Frontya close to raising $4m seed with a view to raise another $25m in a few months

“So how do we get a deposit on a house????  Gav asks Bortz

Ask Robbie and Frontya !!!

Robbie Baskin and Niv & Barbie Golan have founded FrontYa - solving a wicked problem for first home buyers - helping them get their deposit  on a home! 

It will double the deposit of property buyers in return for 25 per cent of any capital gain within 6 years.

This is effectively creating a new asset class! 

They are looking to close their first raise of $4m supported by sophisticated investors a as Brett Sutton, Chairman of CVC Australia, and Rob Lederer, (who owns a stake in 38 companies ) - who both see the opportunity of exponential growth! 

“It’s like a long-dated perpetual call option on Australian property,” said Mr Lederer, “The longer you’re in it, the more it will grow.

Mr Lederer said the prospect of interest rate rises and a potential property downturn could open up buying opportunities.

Niv Golan tells AFR Martin Kelly 

“The median house price in Sydney is $1.6 million, and it can take up to 16 years to save for a 20 per cent deposit, which coming from the US is absolutely mind-boggling.”

The Model 

He said that FrontYa will co-invest with property buyers and double their deposit with a contribution of up to $250,000 for properties that pass its Artificial Intelligence stress test.

In return, FrontYa, which has a caveat over the property but is not on the title as an owner, wants its money back within six years plus 25 per cent of the property’s capital appreciation over that period.

If there is no increase in value, property owners are only obligated to return the FrontYa’s initial investment.

FrontYa is targeting a 15 per cent internal rate of return and its first cohort of pre-approved prospective buyers is now scouring the market for opportunities.

“They  are closing this $4 million round, and looking to deploy half of that right away. 

Scalable?

They expect  to do a second capital raise of $25 million to $30 million around June or July to deploy into more properties.

Linkby - a unicorn in the making ?

Picture from AFR 

Chris Wirasinha who sold Pedestrian TV to Nine for just shy of $50 million  has raised  a  $5m seed round for his  adtech startup Linkby with fellow Co-founders Andrew Chak and Adrian Fagerlund - backed by Our Innovation Fund. 

The funds will be used to keep growing internationally and build Linkby’s product to better connect D2C brands and SMEs with premium publishers. 

Chris shares the value proposition with AFRs Yolanda Redrup

We connect Brands to Publishers

Linkby’s software enables brands  get more editorial coverage from publishers across Australia, USA and Britain - and is looking to eat some lunch from Facebook and Google - bringing the power and some of the revenue back to the publisher! 

“There are now tonnes of direct-to-consumer brands whose return on investment on Facebook is going backwards and are hungry for more advertising channels. It’s created a moment for publishers to re-enter the conversation when it comes to contextual and mindset-based targeting.”

The value proposition for the brand

“Anyone scrolling through a news feed on social media sees your brands, giving that brand a halo of trust. There is nothing better than editorial content !!

Publishers are remunerated for every click driven to a brand’s website, not just if it results in a sale.

Linkby is used by brands such as Koala, Bed Threads, Modibodi and Brosa, and it is used by publishers such as Refinery29, Condé Nast, Vice and Marie Claire .

A unicorn in the making? 

Life After Sport - what’s next - VC as an asset class has appeal to elite athletes

The big fear many elite athletes have is

 “life after sport - what’s next? “

AFL Giant Matt DeBoer has  set up Athletic Ventures - together with over 100 top elite stars who  co-invest into the potentially lucrative asset class of venture capital .

It has the lure of high risk and high return 

Athletic Ventures members include Wallabies captain Michael Hooper, Australian NBA star Matthew Dellavedova, beach volleyball star Christie Jenkins, test cricketer Mitchell Starc, and 2022’s Australian of the Year, the tennis player Dylan Alcott. 

It has invested into  burrito chain Guzman y Gomez, toilet paper producer Who Gives A Crap? and online health business Eucalyptus.

They invest  alongside and it’s members are learning from some of Australia’s top venture capital and asset management firms such as Blackbird Ventures, Airtree Ventures and TDM Growth Partners.

