Is Australia on the Cusp of a Silicon Valley type tech boom?

Tech editor for the AFR , Paul Smith’s takeout from the AFR summit is  that Australia can become the new tech hub. 

Anthony Eisen of  Afterpay and Steve Vamos of  Xero - agree that Australia is on the cusp of a tremendous post-pandemic growth opportunity through the creation of a Silicon Valley-style global technology centre and widespread digitisation in small businesses.

Anthony  Eisen suggested that  Australia could use its COVID-19 success story,  outstanding educational system,  infrastructure  and lifestyle to attract significant investment from global tech giants and emerging start-ups - being a tech hub exceeding competing head to head with Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv .

The recipe of a Global Tech Hub 

Australia has the recipe of being  a global leader in tech and has  the key ingredients  - it now needs the magic formula - to mix and bake these awesome ingredients!

Talent, experience, mindset and the desire to collaborate and connect entrepreneurs , government, universities, corporates, and money - and we’re cooking - says Ivan Kaye - founder of BSI 

Afterpay, Atlassian, Redbubble, Canva, Zip, NextTech, Referron and myreruitmentplus   (and who knows - even Bitcoin?) have shown that we can build global technology platforms.

The Power of the SME

Steve Vamos said that Xero’s extraordinary growth was a result of the willingness of Australians to be early adopters of  tech and cloud-based software, with 50 per cent of small businesses in Australia now having some connection to a cloud-based accounting platform. 

Small business represents over 90pc of the workforce - and is a significant factor in the success of technologies.

“Small business owners are very busy and they aren’t excited by a new change. Like when we see new iPhone software, they don’t think, ‘What can this do for me?’ They think. ‘Oh God, what is this going to do to me.’ ”

That’s the challenge! 

What was the tipping point to make small business in Australia make the change to Xero? Or adopt the iPhone? Or use Microsoft, LinkedIn, Google, Insta, Amazon or Facebook?

KarbonHQ raises US$10m making raise to date US$17m

KarbonHQ seems to be on a rocket ship to growth,  having raised a $US10m investment from @FiveElms that will accelerate Karbon's evolution to cloud-native practice management for accounting firms.

This is after a series A round of us$7m led by Blackbird Ventures on June 2018

CEO and co-founder @stuartwmcleod says that 

Karbon is growing at 100% year-on-year , their NPS is accelerating, payback periods are low, and net retention figures are world-class. 

The team is growing from 46 employees, to 75 this year and will continue to expand globally.

What it does 

KarbonHQ provides everything you need to run your accounting firm in a cloud-native, easy-to-use, thoughtful platform.

It helps an accounting firm of any size to go from prospect and lead to proposal, onboarding, scheduling, capacity planning, budgeting, time collection and capture, write-on/write-off, invoice presentment and payment. 

So, what makes VCs back a Company?

The Leader?

The marketplace?

The team? 

Others backing the business?

Trust??? 

Belief that the business will hit a home run? 

It would be interesting to hear the war stories from CEO Stuart Mcleod!

Fintech Athena disrupting the Legacy Banks core business - home loans!

Gotta luv the combination of how ex NAB execs, Nathan Walsh and Michael Starkey of Home Loan provider, Athena,  have used the powerful combination of outstanding customer service + a smart domain knowledge + strong tech driven operational excellence, to disrupt the banking industry !

“The big legacy banks have been broken by their complexity. It’s not new news, the community has been getting a raw deal for quite some time, [but] the time couldn’t be riper to put a genuine alternative out there.” Says Walsh 

It has settled over $2billion of home loans since it started two years ago - automatically giving existing customers the same low rates as new customers. 

Here is the knockout blow .... 

“Our mission is to acquire new customers and retain existing customers by delivering an exceptional customer experience. We have passed through RBA rate cuts in full to all our customers. using the right technology allowing us to listen, learn and innovate for customers and develop great products.”  Walsh shares with the AFR.

Claire Gillies of Deloitte helped implement the tech around Salesforce by including a blend of interviews, interactive workshops and observing how the technology is used to drive improved insights to build an amazing business  with CX in front and centre of everything it does! 

