Calling all SAAS developers - Join their mission

Ross Chaldexott, Evgeny Komarevtsev  and Dave Berner (all who helped build unicorn  Campaign Monitor - have come out of stealth mode with Kinde having  raised a A$10.6M Seed round led by Nick Crocker at Blackbird Ventures with participation from Victoria Treyger of Felicis Ventures. Didier Elzinga (Culture Amp, CEO), Greta Bradman, Benjamin Humphrey (Dovetail, CEO), and Nick Menere (Code Barrel co-founder)

The Kinde vision aligns to that of Blackbird’s to  create a world with more founders…. 

Founder Ross Chaldexott - who helped build Atlassian, Campaign Monitor and Shopify - says that 

having Felicis Ventures join the round feels like we have the dream combination backing us. is a formidable investor and advisor and we’re very excited to have her guidance. This is only the fourth time Felicis has invested in an Australian company and their track record is impeccable, with previous investments in Canva, Culture Amp and Dovetail.

What is Kinde?

Kinde helps software teams get started with infrastructure that they can start building on top of immediately, which means they can focus on what makes their business unique. 

Think Shopify, for SaaS. Kinde is a single product that solves all of the boring infrastructure needs out of the box, a product that will grow with founders as their businesses grow. When they need a little extra power, our marketplace lets them bring in best of category products to supercharge their business.

Founding a software startup is hard - Believe us, we’ve seen a few! (Says Ross) . Before someone can start on their product, they have to build essential infrastructure like user management, release management, experimentation, commerce and billing. These things have nothing to do with their idea but waste their valuable time and money.

Kindes Mission 

Kinde’s  mission  is to democratise technology that only established businesses could historically afford and means new founders can accelerate from day one.

“We believe every founder has the potential to unlock the future of human achievement – and that everyone should have the tools and the opportunity to participate. We will do everything we can to help founders and their teams succeed and so build a world with more founders. Anyone with an idea, not just engineers, should be able to start a SaaS company. We aim to shorten the distance between having that idea and getting it into the hands of people who need it.”

Exiting stealth - Calling all Developers to help 

With the capital raising  announcement they are launching their  Early Acceleration Program, to help early stage founders get started on their journey. Register your interest at kinde.com

There’s a lot to do, crazy problems to solve and they need a company of giants to get them  there. 

Tanya - heard Ross’s shout out for help and has joined the team!!! 

We are  looking for amazing people to join us on our mission to reinvent the way software companies get started and help us build a world with more founders. 

If you want to be involved in the Kinde adventure right from the start, visit kinde.com/careers. They would  love to hear from you!

https://kinde.com/blog/news/announcing-our-10-million-seed-round-led-by-blackbird

The EMDG programme is being cut to shreds - time to make a voice!

The Export Market Grants scheme helping SME exporters grow -   Has been cut to shreds !!!

Exporters entitlements have  been reduced by up to 80pc -  making the benefit to the exporter marginal at best - says Ivan Kaye of BSI Innovation - who has been helping exporters access grants for 35 years 

The reason for this - he says - is that applicants have doubled , but the pool of money has remained the same.

What is the EMDG Grants Programme 

The EMDG now has three tiers for applicants and a dedicated stream for representative bodies - based on a $ for $ grant . 

👊🏼Tier one is for first-time exporters - entitling them to 2 grants of 40k per annum 

👊🏽Tier two is for the more established exporter - entitling them to 3 grants of $80k per annum 

and 

👊🏾Tier three  - is for those exporters looking to scale up their exports - with overseas offices - entitling them up to $150k per mum 

Grant applications closed in November 2021 and as yet - no assessments have been issued to tier 2 or 3 applicants .

Denham Sadler of Innovationaus.com spoke with Rod Campbell - chair of the Export Consultants Association - of which BSi is a founding member .

“This is a scheme that’s meant to deliver confidence – that’s laughable.” Says Rod Campbell - a long time export consultant 

The EMDG program will fail unless there is a significant overhaul, Mr Campbell said.

“[Former Trade Minister Simon] Birmingham said the EMDG is the most successful economic stimulus ever introduced by government, and it is. 

Now they’re throwing away 50 years of proven success for a mystery program, that will probably sit alongside most of the other grant programs that have failed,” 

There is now also a lack of expertise within Austrade with many of the top advisers resigning in despair 

Despite concerns being raised by Opposition and Government Senators, no extra funding for the EMDG program was provided in the recent budget, to support the engine room of the Australian Economy - SME exporters 

There has been announces a $100 million top-up over two years through the regional accelerator program - no further detail has been released on this 

Here are the guidelines of the new EMDG programme https://www.austrade.gov.au/ArticleDocuments/1433/2021-22%20EMDG%20Guidelines.pdf.aspx

Ivan Kaye says that he is amazed why the government will not wholeheartedly support Australian Exporters giving it a full go to grow their business , employ more people - and take Australian Products and Services to the world.

Let us campaign for the Government to honour the entitlements of Australian Exporters based on the EMDG programme proposed .

