Diversely closes pre-seed round at US$550k

HR Tech platform Diversely expands globally, offering AI-driven hiring tools for users. As D&I roles increase, two time entrepreneurs Helen McGuire and Hayley Bakker will be using their expertise to help customers meet their diversity goals.

Female-founded platform Diversely launched its D&I platform earlier this year, raising US$ 550k in its Pre-Seed round. They want to focus on expansion in the US and the UK. With this round of funding, they have successfully onboard investors from both these nations.  

Helen McGuire and Hayley Bakker launched the HR Tech solution to provide HR professionals and recruiters with tools for understanding, tracking, measuring and improving the diversity in their firms. They both have combined 25 years of experience in the field.

The platform has managed to bring in big companies like Robert Walters, Ogilvy, RMI, WeNetwork and Mural, incorporating their strategy in London, Amsterdam, Delaware and Singapore. By focusing on global growth and remote hiring as major components of their strategy. As they bring in new investors to support fast growth, Diversely will be presenting equal opportunities and removing biases in the hiring process. 

The last year has seen a 107% increase in D&I leadership roles globally. The time is ripe to help companies measure their progress and also to achieve their goals. 

Diversely’s CEO, Helen McGuire has commented: “We are at an exciting point of international growth with Diversely and it’s an honour to welcome seasoned HR, tech and recruitment professionals as angel investors into our business. These individuals are committed to positive change in hiring practices, working with us to introduce Diversely to their extensive network and advising us on our business direction.”

800 private company unicorns!!!

Atlassian breaks through the $100B mark

Atlassian broke through the USD100  billion market cap overnight for the first time 💥 

That’s a long way from the USD4.4 billion at IPO in Dec 2015 

USD 100,000,000,000 🤗 

Huge milestone to end a big quarter  of cap raises and valuations for Aussie tech 

Airwallex reaches a US$4b valuation / yet another Ozzie Unicorn

There is a wave of Ozzie Unicorns being created - with Fintech Airwallex has raised US$200 million in an oversubscribed Series E financing round, giving the company a US$4 billion valuation.

The cool thing - is that Global VCs are recognising the value and capabilities of the Australian Tech Sector.

Airwallex’s latest raise was led by US hedge fund Lone Pine Capital and saw new investors - G Squared and Vetamer Capital Management - put money into the fintech, alongside existing investors Salesforce Ventures, DST Global, Sequoia Capital China and 1835i.

So who is Airwallex and what does it do?

Airwallex was founded sipping lattes at a cafe by Jack Zhang, Lucy Liu, Max Li, Xijing Dai and Ki-lok Wong in 2015 and has grown to 1000 employees around the world.

They focused on helping  smes  make purchases with offshore merchants without incurring typical exchange fees and has expanded to offer products, including multi-currency debit cards with Visa, bank feed integration with Xero and online payment capabilities.

A mini Unicorn to look out for?

Looking forward to seeing the continued growth leading to an explosion of value of Anwar Khalil’s My Recruitment Plus …..

Sunified - connecting solar to blockchain - making solar investing accessible

"In a single hour, the amount of power from the sun that strikes the earth is more than the entire world consumes in a year." – U.S. Department of Energy.

The sun is a limitless source of energy, but currently just 3% of the world’s energy is generated by solar.

Sunified Founder and world renowned blockchain expert, Leon-Gerard Vandenberg is making solar investing accessible to everyone.

He is creating scaleability, financeability and profitability for solar - by connecting  blockchain, fintech  and solar power.

The opportunity

In March this year, Sunified secured $375 million 

investment to build 28 solar parks across Australia with co-located, grid-scale batteries in regional centres around Australia.

These solar parks will work within the existing, ageing grid infrastructure, to deliver renewables without the need for expensive grid upgrades – this is the game changer! 

The projected ROI

In just 5-7 years time, by 2026 – 2028, Sunified projects a total valuation at exit of $2.6 billion, offering investors a phenomenal 3,000% ROI – 

It seems that solar energy isn't just a renewable energy resource - it's an incredible investment opportunity.