There is considerable appeal  to startups for Athletic Ventures to invest in them - they get to have over 100 of the countries top athletes investing in you !

“We can support a company through unique ways such as social media, networking, and mindset...we can add value in ways traditional investors can’t.” Says Matt 

The poster boy is cricket superstar Steve Smith who has amassed a portfolio of investments in startup business such as Koala Mattresses and online photo app Snappr and has an estimated worth $100 million on paper.

Looking forward to see Athletic ventures go from strength to strength !!

Paul Wiltshire and Songtradr are at the centre of a Golden Age for Music

Paul Wiltshire sees the next decade as a golden age for music and artists - fuelled on one side by the low barriers to entry for artists to get their music into the world (supply) and the need for great content and commercial situations that require some sort of musical accompaniment (demand).

What Songtradr does 

Songtradr commercialises music  by matching songs to a commercial party – such as an advertiser, a film production house, a video game maker, a retailer, an app designer or a podcast maker – that is looking to set the right mood with the right piece of music.

Paul explains to AFRs Sarah Thompson, Anthony Macdonald and Tim Boyd

You might choose a piece of music based on a mood (“epic”) and a theme (“drama”) and a genre (“R&B/soul”). Then we could further refine our choice by nominating a vocal style, a featured instrument and a tempo. The Songtradr search engine will then throw up hundreds of choices – we liked Stay With Me by Stuart Moore – that you could then licence.

Songtradr helps its customers step through the  minefield of licensing and raised money for strategic acquisitions  and has made strategic acquisitions designed to expand Songtradr’s reach in with brands 

• creative music agency -  MassiveMusic facilitating  its ability to process the datasets on which it bases its music matching capabilities 
• it also bought Tunefind, a music discovery service for TV, film and gaming

The Money Side 

Last year Songtradr  raised  $US50 million at a valuation of about $US300 million  -  revenue more than double in 2021, from $US19.3 million in 2020, with gross profit up 400 per cent.

The business, has been backed by  WiseTech’s Richard White, Trevor St Baker’s family office and institutions such as Perennial, Regal Funds Management, Aware Super and Argo, 

Something you might want to know about Paul 

Paul is known as one of the most talented and successful entrepreneurs in the music industry. He dabbled with singing and performing, but his real strength was in helping others create and publish their works. 

He is one of the guys that works in the background to help everyone else become successful and realize their dreams. 

He is content to do this. 

He has received many awards for his record production and for the songs that he has written. The sales of his compositions exceed 15 million records. 

He has provided rights management and distribution services for more than 600 thousand catalogs, songwriters, and artists to date.

US hedge funds backs another brilliant Aussie Invention

Founders of Emesent - Dr Stefan Hrabar and Farid Kendoul in 2016 -- met Mike Zimmerman -   -- when they were part of the CSIRO ON program.  Mikes fund Main Sequence Ventures  invested 2 years later together with Archangel Ventures.

“Over these last 6 years, they have just kept their heads down and quietly become world leaders in industrial automation and analytics - with a 130-strong (and growing) team “

VCs , Perennial Partners,  Tiger Global Management and TELUS have bow lobbed in $32m to help with their growth - giving them  a nice warchest to invest to  ramp up !

In the last year, revenue has increased 2.5X….

This is  a major win after a decade of research from CSIRO’s Robotics and Autonomous Systems Group within Data61.

So what does it actually do?

Emesent has created mapping technology that attaches to a drone , vehicle or even a backpack - it collects data in underground and hard to reach locations, even when GPS is not reliable.

 It is used to create 3D maps, record gas readings and take images or videos.

In a nutshell you can now collect high-quality data that was previously impossible to acquire - from a safe distance 
Dr Steven Hrabar  explains to Tech Journalist Yolanda Redrup  of the Australian Financial Review  .

“ We see ourselves as a key enabler for the digital mine of the future and other industries with the challenge of asset management.” says Stefan

“We launched our core product Hovermap in 2016... and it’s now able to fly a drone fully autonomously beyond line of sight and communication range, all by using a tablet,” Dr Hrabar said.