So, where does Athena get its money from?

"There’s $2.7 trillion in super which is going to increase to $5 trillion and then $10 trillion, or the $17 trillion in bonds at negative interest rates in which high quality mortgages are an attractive asset class.” 

The customer pitch 

“Refinance With Athena and Enjoy Zero Fees So You Can Pay Off Your Home Loan Faster. Learn How Athena Can Accelerate paying off your Home loan! P&I, OO, 60% LVR. Cr Warning. Fee Free Extra Repayments. Equity Release. Direct Debit Repayments. Choose Your Loan Terms.

Apply now. 5 minute application. 100% Online. Award winning. Fast outcomes. 100% Online Application. No Early Repayment Fees. Low Fees, Great Rates. 6 months to 5 years. Borrow from 2k to 30k. Types: Personal Loans, Loan Calculator, Savings Accounts.”

Athena’s People and Investors 

It’s all about the people says Walsh 

“The beautiful thing about great talent is it attracts other great talent,”

Part of the magic formula  was to source the  skills and experience to help the startup through the growth phase.

“A big part of the journey is around the investors and the team we attract to the business,”

The value of relationships with people who have an understanding of the startup journey, who are able to introduce the founders to other connections, who are thought leaders in their fields, and who share the startup’s values is “broader than funding”, Walsh says.

“You are the company you keep.”

The Capital Raising  Journey 

Athena initially raised a Seed round of $3m  in June 2018, followed by a Series A round of $15m from  Macquarie Capital and Square Peg and B funding of $25m  before it launched in February 2019, receiving $250 million in applicationswithin the first three days. 

8 months later, Athena raised a series C $70m round in Oct 19 supported by Square Peg Capital, AirTree Ventures,  Hostplus,  AustralianSuper, Salesforce Ventures and NAB Ventures at a valuation  of $230m, after  it had originated $500m of loans. (They delivered on their promise - their investors trusted Asad supported  them!) 

Today it has written  over $2b of loans - could it now be a unicorn? 

Where to from here? 

Afterpay going full tilt into USA

Nick Molnar and Anthony Eisen’s Afterpay has been a story that has given its Investors a pay day and something  to talk about all year - with its shares going from a low of $10 to $133 on the last year.... with their business going from strength to strength.

Today Anthony tells Colin Kruger  that they will be going full tilt into the USA! 

HeadSpin Raises $60M Series C Round at a $1.16 Billion

On-Track to Hit $100M in Annual Recurring Revenue in Early 2020 Just Over Four Years After Inception, New Investment Will Help HeadSpin Deepen Position Within Cloud Ecosystems

February 25, 2020 12:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--HeadSpin, the company that ensures flawless connected experiences enabled by web, mobile, IoT and 5G, today announced a $60 million Series C funding round led by Dell Technologies Capital and ICONIQ Capital with participation from institutional investors Tiger Global Management, Kearny Jackson, and Alpha Square Group. 

The round brings the total amount raised since inception to $117 million. HeadSpin will use the funding to develop new product offerings, expand into new market segments, and deepen position within cloud ecosystems.

Nikesh Arora, Chairman CEO of Palo Alto Networks, has joined the company Board of Directors as Chairman of the Board. Arora is the former Chief Business Officer at Google who most recently served as President and COO of SoftBank prior to joining Palo Alto Networks.

Also participating in the round are leading angel investors, including LinkedIn’s Jeff Weiner, We’s Shiva Rajaraman, Calm’s Alex Will, Notion’s Akshay Kothari, Bumble’s Derek Callow, Caviar’s Gokul Rajaram, Uber’s Manik Gupta, Stripe’s Amber Feng, Facebook’s Kevin Weil and Andrea Moore, OpenDoor’s Sheila Tran, AngelList’s Sunil Pai, Supercast’s Jason Sew Hoy, mParticle’s Michael Katz, SVB’s Cheryl Sew Hoy, Airbase’s Thejo Kote, Spotify’s John Bonten, Twitter’s Lisa Kleinsorge, and Pinterest’s Ali Altaf.

Why is Headspin so Valuable?

