Henry raises $35m on the back of exceptional customer service to smes - making life easy

Hnry 

- Founded in 2017  by Claire and James Fuller - with Karan Anand being the CEO

 - Winner 🥇 of  2022 fintech of the year and  

-  has raised $35m of growth capital from EVP,  Left Lane Capital, AirTree, Icehouse Ventures and Athletic Ventures. 

What it does

Hnry- offers a full digital accounting service - for  contractors, freelancers, and sole traders that handles… well, everything. - They automatically pay and lodge taxes, provide a service for admin management, and become your accountant. In short – they  get it done, so sole traders never have to think about tax again.

Making admin easy - improving the lives of so many independent earners across ANZ.- charging 1pc of salary up to $1500 per annum 

Hnry has  quickly grown into one of Australasia's largest specialist accountancies; with a team of 60 (and growing)

What a feeling

Building  an onboarding process that helped grow from a few onboarders a week to 100s!!

From a trickle of messages to 100s 

What a feeling says Justin Lipman Venture Partner of EVP ventures 

#neverthinkabouttaxagain #startups #venturecapital 

19 COMPANIES receive $44m SUPPORTED by CRC-P GRANTS supporting innovators

Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic today announced $44 million in grants for Australian companies to support 19 collaborative projects researchers and innovators .

Some of the recipients 

Dovetail Electric Aviation in Sydney will use its $3 million grant to develop, test and certify the conversion of turbine-powered planes into fully electrically powered aircraft (pictured).

The company says it will use the electric aircraft for short flights - will be a game-changer.

Connecting industry , universities , government and end-users to learn collaborate and innovate is crucial to delivering real outcomes, creating well-paid, secure jobs and backing industries to support the growth of our economy

Vaxxas Pty Ltd - developing a patch to provide a COVID-19 spike protein vaccine rapidly progressing into Phase II clinical studies. Can be self administered! 

Whiteley Corporation Pty Ltd - creating  anti-biofilm wound treatments, novel wound monitoring, including vascular identification, and dyes which target bacterial biofilms and destroys bacteria 

Other recipients include:

• Apollo Medical Imaging Technologies Pty Ltd
• Argenica Therapeutics Pty Ltd
• Austech Telecomminications Pty Ltd
• Ferronova Pty Ltd
• Forcite Helmet Systems Pty Ltd
• Graphenex Pty Ltd
• HomeGuardian.AI Pty Ltd
• I.A.H. Sales Pty Limited
• Iugotec Pty Ltd
• MPC Group Pty Ltd
• Samsara Recycling Pty Limited
• Sebstainable Pty Ltd
• Sementis Limited
• Sustainable Construction Systems Pty Ltd
• And VivaZome Therapeutics Pty Ltd.

About the CRC Programme 

Since 1991, the CRC Program has committed $5.6 billion of grant funding to support the establishment of 236 CRCs and 208 of the shorter-term CRC Projects.

On top of this, programme partners are contributing another $16.9 billion of cash and in kind.

The CRC-P Round 14 opens today.

Round 14 will support projects with a focus on circular economy principles, as well as the National Reconstruction Fund priority areas.

So how do ideas get commercialise in the startup world

How do you get to the money and the VC and 

How do you reduce the risk of early-stage startup failure? 

A key ingredient says Steve Blank - is having a mentor - who have been there and done that -  which can often be found in 

Incubators , accelerators, venture studios and Vc firms  .

They have been a key part of the puzzle  helping teams find product/market fit and raise initial capital. 

The typical journey 1) come up with an idea, 2) form a team, 3) start testing minimal viable products, 4) raise seed funding, 5) then obtain venture capital.

So how do accelerators operate?

They offer a cohort of startups a six to 12-week bootcamp culminating in a “demo day” and pitch session to venture capitalists and angel investors. In exchange for attending an accelerator, startups give up 5% to 10% of their company’s equity.

Examples Y-Combinator, Techstars, and 500 Startups are open to all types of startups in any market, while others like SOSV, IndieBio, HAX, Orbit, dLab are more specialized.

What is an incubator

They offer a little money - and support - could be a mentor , infrastructure and connections -  in exchange for equity 

What is a Venture Studio ? 

An idea factory for employees and stakeholders in an organisation searching for product/market fit and a repeatable and scalable business model.

They incubate their own ideas or ideas from their partners. The studio’s internal team builds the minimal viable product, then validates an idea by finding product/market fit and early customers. If the idea passes a series of “Go/No Go” decisions based on milestones for customer discovery and validation, the studio recruits entrepreneurial founders to run and scale those startups. 

Examples of companies that have emerged from venture studios, include Overture, Twilio, bitly, aircalla, and Moderna

For more information of how a Venture studio works - Steve Blanks article is great 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/venture-studio-right-you-steve-blank