“You give it an idea of where you want it to reach, and then it self-explores and navigates on its own, capturing a detailed 3D LiDAR [light detection and ranging] point cloud.”

LiDAR point clouds are a collection of points created using the LiDAR technology, useful for storing large amounts of data.

“We’re building out our data analytics capability to do autonomous insights,” Dr Hrabar said.

International Validation 

Last year, the company, which teamed up with its original team from CSIRO and also the Georgia Institute of Technology, placed second in the “robotics Olympics” – a competition run over a three-year period by US government research agency DARPA. 

Teams were tasked with remotely operating robots in a subterranean environment that simulated a real-world scenario, including locating models of lost or injured humans, backpacks, and phones, as well as variable conditions such as pockets of gas.

Who are Emesent’s customers?

Organisations in mining, architecture, engineering and construction industries. 

They now have over 300 customers in over 40 countries including BHP, Glencore and Anglo American!

What will the finding be used for?

The fresh funding, he says, will be used to establish a sales team in Denver, open an office in the UK, double its engineering team, and build a new manufacturing, calibration and testing facility in Brisbane.

Who is Tiger Global Management VC 

Emesent is added to  Tiger’s  growing growing portfolio of Australian Innovation from its $10b private equity fund.

Tiger Global, founded in 2001 and with $US84 billion in assets, is one of the offshoots started by one of hedge fund titan Julian Robertson’s “Cubs”- Chase Coleman 

It’s  biggest home run  so far has been JD.com where it made $US6.6 billion. It still has active stakes in Flipkart and Robolox, where it expects to make $US3.3 billion each. 

 Its biggest loser, is listed Danke Apartment with a $US344 million loss, in the presentation.

Other investments include 

• Dany Milham’s Milkrun,
• Afterpay
• Atlassian
• GO1
• Bruce Buchanan’s Rokt, 
• online wholesale marketplace TradeSquare, 
• software start-up Assignar and
• Mr Yum
• Assignar - that’s also backed by Leigh Jasper and Our Innovation Fund 
• Shipping
• Safetculture
• Scalapay 
• Stakeshop - $2 brokerage 
• Stake - $40m raise 

https://amp.ft.com/content/e1d1c558-9a87-4843-9cd8-29ab203b7911

Steve Maarbani raises another $10m for expansion of Venturecrowd

As a new generation of investor becomes the dominant financial services customer, VentureCrowd has enabled the easy access to sustainable venture startups with three clicks of their smartphones. 

#growth #alternativeassets #crowdfunding 

Steve Maarbani’s VentureCrowd has bolstered its warchest through a $10 million capital raising that puts the group on track for international expansion.

What it does 

Venturecrowd enables generation of Millennial and Gen Z investors looking to invest in purpose-driven sustainable  projects.

“New and creative solutions in health, agriculture, education, renewable energy and sustainability are the focus 

VentureCrowd has raised more than $180 million since inception and are on track for 100 per cent growth this year.

Among the start-ups accessing the VentureCrowd platform are Nexba, Expert 360, 4DMedical (ASX: 4DX), Jayride (ASX: JAY), Judo Capital (ASX: JDO), Perkii, Gamurs, Thinxstra, Zookal and Unyoked.

VentureCrowd used its own platform to raise $3.9 million of its latest $10 million raise - a move that has attracted a number of new investors for the group.

Maarbani is now planning to establish a foothold across the Asia Pacific, starting in Singapore.

Supported by VC Veteran  be Chris Wilson, the co-founder of ANZ Bank’s (ASX: ANZ) venture-capital fund ANZi, now known as 1835i. and a former Deloitte Digital senior partner, is VentureCrowd’s new head of ventures.

The digitisation of venture capital in Australia has been driven by recent federal legislation that allows retail investors to back high growth start-up opportunities. 

Maarbani established VentureCrowd after working with high-net-worth angel groups and syndicate investors at PwC.