“HeadSpin’s extraordinary technology has broken barriers and redefined the frontier of testing, monitoring, and analytics across devices, locations and networks to understand a customer’s connected experience. This means business, development, devops, and product teams can finally be on the same page and focus on what matters most: delivering high quality, innovative digital experiences enabled by web, mobile, IoT, and 5G,” said Nikesh Arora.

Understanding that connected experiences enabled by web, mobile, IoT, and 5G technologies have become the primary point of interaction between companies and their customers, HeadSpin developed the world’s first Connected Intelligence Platform™ to unify testing, monitoring and analytics across applications, devices, and networks. This enables companies to optimize the functionality and performance of connected experiences throughout the development lifecycle and across the increasingly complex ecosystem of software and infrastructure used to reach today’s global audiences.

"HeadSpin has achieved remarkable results in only four years,” said Deepak Jeevankumar, Managing Director, Dell Technologies Capital. “Not only has the team managed exceptional sales execution, but it created a new solution category that is now the standard for how the best consumer and enterprise G2000 companies ensure top-notch connected experiences for their users and customers. HeadSpin today is one of the fastest-scaling software companies I’ve seen in my 10 years of investing and has truly exceptional growth potential.”

Since launching in 2015, HeadSpin has doubled its annual revenue year-over-year, earning the trust of over 1,000 enterprise customers and telco operators. New HeadSpin enterprise customers include Microsoft, Tik Tok, Bandai Namco Studios, Yahoo!, Uber, DeNA, AirBnB, Kohls, ByteDance, BYJUs, Optus, Australian Post, Telefonica, and Walmart. As part of their international expansion, the company also recently opened regional offices in London, Tel Aviv, Berlin, and Cape Town to address increasing customer demand in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

“HeadSpin is well-positioned to take advantage of this huge market opportunity as enterprises transition to providing higher-quality digital and mobile experiences.” said Manish Lachwani, CoFounder and CEO, HeadSpin. “We’re privileged to be able to grow the company with our excellent team, partners and investors.”

HeadSpin is headquartered in Palo Alto. For more information visit www.headspin.io or follow HeadSpin on Twitter (@headspin_io) and LinkedIn.

About HeadSpin

HeadSpin is the world’s first Connection Intelligence Platform™ that provides Web, Mobile, IoT, and 5G solutions to unify testing, monitoring, and analytics across applications, devices, and networks. HeadSpin empowers development, QA, operations, and product teams to optimize connected experiences and ensure digital business success. Find out why HeadSpin is trusted by some of the largest enterprises in the world at https://www.headspin.io, on Twitter @HeadSpin_IO, and on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/headspin/

About Dell Technologies Capital

Dell Technologies Capital is the global venture capital investment arm of Dell Technologies. The investment team backs passionate early stage founders who push the envelope on technology innovation for enterprises. Since inception in 2012, the team has sustained an investment pace of $150 million a year and has invested in more than 100 startups, 40 of which have been acquired and 5 have gone public. Portfolio companies also gain unique access to the go-to-market capabilities of Dell Technologies (Dell, Dell EMC, VMWare, Pivotal, RSA, Secureworks). Notable investments include Adallom, Arista Networks, Cylance, Docusign, Graphcore, JFrog, MongoDB, Netskope, Nutanix, RedLock, RiskRecon, TwistLock, Wavefront and Zscaler. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Dell Technologies Capital has offices in Boston, Austin, and Israel. For more information visit www.delltechcapital.com.

About ICONIQ Capital

ICONIQ Capital is a privately-held financial advisory and investment firm, and a partner of choice for exceptional entrepreneurs, leaders and institutions around the world. The firm invests in technology growth equity and real estate asset classes and employs a distinctive ecosystem to build enduring businesses. ICONIQ is a trusted advisor fostering meaningful strategic relationships across industries to source powerful ideas, magnify global impact and support a new generation of entrepreneurs and companies. For a full list of investments made by ICONIQ Growth, an affiliate of ICONIQ Capital, please visit here.

