VC backs cuttable with $5.5m based on people with deep experience who’ve done it before!

Cofounders Sam Kroonenburg, Jack White and Ed Ring have raised $5.5m for their AI-powered adtech startup Cuttable

Seed funding round led by Paul Bassat’s Square Peg and supported by Taryn Pieterse at Rampersand and other strategic angel investors .

Backing people with strong expertise who’ve done it before!

Sam Kroonenburg co-founded A Cloud Guru - an online learning business, and went on to sell it for more than $2 billion in 2021, 

Jack, Sam and Adam all have deep experience in tech and advertising  and a strong track record of creating cutting-edge solutions”.

Paul Bassett of Square Peg has  joined the board 

What Cuttable does

Cuttable is a “first-of-its-kind automated content agency” that aims to support marketers and agencies marry creative advertising with AI to create high-quality digital ads at scale.

Curable enables  the automation of the creative with AI  - enhancing creativity, optimising ad performance and streamlines the production process - enabling more messages, more personalisation and more targeting –

Customers 

Imagine having the ability to translate a marketing brief into a live ad within a few clicks!! 

Cuttable is already working with Woolworths-owned brand Catch.com.au, and OnePass, and counts the likes of Medibank, Nando’s, Penfolds, Powershop, and DiDi among its clients.

Star trek Comment by Kroonenburg

“It’s about doing what was once impossible, - creating a new frontier in advertising, where technology and creativity converge to deliver unparalleled results for marketers and agencies”.

Thanks Eloise Keating from Smartcompany for the heads up

https://www.smartcompany.com.au/startupsmart/news/sam-kroonenburg-a-cloud-guru-raises-5-5-million-ai-startup-cuttable/

From zero to $2.5 billion in 20 years.

It was 20 years ago when Luke Anear started SafetyCulture in his garage  in Townsville and is now stepping down as CEO as it looks to list, after raising $165m in September last year!

What Safetyculture does 

After numerous jobs Luke saw the l impact workplace incidents had on businesses and their employees, and built a simple checklist app for workplace inspections to help reduce hazards and accidents. 

SafetyCulture has since grown into an all-in-one workplace operations platform, serving nearly 2 million customers globally and targeting 100 million users by 2032. 

Its software is predominantly used by frontline workers across construction, manufacturing, hospitality and retail.

Luke will remain  SafetyCulture’s largest shareholder and owns just under a quarter of the company.

Luke’s huge shows will be filled by  Kelly Vohs, who will be based in the USA ahead of a listing! 

Support by the greats 

Canva co-founder Cliff Obrecht , Blackbird partner Rick Baker , Atlassian Scott Farquhar and Kell Reilly of Airtree are among Luke’s inner circle.

The Safety Culture 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!! Luke believes that Kelly has what it takes to get to 100m users 

Another game changer -  started in Australia 

See more https://bsivc.blogspot.com/2024/09/safetyculture-hits-home-run-with-airtree.html

Mesoblast is looking to get FDA approval for Ryonci!

This is pretty exciting !! 

I have recently  invested in Mesoblast (AsX :MSB) - after listening to a great panel discussion with Sarah Murdoch and 3 panelists talking about how medicine is going to change over the next 5 years with the development and x fertilisation of stem, crispr and  AI .

This is what made me invest:- 

Cell therapy company Mesoblast (ASX:MSB) has entered into a convertible note subscription agreement with its largest shareholder, Gregory George, to issue up to US$50 million convertible notes at its discretion.

The issue of the convertible notes is linked to the US

FDA's approval of Mesoblast's lead product candidate, Ryonci (remestemcel-L), for the treatment of children with steroid-refractory acute graft versus host disease (SR-aGHD).

The company said the funding will enable it to implement its go-to-market commercial strategy.It said it expects a decision before or on the FDA's Prescription Drug User Fee Act goal date of 7 January, 2025.

Mesoblast chief executive Silviu Itescu said: "We appreciate the ongoing support from our major shareholder in ensuring that the Company is well capitalised for commercial product launch and can hit the ground running immediately following approval of RYONCIL by FDA."

Mesoblast chief executive Silviu Itescu said: "We appreciate the ongoing support from our major shareholder in ensuring that the Company is well capitalised for commercial product launch and can hit the ground running immediately following approval of RYONCIL by FDA."

Mesoblast said its go-to-market strategy includes hiring senior executives, market access, medical education, and ongoing engagement with key opinion leaders.

https://biotechdispatch.com.au/news/mesoblast-option-to-issue-up-to-us50-million-convertible-notes-for-product-launch

VCs don’t fund great ideas

Great post by Kayode Odeleye

This is something else I wish I knew when i started 

I hear founders say “we’ve validated the idea and built MVP, we just need money to scale”

Hmm… you’ll be waiting a long time 

VCs fund two things and two things only:

1️⃣ Pedigree: name recognition say by exiting a previous company or leadership team of big tech

2️⃣ Out of this world growth and traction. Ideally, combination of user growth and revenue 

Founders, what did you have to do to finance your scaling process?

Luvin the #referron journey