BSI Innovation blogs about Innovation, Money, Venture Capital, Grants, Exports and Research and Development (R&D)
Alliance Partners
Thursday, September 26, 2024
Investing in the startup space and in innovation is not for the feint hearted
Thursday, September 19, 2024
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!
Tuesday, September 17, 2024
Kismet raises $32.5m - seed after raising 12.5m last year and 4.5m the year before!!! 💥
The money
The Growth
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
They connect the physical and digital worlds to enabling greater access to disability and healthcare services at the tap of a button.
Tuesday, September 10, 2024
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!!
Monday, September 09, 2024
Chinese VCs are running around like headless chooks
Venture Capital gave rise to China’s tech industry, backing Alibaba, Baidu (internet search), Xiaomi (smartphones) and Didi (ride hailing). When these companies did public stock offerings, the venture capital investors reaped bountiful returns.
However
The heightened tensions between China and the United States , and China’s leader, Xi Jinping aiming for national self-reliance - is making it tough for Chinese VCs, who have spent two decades cultivating start-ups and shaping tech development having nowhere to apply their expertise.
There may opportunities in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa. But the only market that can compare to China in size and potential is the United States.
VCs in China are runnning around like headless chooks
The China government are jailing VCs or imposing huge fines on private enterprises . it’s not easy to leave China completely and start over in a foreign country with a foreign language and a foreign culture and they are reluctant to leave China .
Wednesday, September 04, 2024
Australian Companies Investing in Education in India
Australian Private equity firm LeapFrog Investments has led a A$35m funding round in Mumbai-based Auxilo Finserve that gives education loans to students aspiring to study in India and abroad.
Leapfrog invested $30 million with the balance coming in from Auxilo's existing investors Trifecta Leaders Fund-I and Xponentia Opportunities Fund-II.
Stewart Langdon, partner at LeapFrog Investments said that
"This is our first investment in education. It's a business that blends our core theme of financial inclusion not only by giving out loans but also helps people get access to education, which is tremendously important,", told Mint.
“We like businesses that are growing very fast and making an impact. Auxilo is enabling some 10,000 people to go overseas this year and achieve their dreams - so it is high growth and high impact. For all those reasons, we are excited about Auxilo"
Investment Growth
He also emphasized LeapFrog’s broader investment strategy in India:
"There are two dimensions to what we are looking to do in India - we have a new A$100m fund which is looking at financial inclusion, healthcare and climate action!
Since 2018, it has provided education loans to over 12,000 students, across more than 1,100 universities and education institutes in more than 30 countries.
The company has also provided finance to over 170 educational institutes for their infrastructure expansion and working capital requirements.
In the next 5 years, the company aims to disburse $5m ₹25,000 crore to more than 150,000 students for higher education, skilling, and executive courses, both in India and abroad.
The Mumbai-based education lender said its loans grew at a 75% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from FY21 to FY24, reaching ₹2,878 crore as of 31 March, 2024. Growth in its disbursements is being driven by the rising demand for higher education, particularly from students in smaller cities, who aspire to study abroad, especially in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM, fields.
India's diaspora sends back $111 billion in annual remittances—the largest globally—and plays a crucial role in the domestic economy.
There could be a brilliant synergistic alliance between BSI Learning - who are upskilling Indian students in accredited Australian Diplomas and Auxilo - I am looking forward to connect them !
From Founder of Leapfrog Andrew Kuper
Source Article from mint