Contacts

Sriram Krishnan 
sriram@headspin.io 
+1-408-601-0523

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200225005402/en/HeadSpin-Announces-60M-Series-C-Round-at-a-1.16-Billion-Valuation-and-Adds-Nikesh-Arora-as-Chairman-of-the-Board

Elivio exits to Dixa for $US15m with a $3m ARR

Elevio (whose ARR is circa $3m) has exited to Dixa in a cash and share deal worth circa US$15m, providing a significant exit for its backers , AirTree and Blackbird Ventures.

Another great story for Innovation in Australia ! 

Who is Elevio? 

Elevio was cofounded by Chris Duell and Matt Trimarchi in 2015, was incubated at Startmate and after traction, raised circa $1m from VCs AirTree and Blackbird Ventures in a seed round in 2016.

What does Elevio do ?

Elivio is a user education and onboarding platform, allowing companies to upskill their user base with ease.

It provides product knowledge via user guides to customers - enables agents to quickly replicate best practice answers using machine learning, ensuring fast, standardised and correct answers for customers.

 It is simple, requiring no technical skill and its ‘Embeddable Assistant' allows support content to be delivered in-product or injected into any area of a website without involving developers.

Who are Elivio’s  customers 

Over the last 6 years Elivio currently serve 500 customers delivering over 16,000,000 answers every month. 

Customers include  Epic Games, eBay, AccuWeather, Loom and TripAdvisor.

Chris share a story about getting his first $million customer in Epic Games - this was a game changer! 

Who paid US$15m for Elivio and why? 

Dixa enables brands to serve customers across multiple channels from a single screen including social media, chat, voice and messaging apps, enabling an outstanding experience for both customers and agents. 

It doubled its revenues during 2020 and raised $50 million in funding to date with backing from Notion Capital, Project A Ventures and SEED Capital. The company has offices in Copenhagen, London, Kyiv and Lviv.

Mads Fosselius, CEO of Dixa says about the deal :

“We’re all about customer service , and the Elevio acquisition will enable us to bring the CX to another level . It’s about “close partnership, strong integration, unique tech” disrupt the world of customer service”.

The Investment Banker

Chris shared on a clubhouse chat that this deal would not have been able to be done without the amazing support and skills of their adviser Scott Colvin at Blackpeak Capital .

Says Chris (albeit after a few celebratory drinks)

 Scott painted a real detailed of the company - building a compelling factual story about Elivio and why Dixa had to acquire us. When he showed us the investor deck and proposal  that he was  taking to  Dixa, we were  blown away. This resulted in a valuation and offer made that was beyond our expectations - and worth every cent of the success fee paid! 

Join us with JR as we talk and collaborate around teams

Join me next Thursday 25 February - we will be talking teams -  if you believe you have something to contribute - register as my guest to join us 

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/sydney-super-forum-tickets-136227194205?aff=eemailordconf&utm_campaign=order_confirm&utm_medium=email&ref=eemailordconf&utm_source=eventbrite&utm_term=viewevent

Artesian set to launch new AI accelerator and $100m fund

The Fund

The Victoria Government , Launch Vic and Artesian capital - have launched Boab AI, an artificial intelligence accelerator and venture capital fund for revenue-generating AI “scale-ups”

The accelerator has received $1.5m from Launch Vic and $8m in private capital that will support a planned $100 million VC fund for AI companies.

The  Players 

Artesian is one of the country’s biggest supporters of early-stage AI companies, with 40 in its portfolio already.

The $100 million fund, which is yet to be raised, will support up to 150 AI companies across the Asia Pacific.

Artesian chief executive Jeremy Colless shared this with 

Yolanda Redrup of AFR 

We believe AI is interesting in that it has applications across all industries. If the Australian economy is to remain competitive, we need the local capability to create new AI-driven innovations that help to generate economic advantage,”

LaunchVic CEO Kate Cornick said that the funding will position Victoria as a leading destination for AI within the Asia Pacific region, attracting and developing the best talent, investment and AI expertise.”

Victorian innovation, medical research and digital economy minister Jaala Pulford said that

“We are backing Victoria to be a world-leading innovation ecosystem, and this funding will help us attract and develop the best talent, investment and artificial intelligence expertise.” 