“The access to venture capital as an asset class and the ability to invest in high growth companies that could potentially change the world was always restricted to the super rich and highly connected venture capital funds and angel investors,” says Steve 

“Digitisation has changed that, making it available to everyone.”

For start-ups, Maarbani says VentureCrowd is a quick and efficient option to raise capital when needed.

“You might be between seed and a Series-A capital raise, but you just need another $500,000 to refine your product to get to that Series-A point. That’s a very difficult position for a start-up to be in.

“We’re creating much more flexibility for companies than they ever had before. I think a lot of companies in the past have failed not because they had a terrible idea and were badly run, but because in the early stages of growth capital is so inflexible.”

Looking we are looking to collaborate with VentureCrowd  as part of our innovation forum 

Inspired by https://www-businessnewsaustralia-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.businessnewsaustralia.com/amp-html/articles/venturecrowd-raises--10m-to-fund-asia-pacific-alternative-asset-expansion.html

The Last Thoughts of Steve Jobs

The last words of Steve Jobs, billionaire, dead at 56:

"I have reached the summit of success in the world of business." In the eyes of others, my life is a success.

However, aside from work, I had little joy. In the end, wealth is just a fact I am used to.

At this moment, laying on my hospital bed, remembering my whole life, I realize that all the gratitude and wealth in which I took so much pride, has vanished and became meaningless in the face of imminent death.

You can hire someone to drive your car or make money for you but it's impossible to hire someone to deal with sickness and die for you.

Material things lost can be found. But there is one thing that can never be found when it is lost - "Life".

Whatever stage of life we are currently in, with time, we will face it the day the curtain closes.

Love your family, spouse and friends... Treat them right . Cherish them.

• As we get older, and wiser, we slowly realize that wearing a $300 or $30 watch - both give the same hour...
• Whether we have a $300 or $30 wallet or purse - the amount inside is the same;
• Whether we drive a $150,000 car or $30,000 car, the road and distance are the same, and we arrive at the same destination.
• That we drink a bottle of wine at 1000. $ or $10 hangover is the same;
• That the house we live in is 300 or 3000 square feet - the loneliness is the same. 
• Whether you travel first class or economic class, if the plane crashes, you crash with it...

You will realize that your true inner happiness does not come from material things of this world.

Therefore .. I hope you realize, when you have friends, boyfriends and old friends, brothers and sisters, with whom you argue, laugh, talk, sing, talk about north-south-east or heaven and earth,.... This is the real happiness!!

An indisputable fact of life:

Don't educate your kids to be rich. Educate them to be happy. 

So when they grow up they will know the value of things and not the price.

Kepler Analytics - retail tech - raises $22m Series A - onwards and upwards

Cofounders David Mah and David Gordon have raised a series A of $22m - led by One Ventures -  for their retail Tech Analytics business - Kepler Analytics 

The story so far 

In 2017 the David’s rented a spot at Ryan Klibansky’s co-working facility Engine Room with a team of 6!  With  year on year growth - they went to Oneventures in 2020 - who was interested - but was not yet large enough for it to invest. 

Fast forward to Nov 2021 - they went back and were ready - supported in a big way by Covid - with data a critical piece in running a retail outfit !

The raise - was supported by Whiteoak, Taronga Ventures, Shearwater Capital and Existing investors Reinventure and InterValley Ventures.

Their focus is squarely on their customers - retailers - helping them manage and grow their business.

What it does 

The company’s sensor technology provides retailers with real-time alerts and insights into shopper behaviour, including how many people walk past the store, how many come in, where they entered the store and what they purchased.

“We measure ... the journey in a physical store environment, just like you can in e-commerce,” Mr Mah told The Australian Financial Review.

Kepler Analytics  has deployed its technology in 5500 stores across 24 countries - with customers including Aēsop, Hanes Group, Officeworks, Hudsons Bay and Pandora.

David Gordon shared the importance of becoming a centre of influence to their targeted audience using forums as a base to engage their targeted audience 

What the money will be used for 

The capital raised will help it Double its team from 50 to 100 with a USA focus.

#kepler #davidgordon #retailanalytics #retailtraffic #retailnews #retailtech