What am I missing????

Denham Sadler of Innovationaus.com

Archa is shaking up the credit card market

Above picture taken in 2018 

Neobank Archa is shaking up the credit card market and investors are jumping on board!

Originally backed by Rich Lister from Online Fitness - Emily Skye ,

They have just raised a $4 million pre-Series A round - led by their founders and investors including 

• CEO and Founder of Wisr, Anthony Nantes, 
• Alex Vynokur of Apex Capital and Betashares, 
• Adam Jacobs, Co-Founder of The Iconic and Hatch, 
• former Macquarie Capital executives John Prendiville and Link Chairman. 
• Founders of Netspace, Stuart Marburg and Richard Preen, 
• and a list of high-profile family offices 

together with a $20 million debt funding facility with Roadnight Capital. 

This gives Archa an opportunity  to scale fast!

What Archa does 

they help businesses everywhere manage their team’s spending more efficiently so that they can move faster and focus on what they do best.

They do this by giving  corporates and their teams access to a corporate credit card  , giving them   an alternative and better way to manage their business spend.

It offers a Xero bank feed integration, and increased visibility for primary cardholders, who can now view all secondary card transactions from within their app.

Customers include high-growth businesses like Sherlock, WeFund & Law Squared as our customers. 

Collectively across their base, Archa  process over $600,000 in transactions each month (growing rapidly), and new customer growth is increasing 30% month-on-month.

Watch this space!

Rampersand Raises another $40m seed fund after scoring a dragon with the 1st!

Paul Naphtali and Helen Sounes - have raised $40m for their 2nd Seed Stage VC Fund - Rampersand attracting 136 private investors including  The Victor Smorgon Group,  Aconex’s Leigh Jasper, Kogan CFO David Shafer, and Amanda Walton.

Investments include  Cake Equity, JigSpace, Muso and Mass Dynamics

The fund scored a “Dragon” in their first fund with workforce management application Skedulo netting  a 13X return  and paid back 1.5 times the fund.

Other companies in that first fund include mx51, Assembly Payments and Expert360. 

Sendle and PredictHQ

“Our ethos, our capability and our alignment is with founders building things to change the market” says Paul 

Intaclustr s Re a $500m exit

Instaclustr  started in Canberra by  Adam Zegelin, Ben Bromhead, and Peter Lilley in 2013 has been sold to NetApp - (capped on NASDAQ at $23b) for more than $500 million.

Instaclustr is a platform that manages and monitors huge data, and runs multiple, open-source tools such as Facebook’s Cassandra, Kafka and Elasticsearch.

Netappps Anthony Lye said the company had trialled Instaclustr’s services before engaging in M&A talks…. And were pretty excited as it would add significant value to its existing customers …….and then the talks began!!

Investors 

 The founders have a bevy of investors that supported them - each of them will have a payday!!!

OIF Ventures (formerly called Our Innovation Fund), Bailador, Artesian, ANUConnect Ventures and Spirit Super (formerly MTAA Super). Sydney Angels and Capital Angels

Instaclustr was advised by AGC Partners, Blackpeak Capital and Morgan Stanley.

CEO Peter Lilley  was excited to see NetApp sign up as a new customer, but at the time had no idea they were considering making a bid for the business.

Customers

Its customers include Atlassian, Doordash, Dream11 (an Indian fantasy sports platform) Clear Capital and Lendi.

NetApp have around 7000 customers who can use Intackustr 

Investor returns

OIF

For OIF Ventures, which first backed the business in its seed round in 2016 and then co-led its Series A raise, netted them. $100m - a 20 X ROI, 2X its entire $50 million first fund. (A double dragon) 

Jerry Stesel said with the fund’s three other exits in the last year – XM Cyber, Eftsure and Assignar – hasreturned, in cash, 3.5 times the $50 million raised for fund one, giving a 43 per cent net internal rate of return, which is in the top decile globally, just on the current markings! 

There are eight other portfolio companies in OIF’s including unicorn Go1, Advanced Navigation and cybersecurity start-up Kasada.

Bailador

In Bailador’s March update to shareholders, the valuation of its stake was $63.4 million, representing a 659 per cent gain on its investment. On the back of the deal, it notified shareholders on Friday morning that the value of its position had jumped to $118 million.

Boom 💥

RDTI incentives regarded as a solid programme - and should incorporate software development

A detailed review  resulting in an 84 page report - of the research and development tax incentive (RDTI) and the administration of it - has concluded that “The program is achieving the government’s policy objective of stimulating the economy by encouraging companies to develop innovative ideas and activities.” 

The Board acknowledges that  there are challenges with recognising r and d in  software development, and that improvements should be made to allow them to participate .

Mick Lynch of BSI Innovation (www.bsi grants.com) says this is welcome news - and a definition that clearly allows software development to be included in the scheme will make way for entrepreneurs to take those risky decisions! 

For more information Denham Sandler has a more details article go to innovationaus.com