The Managers and Directors of the Fund 

Boab AI will be run by former founder of agriculture tech accelerator SproutX and Deakin University venture director, Andrew Lai , and will offer companies a tailored six-month program and a minimum investment of $300k - that will supposedly be designed to meet the needs of each company 

Boab directors include Dr Catriona Wallace, founder and CEO of Ethical AI Advisory, Rosyln Hames COO of Clear Dynamics as well as Artesian managing Partners Tim Heasley and Matthew Clunies-Ross.

The Investees

The ideal investee will have a minimum valuation of 5m that already has some mature products, traction in the marketplace and already have enterprise customers 

They will have a minimum valuation of  $5 million. 

Artesian estimates there are more than 300 AI start-ups in Australia.

Bomb has already invested in Victorian companies Pi.Exchange, Plaetos and Strongroom nAI, and Australian companies Daitum and Remi AI.

Article written by Ivan Kaye - sourced from Yolanda Redrup of AFR

Australian VC cashed up to invest in Startups in 2021

The Australian startup investment environment has remained robust during the Pandemic Year, where VCs have raised record levels of funding from private and institutional sources. ( US$1.6 billion, up from US$1.48 billion in 2019 according to the latest KPMG Venture Pulse report.

Amanda Price - head of High Growth Ventures at KPMG notes that founders are  entering 2021 with every opportunity to secure the funds they need to fuel their  rapid growth - which is great for Job growth and the  Australian Economy.

The quarterly research, which captures investment in startups across the world, reported 227 Australian VC investment deals over 2020, down from a record 285 in 2019

The larger investments included 

• Site minder $70m
• Brighte 83.5m
• Canva 60m
• GO1 40m
• Safety Culture $70m
• Future space 40m

It’s been a big few weeks in Social Media and Digital!

Bumble - the online dating company raised nearly $2.2 billion in its IPO, then saw its shares climb more than 60% on their first day of trading, taking the company's market cap above $13 billion.

Silicon Valley ‘s latest startup lately is Clubhouse, its facilitates audio-only chat rooms in January, the company raised new funding at a reported $1 billion valuation.

Cameo, aservice, where users can find a menu of thousands of celebrities who are willing to record a personalized video in exchange for a fee. Has just done a raise at $1b, tripling its 2019 valuation. 

Then there’s Tik Tok ..... the Chinese company that has candidates chomping ar the bit to take it over 

The Bull leading the charge, however , is Bitcoin, that seems to be building a momentum and global support that is electrifying .

Who wants to know how to buy Bitcoin? 

It’s all about your team

Great insight by Bernard Desmidt  

Teams are the predominant unit of organisational performance. 

So, given high performing teams are so powerful, why are they still so rare?

In the work Bernard Desmidt does facilitating and coaching executive and leadership teams, four common pitfalls serve to compromise and undermine the power of teaming:

1. Teams lack a common purpose and clarity of direction – ““we’re mostly a group of leaders focused on doing our own thing”
2. Team meeting agendas don’t address collective performance objectives – “It’s all about each looking good and less about us achieving great work, together”
3. The prevalence of a collective ‘mood of resignation’ – “why bother, just another restructure, nothing will really change”
4. Breakdowns in the relational dynamics – “can’t trust a thing he says, all that matters to him is his own success, and bonus”

To make teaming your differentiator, he shares 4 strategies to building kickass teams - which will result in the exceptional performance and growth 

1. Agree the team’s purpose – agree the cause the team serves greater than itself. Why does the team exist? What is it for? Then live it!
2. Set an “outcomes focused” team meeting agenda – for each agenda item, specify what decisions are important be made and actions agreed and committed to.
3. Identify a mood that will best serve the team’s collective way-of-being – rather than show-up in a mood of frustration, resignation or anxiety, choose to collectively stay in a mood of ambition, possibility, curiosity and wonder.
4. Legitimise your own and each other’s concerns – make it safe to share and talk about what is of concern to each individual and the team, collectively.

Your team is your distinguishing competitive advantage - they will build your corporate culture  which  will make you win 

5 ingredients of innovation

Customer Problem

Innovation doesn’t start with an idea, it starts with a problem. A customer problem.

