Another home run for the Australian Venture Evosystem with “Waave” being acquired by “Banked “

A technology called  “ Pay by Bank” that uses QR codes,  and widely used for payments in Asia, including China and Thailand and is coming to Australia and USA with Waave which has just been acquired by Banked led by CEO  Brad Goodall.

This acquisition is another home run for the Australian fintech startup ecosystem and a great exit by founders Ben Zyl Peter Traianou Mark C.,  who has been guided and seeded  by the legendary Paul Geeenberg.

The deal was oiled with the opportunity of Chemist Warehouse adopting this Waave technology. Chairman Jack Gance says that it will reduce card fees by up to $15m per annum , that they can pass on to their customers 

Harris Farm Markets and Baby Bunting are also Waave. Woolworths is working with another fintech, Zepto, to use the PayTo system to connect to customer bank accounts.

NAB is also onboard with a view to making Pay By Bank available to all its business customers. 

James Eyers of AFR headlines Chemist Warehouse goes to war with card fees – using QR codes

How do customers use Waave? 

Setup takes around 30 seconds.

Customers photograph a QR code for the first time are directed to a Waave webpage on their phone, to set up the “mandate” that links the bank account to the retailer’s. 

Once enabled, customers won’t need a card, just their mobile phone. There’s no need to create an account or use another app. Rather, purchasers will take a picture of a QR code displayed on the payment terminal and authorise the payment by tapping a button on their handset.

“The job now is to get the best consumer experience Cx , so you can let the customer open the mandate.” Says Brad

Is this payment gateway the way of the future? 

Johan Westh, a NAB executive for transaction banking, described Pay By Bank as a “cost-effective payment option that can improve cash flow and reduce fraud risk for businesses while providing a faster, more secure and enhanced payment experience for consumers.”

Brad Goodall’s  prediction - which I think he is on the money 

“If we can nail the onboarding CX (consumer experience) Pay by Bank will overtake other payment methods in the coming years globally. It will be seen as a low-cost option over time, and won’t be more expensive than debit,” 

Vendor Panel and Unimarket merge to create another potential home run for VC in Australia

Procurement  platforms VendorPanel and Unimarket  (backed by Accel-KKR) have merged - chalking up another win for our Australian  VC and Startup ecosystem

The merged entity serves over 450 organisations  in sectors such as corporate, education, healthcare, government, energy, facility management, transport, and utilities.

The opportunity 

Previous Moneys raised  

• Vendor Panel raised $5m in 2 rounds with EVP’s Justin Lipman and Micro Equities Leigh Jasper being some of the investors . 
• Unimarket - unknown -  but seems to be well backed by KKR 

The backstory of Leigh Jaspers investment in Vendor Panel 

Mr Leathem became connected with Mr Jasper when he was hiring VendorPanel’s chief marketing officer, Frank Carron, who previously worked for Aconex.

Once Leigh understood the opportunity not only endorsed Mr Carron, but asked if he could buy into the business! 

The players

• Phil Kenney, CEO of Unimarket
• James Leathem, CEO of VendorPanel 
• Phil Cunningham, Managing Director at Accel-KKR. "With their combined capabilities, these two companies are now poised to capitalize on global growth opportunities, delivering unmatched value to their customers while driving innovation and performance improvements across the source-to-pay ecosystem."
• Unimarket is a NZ company founded in 2005 by Damien Hollis and Scott Blackwood and backed by KKR 

The opportunity 

According to Spend Network, global procurement is estimated to be $13 trillion USD annually, highlighting the critical need for optimization.

Not much is known yet about the value of the deal , but no doubt this could well be the making me of a home run! 

Details here: 

https://lnkd.in/gzvtN_RNv

*********

Justin Lipman s post

SPC, Original Juice Company and Nature One Dairy to merge shoring up iconic Australian food brands' future

The Merger 

Iconic fruit and vegetable manufacturer SPC started over 100 years ago  and acquired from CocaCola-Amatll by a consortium led by Hussein Rifai’s Perpetuity Capital in 2019 - for $45m,  has agreed to merge with the Original Juice Company(OJC) and the powdered milk business, Nature One Dairy. 

SPC shareholders will have 69 per cent of the new company, Original Juice Co shareholders 15.5 per cent, and Nature One Dairy shareholders will have 15.3 per cent.

OJC is currently listed at $50m (one times revenue ) implying a merged value at circa $333m. 

The Projection and the opportunity 

The combined businesses are expected to deliver more than $400 million in revenue in the next financial year - and with economies of scale is expected to make a profit of $29m in 2025 and grow from strength to strength says Rifai.

“We want to become the Nestle of Australia. We want to become a global player in the food industry out of Australia,”

It’s interesting to note that CCA acquired SPC for $759m in 2005 and 15 years later to the Shepparton Partners Collective led by Perpetuity for $45m 

Bringing these companies together in a business with a turnover of $400m can give economies of scale making significant profits ..

The Players  

The major SPC shareholder is boutique investment house Perma Funds Management. Other shareholders include the meat industry superannuation fund Australian Food Super, and the billionaire Shahin family which sold the On the Run petrol station business to ASX-listed Viva Energy for $1.2 billion in 2023.