Want to know more? 

A big week in Venture Capital in Oz

Last week, data out of venture capital industry association Ignition Lane showed the local sector has raised more than $1 billion already over September.

The record result was headlined by Canva’s $US200 million ($275 million) raise, with Siteminder, Immutable, Mable, and Automic Group all raising more than $80 million this month.

(AFR)

A new generation of Philanthropists

Melanie Perkins, CEO & Founder of #startupaus Canva, promises to give fortune away as business hits US$40 billion, making it most valuable private software company ever. How inspiring to commit vast majority of remaining equity in Canva to philanthropic causes across the world. 

This could make co-founders and recently married Perkins and Cliff Obrecht among the biggest philanthropists in Australia, and potentially later on the world.

#ceo #socialimpact #philanthropy #businessandmanagement #founders #venturecapital

A new generation

Tim Draper Gems

One of the most successful VCs , Tim Draper is happy to share his email with you 

“I’m at tim@draper.vc,” he says  . 

Tim gives his email freely - and likes to be  accessible to those who want to connect with him.

Some of his home runs

Since the mid-1980s, he has built a fortune making early investments in companies like Hotmail, Skype, Baidu, Tesla and SpaceX.

His biggest failure 

His biggest failure he says - was those investments he doesn’t make…. The one that got away - like Facebook!

“If 30 pc of his investments work - we are so ahead of the game! “

Draper the Bitcoin Bull

He is a bitcoin bull and believer in blockchain technology. 

In 2014, he purchased early 30,000 bitcoin seized by the U.S. Marshals (bitcoin was worth around $600 at the time) and he says he has invested in over 50 cryptocurrency-related companies. He’s led investments in Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange that went public in April, Ledger, a cryptocurrency wallet maker; and Tezos, an open-source blockchain platform, to name a few.

Draper’s grandfather, and father were VCs and Tim  started his own early-stage VC firm Draper Associates in 1985, which would grow into Draper Fisher Jurvetson (it was later renamed DFJ and then Threshold), and later Draper University. In 2013, Draper left DFJ to focus on Draper University and his sole VC Draper Associates.

💎 Some of Tim’s  gems 💎 

💎 Always give that extra 10pc - Tharshan where the magic happens

💎 Arrive before a  forum and stay after the end / that’s  when you meet the relevant people and get the real gems

💎 I like people. I like the idea that we’re all interconnected. I like the idea that people can help each other. I also like being out there.

💎 I strive to be a lifelong learner 

💎 I do enjoy what I do and I think that maybe that’s what people are feeling when they see me.

💎 As an entrepreneur, you can’t really worry about what people are thinking today because what you’re really trying to do is something that’s kind of gonna blossom five or 10 years from now.

When investing….. The one question I almost always ask is 

“Why are you doing this?”

Some of the answers 

• “Oh, because of this and this,” 
• “I heard somebody who thought it was a good idea,” o
•  “I wanted to make money.” 

The clever ones say, 

• “I want to make you money.”

But the best is 

• “because my boss did it all wrong and the customer wanted this. This is where we got to go.”

They need to have this certainty or confidence that what they’re going after is important.

On failure 

An entrepreneur belongs to “club fear” and one of the credos of Draper University is, 

“I will fail and fail again until I succeed.”

You have to be willing to take the heat or just say, “Hey, we screwed up. We’re gonna try to do it this way next time.” That will save you countless troubles, trials and tribulations. And then explain your thinking about how you got to where you made that decision.

You don’t fail - you learn 

So what is innovation and what are the 9 ingredients to create a culture of innovation

Solving a problem in a different way

• Small step - incremental innovation 
• Hop - gfi (great fucking idea )
• Jump - radical innovation 

So where does innovation come from?

Innovation doesn’t come from the boardroom. 

It is not isolated geniuses. 

It doesn’t come from a lab at a university 

It happens  

• When people collaborate with a view to solve a problem 
• When they allow constraints to focus their creativity. 
• When they crave feedback. 
• When it’s ok to fail 
• When they are prepared to throw everything away and start again if they’re not solving the right problem. 