And finding the right customer problems for innovation requires two things: firstly, customer closeness and secondly, curiosity.

KLT - Know Like and Trust 

You need to have set behaviours and values and a culture of innovation .... people need to feel safe to take risks and share their views.... it’s ok to fail as long as their is TRUST in the team .

Learner 

Given the unpredictability of innovation, being a learner is key. The path to innovation success can be bumpy and will likely include many failures along the way. Failure needs to be seen as an opportunity to build m knowledge and understanding. Learners are likely to explore more disruptive solutions and tend to be more resilient in the face of failure.

Ability to Pivot 

Ability to Pivot - innovation comes with ambiguity so innovators need to be flexible -  willing to pivot, change paths, course correct and explore different solutions.

Diversity and Collaboration is key 

Innovation needs diversity , collaboration and intersectionality. Create forums and meetings which encourage cross-functional collaboration and help to build your team’s network. 

Hobart Startup - Biteable Raises $7m Series A

Biteable - an online video platform and template-based online video builder has raised a  $7 million Series A round making total raise to date $9m 

The Series A funding has been  led by Cloud Apps Capital Partners supporting seed investors Tank Stream Ventures and Justin Lipman of Microequities Venture Capital Fund. 

The money will be used to hire and continue to develop the product.

What is it 

Biteable is to video creation to what Squarespace, Wix is to website creation. 

It has a  sizable content library, which includes a combination of stock photography, stock video footage, and hundreds of animations and scenes. 

Biteable focuses on assets that companies use and reuse — like video explainers for a business, online marketing and ads, videos that appear on product pages, and more. Its videos also tend to be between 30 seconds and 3 and half minutes.

The People 

Biteable CEO Brent Chudoba, joined the company at the end of last year to support 

Hobart  co-founders - Tommy Fotak, Simon Westlake, and James MacGregor.

After helping companies create  explainer videos, they realised the opportunity in the video creation market to create a video builder product that simplified a lot of the decisions that needed to be made when making a video.

Chudoba more recently joined the company as a result of Biteable wanting to bring in a CEO with more experience growing freemium software productivity businesses. Prior to Biteable, Chudoba worked in private equity, was an early SurveyMonkey employee (CRO), and also spent time at PicMonkey (COO), Thrive Global (COO and CFO) and Calendly (Head of Business Operations).

Customers 

Already, Biteable has found individuals from companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Disney, Salesforce, BBC, Shopify and Samsung have used its service, though it doesn’t have any official contracts with these larger businesses.

Pricing 

Today, the startup generates revenue via a freemium business model that includes multiple subscription plans.

A free plan for individual users offers access to the suite of tools for video creation, including the 1.8 million pictures, clips, and animations within the Biteable library. However, free videos are watermarked with Biteable’s branding. 

A $19 per month plan for single users removes the watermark and allows you to add your own, and offers HD 1080p resolution and other features, like commercial usage rights. 

Professionals pay $49 per month for shared editing and projects and use by unlimited team members, and more. Custom pricing plans are also available.

Combined, Biteable’s free and paid users total over 6 million. They create around 100,000 unique videos per month, and that number had roughly doubled over the course of 2020.

Competition 

Vimeo, Canva, Adobe and others, but focuses on creating video assets that have more staying power than temporary social videos.

The Investor

Matt Holleran, General Partner at Cloud Apps Capital Partners, states about his investment:- 

“As a firm, we look for great businesses in high growth industries with excellent teams that we can help reach the next level. 

In Biteable, we see all three of those elements and are incredibly excited to partner with Brent and the Biteable team on this next chapter of growth,” 

Fintech - Go Cardless raises $90 million making total raise to date $240m

London-based fintech, GoCardless , Has raised a Series F of  $95 million Led By Bain Capital Ventures-making a total raise to date of $240 million  

Since launching in Australia and New Zealand GoCardless has seen significant traction current year-on-year (YOY) growth at 251 per cent. 

Hiroki Takeuchi, chief executive officer, and co-founder, GoCardless, says that this new funding round will enable the introduction of instant first payments to more than 2800 of its Australia And New Zealand Customers.

