up leverages hypnotherapy, which is a combination of hypnosis and psychological therapy, in all of their apps.

Mindset Health was spun out of the Monash University Generator program in 2018 and leveraged the Monash University relationship. For example, Nerva utilised Monash's expertise in IBS, having developed the low FODMAP diet. The company's partnering strategy with research centres continues with further engagement with Monash expected.

Mindset Health now has over 31,000 paid monthly subscribers across its products, with almost 40% of users based in the US. The funding will be used to expand the team of 27 and develop new app solutions for anxiety, depression, and chronic pain. As millions of Australians are affected by these issues, Mindset Health is well-placed to build scalable solutions that can reduce some of this strain. Co-founder, Alex Naoumidis, stressed the room for scale and product improvement during an interview about the funding round.

Due Diligence: AFR

EdTech

Pivot gains $1.4M to allow students to generate actionable feedback on their teachers.

Australian education technology start-up, Pivot, has raised $1.4M in capital from the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle and DiUS. The platform aims to improve teacher practice by translating student feedback into actionable insights. Compared to Rate My Teacher from back in the day, Pivot is a little more valuable. Currently, Pivot works with over 50,000 teachers from more than 1,500 schools across Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia. Since launching in 2014, the platform has processed over 5,000,000 surveys.

Importantly, Pivot wants to track student well-being with weekly check-ins on resilience and sense of belonging questions. According to internal reporting, Pivot suggests that 75% of teachers change their behaviour based on their feedback, and 90% of educational leaders utilise the data reports for planning. Traditionally, educational leaders have minimal avenues for feedback on teacher performance and must rely on quantitative academic results to gauge success.

Due Diligence: Startup Daily

AgTech / FinTech

Invest Inya Farmer (IIF) raises $1.1M to bring fractional ownership to farming.

Invest Inya Farmer (IIF), an agriculture fractional investment marketplace, has raised a $1.1M Seed round. The platform's mission is to enable everyday investors to invest in farming. The round was led by Investible, with participation from global AgTech venture capital firm AgFunder and some high-net-worths.

The IIF smartphone app allows members to invest in various agriculture sectors. Currently, members can invest in Angus beef from Tasmania, apricots in Cobram, shiraz grapes from Victoria, and beehives across Australia. Members can diversify and see their equity stake holdings grow as farmers provide regular updates on their produce. For farmers, IIF provides consumer-sourced capital and can help improve cashflows by pre-selling a portion of their produce. Additionally, as more farms look to connect with their communities and develop their own brand, a stronger connection can be formed between farmers and customers, much like crowdfunding.

The app has already seen over 250 members join the platform, with 20 farms available to support. Of the 250 exits on the platform so far, members have seen a 15% average annualised yield. The capital raised will be used to continue to build out the technology stack and scale the marketplace on both sides.

Due Diligence: Investible Investment Notes

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…

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Aussie Raisins

• Dress for Success Sydney is just over halfway to achieving their $250k fundraising goal. (Startup Daily)

  • The not-for-profit helps vulnerable women overcome barriers to employment through services such as clothing and styling support, interview preparation, resume writing courses, and one-on-one mentoring.

  • They’re asking Australians to contribute just one hour of their wage to support the cause.

• Reusably are crowdfunding ~$30k to boost the momentum of their launch in Adelaide. (Indiegogo)

  • The start-up is on a mission to end single-use container waste through a subscription service that allows users to loan reusable coffee cups and containers from a network of participating cafes and return them when they next visit.

  • Contributors get special branded merchandise and subscription perks!

Notice Board

• 🥳️ Ennovate Community Launch Party, 30th March, Brisbane

  • To celebrate the launch of this new start-up community & co-working space, Ennovate is hosting an invite-only party. And because Overnight Success is a partner of Ennovate, you’re invited for a night of food, drinks, music and video games!

  • At the event will be other community members; All Things Blockchain, React Brisbane, Product Tank, The Community Collective, and the founders and ecosystem supporters currently working out of the space.

  • They only have 100 spots, so jump on here to grab yours!

  • Best suited to: Brissy-based start-up founders, operators, investors & collaborators.

• 🐟 Optus Fishburners Scholarship

  • Want 12 months of co-working space & support from Australia’s oldest start-up community? Apply for this awesome opportunity worth over $7000 in benefits and much more! Applications close 9th April, apply here.

  • Best suited to: Sydney-based start-up founders looking for a place to work & community to lean on.

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

• Australian Remote Operations for Space and Earth (AROSE) & Lunar Outpost Oceania 🚀 Two Aussie lunar rover projects score $4M to test prototypes.

  • The $8M in grant funding was awarded by the Australian Space Agency’s ‘Moon to Mars’ Trailblazer program. (Startup Daily)

• Hypersonix 🛰 Aussie hypersonic drone start-up selected by US military for testing.

  • Founded in 2019, the company is well placed to take advantage of increased interest from Australia’s allies in emerging defence tech, in light of the continuing war in Ukraine and growing global tensions. (Smart Company)

New Fund, Who’s This?

• Co Ventures launches a dedicated pre-seed fund, starting with $5M (AFR)

  • The fund will be headed up by Maxine Minter - Australia's first solo female general partner.

  • She said she was “underwhelmed by the pre-seed funding options available to [founders]” after returning to live in Australia from the US and also baffled by the expectation that most founders would have enough high net-worth individuals amongst their ‘family & friends’ to raise their first funding round.

  • Current backers include the founders of Mr Yum and Linktree and some US angel investors.

Vibe Check

Do you feel like you have the ‘right to log off’?

The Greens tabled legislation this week that proposed to amend national employment standards and ban workers from being contacted outside of their normal work hours. It’s not looking super likely to pass, but it did get us thinking about work life balance across the start-up ecosystem.

Start-ups are renowned for their ‘hustle culture’, but how does this translate in reality? We’d love to hear from you!

Accredited Tweeters

KaaS (Knowledge as a Service)

• The Hiring Playbook for (very) Early Stage Startups in Australia and New Zealand by mystartupgig

• The AI bonanza continues…

  • Is GPT4 actually that much better? This LinkedIn post gives you the TLDR.

  • Something you probably haven’t seen on the millions of “how to use AI” LinkedIn posts… a podcast co-hosted by an AI 🤯.

• Trying to “hack” your start-up’s growth strategy? Stop guessing, read MKT1.

  • Gemma’s favourite blog/ newsletter about all things start-up marketing, especially for B2B SaaS companies.

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

Guess the Aussie Start-up

New Hint:

• I was founded in 2013 and have received government and private funding. We help doctors treat cancer and have our foundations in research developed from the University of South Australia. My products contain traces of Iron. Who am I?

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