OJC an asx listed company is chaired by Jeff  Kennet (who will retire when the deal is done)  and led  CEO Steven Cail who is expected to  stay with the business 

Nature One Dairy CEO Nick Dimopoulos, will continue with the combined business for the transition period

Former Asahi Beverages Group CEO and SPC director Robert Iervasi will be appointed managing director of the merged business, and chaired by Hussein 

NAME	NEW ROLE	CURRENT ROLE
Hussein Rifai	Non-executive chairman	Executive chairman SPC
Andrew Cohen	Non-executive director	Executive director SPC
Kerry Smith	Non-executive director	Non-executive director OJC
Adam Brooks	Non-executive director	Non-executive director OJC
Robert Iervasi	Managing director Non-executive director	Non-executive director SPC
David Mallinson	Interim CFO	SPC CFO
Nick Dimopoulos	Head of NOD and Asian market	Nature One Dairy CEO

The Products 

The main brands in the SPC business are SPC, Ardmona, Goulburn Valley, and ProVital. 

The Original Juice Co lbrand is the third-largest orange juice producer in the country.

Nature oNe Dairy is a Singapore registered company that produces  manufactures and sells infant formula, nutritional formula and milk powder products

The Vote 

The vote by shareholders to approve the merger will be held in November.

Sources

Kuisine Group and 100 per cent of Melbourne beverages group Helping Humans, which makes juices and kombuchas. https://www.afr.com/street-talk/spc-calls-in-grant-samuel-to-scout-deals-20220329-p5a8xp

https://www.afr.com/companies/retail/spc-bulks-up-in-400m-merger-with-original-juice-company-20241002-p5kf8b?cx_testId=4&cx_testVariant=cx_1&cx_artPos=0&cx_experienceId=EX4V7UQXCDIJ&cx_experienceActionId=showRecommendations08X6RHBOBRXICJQ#cxrecs_s

https://www.just-food.com/news/australias-original-juice-company-spc-nature-one-dairy-merger/

Investing in the startup space and in innovation is not for the feint hearted

Being an entrepreneur in a startup is not for the fint hearted …

And backing a startup is even riskier !!!

Michael Ho has an excellent pictorial 

However there is nothing better than making a positive change and playing at the cutting edge of innovation!!

What do you think ?

Pitching a deck takes time and persistence until you hit pay dirt

It takes persistance and many tries of things that don’t work - until you find something that does work!

Kismet raises $32.5m - seed after raising 12.5m last year and 4.5m the year before!!! 💥

The money 

Kismet, a Melbourne healthcare start-up raised AUD 32.5m in its seed financing round, with Singapore's MassMutual Ventures becoming its new investor. 

This is a year after Kismet CEO Mark Woodland shared with Smart Company that the startup was humbled and grateful for the $12.5 million capital from a funding round, which was led by global consumer internet group Prosus Ventures and venture capital firm Airtree Ventures. 

Early-stage investors include Flying Fox, Black Nova, and Airtree Ventures, invested AUD 4m in a pre-seed funding round in the year before 

The Growth 

The company, whose annual recurring revenue is expected to reach AUD 20m this year.

 

The Pain Kismet is trying to solve and the painkiller 

The Pain 

Healthcare's fractured system complicates managing health plans and services, increasing costs and limiting access.

The Painkiller 

Kismet improves the way people access healthcare and disability services.

They  connect the physical and digital worlds to enabling  greater access to disability and healthcare services at the tap of a button.

Safetyculture hits a home run with Airtree

Luke Anwar - CEO of Safety Culture celebrates his  investors - who have hit a home run as they have just completed a funding round led by Airtree of $165m at a $2.5b valuation.

“It’s nice to have early investors who backed us when we were getting started who are continuing to invest in our future. Thank you Morpheous, we are 1% of the way there.”

Application of Capital Raised 

• industry-leading innovation for larger enterprise customers, 
• accelerate AI adoption and 
• reward long-term employees

The Safetyculture Growth Path 

SafetyCulture has doubled in size in the last 2 years - having  85,000 businesses and close to 2 million users around the world using its platform!! 

It has  added 100 new roles in the last 6 months, and counts more than 800 employees across its six offices. 

Use of AI

Safetyculture  introduced AI-enhanced features in 2023, like mobile-first training course creation and instant inspection template generation from prompts, images and files. There’s a lot more to come says Luke 

The bHaG

So, Luke, what is the big hairy audacious goal ? 

He  says they are  on track towards its goal of 100 million users by 2032.

“We’ve built the world's largest repository of workplace data, containing over 5 petabytes of data and billions of images," Anear said. "AI is the way we can make sense of that information, and if we can harness it properly, we’ll effectively be able to give frontline teams superpowers that will completely change the way they work."

Kell Reilly of Airtree says that SafetyCulture has all the hallmarks of Silicon Valley’s tech heavyweights–a compelling vision, product, scale and team. 

“We’re excited to partner with another Aussie success story that’s making waves on the global stage." Says Kell! 

The power of VC supporting their Portfolio companies!!