What Go Cardless does 

Go Cardless is a next-generation global bank debit network  enabling Merchants to make  and receive recurring payments and  instant open banking payments with visibility and speed. 

The platform  helps merchants with their  cash flow and minimizes churn by pulling funds automatically from payers-all at a lower cost than other cards. 

Australia Young Enterpreneur of the year award goes to GO1

The Entrepreneur Trailblazer  of the year award goes to the Sydney team at GO1 , which has scaled their online training business with the help of a $40m series C round from Seek, Microsoft and Salesforce!

GO1 helps connect companies and individuals globally to training programs ranging from coding courses to first aid. 

The Conpany created massive goodwill feom the likes of Qantas and Virgin, when they let staff use its platform free when the airlines were forced to stand down most of their workforces.

Square Peg’s latest $600 million investment brings fun to $1.4b

The Square Peg Melbourne team: Dan Krasnostein, Jenna Sheils, Paul Bassat, Leila Lee, and Ben Hensman. Photo: supplied

Square Peg Capital has closed its fourth fund, raising $600 million bringing total committed capital of $1.4b 

Investors in this round include  

Super funds HostPlus and AustralianSuper,  Commonwealth Bank and  Roc Partners.

Square Peg has had some big wins and to date has returned $570 million to investors.

The company’s investment portfolio started in 2012  with Upguard,  Airwallex, Canva, Athena, HealthMatch, Deputy, ROKT and Q-CTRL, alongside international Fiverr, Stripe, and FinAccel.

Paul Bassat told Startup Daily:- 

This is the time for founders of all backgrounds and experience and to reimagine the world that they want the next generation to inherit.”

There has never been a better time to be investing in the future of the technology ecosystem. The pandemic has proven that the way we work, learn and socialise needs a radical reimagining. 

It’s all about the culture - says Brian Chesky - who has just listed AirB&B for 100B

On Monday, October 21, 2013, Brian Chesky sent a letter to his team - which , I believe shows the framework of his success - why he had someone believe in investing $150k in his startup at a $1.5m valuation, why he got Peter Thiel  to invest $150m into his business , and why he has just been able to list at a $100 billion valuation! 

This was the just of his letter to his team 

Peter Thiel said to Brian who had just invested $150m into AirB&B when asked what the single most important piece of advice he had for the team 

He replied, “Don’t fuck up the culture.”

He said one of the reasons he invested in us was our culture. 

How could AirB&B defend, and actually build the culture. 

How many company CEOs are focused on culture above all else? Is it the metric they measure closest? Is it what they spend most of their hours on each week?

Culture is simply a shared way of doing something with passion.

The thing that will endure for 100 years, the way it has for most 100 year companies, is the culture. The culture is what creates the foundation for all future innovation. If you break the culture, you break the machine that creates your products.

So how do we build culture?

By upholding our core values in everything we do. 

Culture is a thousand things, a thousand times. 

It’s living the core values when you hire; when you write an email; when you are working on a project; when you are walking in the hall. We have the power, by living the values, to build the culture. 

We also have the power, by breaking the values, to fuck up the culture. Each one of us has this opportunity, this burden.

Why is culture so important to a business? Here is a simple way to frame it. The stronger the culture, the less corporate process a company needs. 

When the culture is strong, you can trust everyone to do the right thing. 

People can be independent and autonomous. They can be entrepreneurial. 

And if we have a company that is entrepreneurial in spirit, we will be able to take our next “(wo)man on the moon” leap. Ever notice how families or tribes don’t require much process? 

That is because there is such a strong trust and culture that it supersedes any process. 

In organizations (or even in a society) where culture is weak, you need an abundance of heavy, precise rules and processes.

There are days when it’s easy to feel the pressure of our own growth expectations. Other days when we need to ship product. Others still where we are dealing with the latest government relations issue. It’s easy to get consumed by these. And they are all very important. 

But compared to culture, they are relatively short-term. These problems will come and go. 

But culture is forever.

Thank you Brian Chesky - and congrats on an amazing listing !!!

Boom 💥 is an understatement! 

Here is his article on medium Here is the link to Brian’s Article  https://link.medium.com/TSjyuOIQ7bb