How to attract investment

How do you unlock the secrets of attracting investment in today’s market? 🕵️

One Ventures Investment Associate Shawn Li joined the Investor Panel – Pathways to Funding Your Startup, hosted by Stone & Chalk, to discuss what we look for in scaling technology companies, the decision-making process behind our investments and the value we can bring beyond capital.

Shawn works in our Growth Credit team, offering a flexible form of capital that can complement equity. It can help founders extend runway, fund acquisitions and reach profitability while staying in control of their growth journey 🚀

Stone & Chalk hosted Nicholas Jerrat (Perth Angels), Shishir Chowkse (Birchal), Joanna Lee (Giant Leap) and Paul Naphtali (Rampersand) who shared their insights

Do names of VC Rounds Matter?

Companies raising the same amount of money have different post-money valuations depending on the round name.

Eg. If a seed-stage round raises $15M, that company is likely valued at $58M post-money. Whereas if a Series B company does so, the startup is typically worth $93M.

Why?

1. The companies that are raising Series B have likely raised more capital over multiple rounds than the earlier stages. So the valuation 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 be higher accounting for the excess capital already on the books.

  

2. The later the stage, the higher the traction / underlying business metrics needed to justify the next round (typically). 

  

3. Some round name fraud happening? Founders do sometimes choose to raise a "seed" when they've already raised significant capital in order to stand out relative to their peers..

#startups #Seed #SeriesA #SeriesB #founders

Lorikeet raises $54m after 2 years of starting up

 Lorikeet,  an AI company providing AI agents for customer service and founded by  Steve Hind (ex Stripe) and Jamie Hall (Google AI) in 2023,  has raised $54 million (US$35 million) in Series A funding at a valuation north of $200m . This is after receiving US$5m in seed funding in Oct 24 and growing revenue 10x 

Investors 

Investment was led led by QED Investors, with participation from Square Peg, Blackbird, Airtree, Skip Capital, Capital 49ers, Operator Partners and Athletic Ventures.

Canva’s husband-and-wife cofounders Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht also joined the Series A. Several ex Stripers are also angel investors in the platform, which uses AI agents to deal with intricate customer problems.

Customers 

Customers include Lorikeet’s agents, or ‘concierges’, are used by several Australian unicorns, including Airwallex, Linktree and Eucalyptus, as the startup takes on global customer service giants Intercom, Zendesk, Decagon and Sierra.

What Lorikeet Does 

If you’ve dealt with a chatbot at Airwallex, Linktree, Flex or Eucalyptus, you’ve probably engaged with a Lorikeet AI concierge  – which answers questions, makes judgment calls and takes action to solve problems across chat, email, and voice.

Hond says “Customers don’t want to be told how to fix their problems. They want a concierge that actually solves them.”

One of Lorikeet’s first deployments was end-to-end handling of lost, stolen, and missing debit cards—with the AI used to determine eligibility, updatethe customer’s address, and send a replacement card without human intervention.

Application of Funds 

The money will be spent by R&D and global go-to-market efforts in the next five months. The business already has customers in US, Europe, and Australia.