Its a mindset that become a part of company culture. 

It is a state of being when you’re uncertain of how something will turn out, but you are immersed in experimentation and fueled by an overwhelming desire to impact people.   

2 examples that happenned from a different goal that created an amazing outcome 

Post-it Notes were originally invented by 3M scientists to stop bookmarks from falling out of church hymnals.

Ruth Graves Wakefield allegedly discovered the chocolate chip cookie when she was attempting to make Butter Drop Do cookies for guests at the Toll House Inn and ran out of baker’s chocolate. 

Gary Nakanelua, Managing Director of Innovation at Blueprint Technologies and Phil Mckinney 

https://philmckinney.com/innovation-culture-mean-matter/

shares with us a few  things  that you need to do, be or have to foster innovation in your workplace , and  I have added a few more .

1. Be able to Communicate and Collaborate 

Without communication, there is no vehicle for innovation.

• Rewarding risk-taking,
• Execution is critical - talk - but take action 
• Create opportunities for teamwork within different groups. Make sharing innovative concepts easy and meet them where they are, email, Whatsapp, verbal communication, or a folder outside the door.
• Create an environment in which creativity is encouraged and every individual knows that their input is valued

 

2. Know your problem - and really want to solve it 

In a Forbes article, Spanx founder Sara Blakely shares the pain from uncomfortable pantyhose that led to her invention, “It’s Florida, it’s hot, I was carrying fax machines.” 

If it’s a problem you don’t experience directly, immerse yourself with those who do. Their pain should become your pain.

Ideally you want a painkiller for your problem and not a vitamin 

3. Be excited by constraint. 

• Know your constraint 
• Own it 
• Be motivated by it 
• Does it have a deadline? 

During the development of the initial iPhone, the software engineering team was “struggling for months to lay out the software vision.” Steve Jobs gave the engineering team two weeks to figure it out, or he would assign the project to another team.

4. Be hungry for feedback. 

Feedback refines the problem, constraint t and solution and keeps you on the right track 

Make sure it doesn’t paralyse you though

In 2017, a Tesla customer tweeted at Elon Musk with feedback about what to do with the steering wheel and driver seat once the vehicle was in park. Elon responded that the feedback would be integrated into a future software release. 

5. Be ready to blow everything up and start again 

If you are truly maniacal about solving the problem, you need to blow it up when an idea doesn’t meet the mark.

The founders of Twitter originally set out to form a podcasting platform called Odeo. When Apple announced in 2015 that iTunes would include a podcasting platform, the Odeo team realized they weren’t even using their own platform. “We built [Odeo], we tested it a lot, but we never used it,” an Odeo engineer said. A year later, Odeo’s podcasting platform was scrapped, and Twitter began to emerge. 

6. Be sure to create a safe space - that it’s ok to fail 

Create a safe collaborative space: 

Innovation comes in many forms and kinds. From brainstorming sessions like innovation jams to crowdfunding, these forms of growth all mobilize a diverse group of people with a variety of skills. 

7.  Have diversity in your team 

Surround yourself with people unlike you: Find the people who can fill in your blind spots and help you with things you don’t know. This means embracing individuals you may have nothing in common with: thinkers who see the world differently than you do. 

Choose your team carefully

8. Find experts in that field 

Gather the talents of those who can teach you and give you expertise 

9. Resource ideas 

Funding to support an idea is key . 

Vc - Tim Draper says that  his biggest failures have been when he did not back the innovation when they came to him.

Case in point - Facebook 

Give the idea the best chance to work .

Trust your team 

 

It’s been a hellava year - and yet we are resilient and optimistic

It’s Rosh Hashannah and our Jewish New Year.

Looking back at the last year….. we’ve gone through the ringer!!!

What, with the bushfires, the pandemic, melting ice caps, climate change, travel bans and lockdowns - it feels like we’ve been thrown every type of curveball under the sun - and yet we have still emerged as a country with hope and a positive outlook of the future !!!

So why are entrepreneurs so bullish about the future? 

It’s about finding a problem in the world, and dreaming up ways to fix it…… and by golly - are there problems!!

Hunkered  down in bedrooms, and sprawled over kitchen tables all over Australia – itching to get back into their co-working spaces - our innovators and entrepreneurs are busy finding solutions to our biggest problems.

And with the right connections, with supportive VCs who’ve been there and done that - getting the support - there’s money to invest….. people are certainly not getting the returns from interest rates! 

So here are some exciting innovations , companies and ventures that are out there ….

• Spinergy  an energy solutions coming out of a South Australian accelerator .

• A1 G foods - fake burgers with a difference - just raised $16m

• my recruitment plus is beavering away - Anwar Khalil creating virtual recruitment firms within organisations -  finding the right people for the right job

• Refundit - finding a way to find retailers by sitting immediate payments to clients wanting refunds - could it be the next Afterpay or Zip 

• The Yarning circle’s #bbgforum - getting people to connect, learn,  collaborate and grow around a theme of diversity equity and inclusion.

• The  Great Wrap: the world’s first biodegradable stretch wrap that leaves no trace of plastics - potentially stopping Australia using 150,000 tonnes of cling wrap every year.”

• Homie and Mendel solving the homeless problem - On any given night in Australia, some 116,000 people are estimated to be sleeping rough - HoMie uses the profits it makes selling clothes to fund a program that gives employment opportunities, education and life skills to at-risk young people. Mendel has created a homeless app - enabling the public to help identify the homeless and alert the relevant Charity

• Seabin Project – a business dedicated to cleaning up our oceans (which are currently home to an estimated 5 trillion pieces of wayward plastic) – Pete Ceglinski, CEO and co-founder hopes  that one day his business doesn’t even need to exist. “That’s our mission statement,”

• Nexttech Learning - Education is what’s going to solve our problems, and Cass Parton is creating the Amazon of Nexttech  - getting the mindset of the worker to that of a lifelong learner - getting them ready for the NextTech Revolution! 

Looking forward to starting the New Year with a mindset of looking to solve some of the wicked problems out there!

The bigger the problem - the bigger the opportunity 

שנה טובה במתוקה Shana Tova Bemetukah 

Have a Sweet New Year 

Chazak Chazak V’nitzchazek; 

Be Strong, Be Strong, Let Us Be Strengthened

Feel free to add more potential innovations and opportunities in the comments below 

👇🏽👇🏻👇👇🏻👇🏽

$16m raised for alt food startup - All G Foods - Climate Action at its finest

Serial Entrepreneur - startup magician, Jan Pacas,  has secured $16m for his third startup - one of Australia’s largest seed funding rounds, for a new plant-based food company.

All G Foods has banked $16 million from investors, as well as securing a deal to stock burger patties in IGA supermarkets from September.

Pacas has previously co-founded pet care services marketplace Mad Paws and HR software company Flare.

So why is all G foods different from other Fake Foods?

All G Foods is investing in a fermentation technique to produce complex organic molecules with the hopes of making a new kind of dairy alternative.

Currently the market share of ‘alternative proteins’ in Australia is 1%. A long way to go to get market saturation !!

Refundid raises $3m - 6 months from being founded - could it be a Unicorn?

It’s all about customer experience says Paul Greenberg - E-retail Veteran  - who has recently backed Refundid through AP Ventures.

Brad, Judd, Joel and Ilan have formed Refundid - whose leading product is  a fintech tool designed to cut, or essentially eliminate, waiting times for refunds for products bought online.

Refundid takes responsibility of the refund and repays the client immediately. Refundid gets paid by the retailer once approved.

It effectively provides a short term loan to the retailer!

The founders get that  trust and positive relationships, encouraging repeat custom is a key ingredient of a succesful retailer.

The plan is to have 100 top-tier retailers on board within the next 12 months, says Brad Karney…..

And then go global!!