Never give up !!!

The dude was 65c  broke and living in a tiny house with a beat-up car, relying on $99 social security checks. 

Armed with a mouthwatering chicken recipe, he set off to sell it to restaurants across states.

There were over 1000 rejections, but he persisted - he had no choice!!!

On the 1009th try, he heard his first yes. 

That man was Colonel Harland Sanders, and with that yes, Kentucky Fried Chicken (#KFC) was born. 

Never give up and always believe in yourself, even in the face of 1000 no’s !!!

Relaunching #referron after 1000 no’s - am I crazy? 

What does it take before VCs will look to invest pre seed or seed capital in your start up ?

My friend, Chris Flavell,  shares an interesting article piste by Michael Ho , former Vc and exited founder -   with some interesting stats around how much revenue you need before a fund will look to invest  pre-seed and seed round in your startup 

This is really interesting for me - as we look to raise a pre- seed or seed round for referron! 

⁉️ How do you first get traction and contract revenue followed by  a path to scale in USA, Asia, India or the UK?

🤔 A survey with 110 seed and pre-seed VCs by Right Side Capital Management about  their revenue expectations for 2024 showed that the sweet spot seems to be $300k - $600k 

💥 for a $4M Seed

→ 17% are okay with pre-revenue

→ 29% want to see $150K to $500K

→ 28% are looking for $500K to $1M

→ and 24% say they're looking for $1M+

💥 for a $1.5M Pre-Seed

→ 46% will invest pre-revenue

→ 27% are looking for $0 to $150K

→ 15% want to see $150K to $500K

→ and 10% are looking for $500K to $1M

What are some other things a VC look for? 

The Right People maybe? 

The technology?

The exit strategy ?

What else ?

Surround yourself with people who care about you and want you to do better

When I left PwC to run VentureCrowd full time, the head of our largest institutional investor told me I didn’t have what it takes to be the CEO. That crushed me for a long time and served as the most extraordinary fuel for the imposter syndrome I’d been struggling with for years. Most founders I know deal with this very challenge every day.

What I didn’t realise at the time, and I guess he didn't either, is that that one comment would become the single most motivational thing anyone has ever said to me. 

Last year we generated over $6M in revenue at a gross margin of 51%, clocked over $330M in capital raised for over 150+ venture capital, property and private credit deals, and distributed over $23M to investors across a range of funds … and I am absolutely pumped for what is coming this year! 

These days, I surround myself with people who are always prepared to challenge me, because while it's nice to be told you’re doing a good job, it just doesn't help make you better

BSI Launches AI Academy in Australia

Facilitated by the legendary Technology Guru in Australia , Tony Surtees, BSI Digital Learning has partnered with Silicon Valley’s Scott Galloway’s Section School to launch an AI Crash Course and AI Academy in Australia. 

What does the AI academy do?

The AI  online programs are aimed at upskilling business professionals in AI amid a skill shortage in the sector.

Just this week the Tech Council of Australia released a jobs report that prophesied 200,000 AI jobs in the country by 2030. 

However, the report also strongly highlighted the need to address the skill shortages across businesses for this to happen.

The Crash Course, priced at $600 is tailored towards professionals. It involves one hour of learning per day over five days and includes video learning, live workshops, in-depth coursework, hands-on activities and access to support tools.

The course aims to introduce participants to AI in business and enhance their personal productivity by leveraging AI to manage workflows and save time.

The Academy is positioned more as an online portal, offering a 12-month subscription priced at $1000. This provides access to AI courses and business workshops, both live and on-demand.

It features AI resources, downloadable materials and members-only discounts on an upcoming Mini MBA program. 

The Academy is designed to build AI literacy, capability, and targeted skills for specialist roles and functions, with courses updated every 30 days to keep up with AI developments.

Who are the facilitators?

The Section School facilitators come from big tech companies such as Google, Meta, Apple, and Amazon – with the idea that the curriculum is being led by experts who use AI daily and is grounded in real-world application.

The launch of these courses comes at a time when a plethora of AI training programs are being spun up globally. 

According to Simon Dewar, the group CEO of BSI Learning, its offerings are unique as they offer a flexible learning environment aimed at businesses.

”Unlike traditional academic courses, Section School focuses on practical, blended and digital approaches, that enable busy professionals to access both live and on-demand forms of learning,” Dewar said.

Dewar also said it’s important for businesses to skill up sooner rather than later.

“AI experimentation and pilot projects are currently underway in most sectors, as companies search for ways to learn about, and then capitalise on AI,” Dewar said.

“Typically, the biggest beneficiaries are those who are able to adapt to these changes first and deliver a first mover advantage to businesses and individuals that get onboard early.”

This news comes just one day after Redactive AI — founded by Atlassian Alumni — secured $11.5 million for its enterprise-grade AI solutions platform for businesses.

 

Thanks for an amazing article @smartconpany (here is a link to the article 

Here are 8 great quotes on success, action and failure

As a friend of mine said

Action without vision is hallucination 

Vision without action is chaos 

But vision with action, my friend is the key to success !! 

Here are 8 gurus that say  sort of the same thing! 

1. "All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them." - Walt Disney

2. "Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill

3. "Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value." - Albert Einstein

4. "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change." - Charles Darwin

5. "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." - Thomas Edison

6. "The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one's destiny to do, and then do it." - Oscar Wilde

7. "Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great." - John D. Rockefeller

8. "I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." - Thomas Jefferson

Square peg backs an Indonesian B2B payments platform - Paper.id

Paper.id an Indonesian business-to-business (B2B)fintech company founded in 2016 by Yosia Sugialam and Jeremy Limman has raised an a Series B fundraising led by Square Peg after having already raised $12m to date.

Investors include 

• SMBC Asia Rising Fund, a corporate VC co-founded by the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and 
• Incubate Fund, participated in the round.
• Argor Capital also re-upped in the latest round.
• Singapore VC firm Golden Gate Ventures
• Funding Societies, also called Modalku in Indonesia.
• Indonesian fintech firm Xendit, which became a unicorn in 2021 is also an investor 

What Paper.id does 

Paper.id is the go-to platform for business owners to manage and process their transactions efficiently and help users manage their cash flow. 

It simplifies invoice creation, automatic reconciliation, and precise document matching. It also provides access to various payment methods, including credit cards, offering extended terms for payers. 

To date, Paper.id has served over 600,000 clients, and is now  one of the largest B2B fintech payments in Indonesia, having processed $2 billion in annual payment volume in 2023 - with transactions growing  by more than 30 times compared to 2021.

Innovations include enabling cross-border payments, complemented by robust business verification capabilities, and will facilitate  installment payment by partnering with banks and fintech lenders.

See also 

https://www.techinasia.com/paperid-nabs-series-funding-30x-transaction-growth?utm_source=li&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=news_article

https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/234879-67#overview

https://www.squarepeg.vc/blog/investment-notes-paper-id-series-b#:~:text=Meet%20the%20team%20behind%20Paper,next%20phase%20of%20their%20journey.

Kinde - the next Unicorn?

Kind  is about being constantly curious, nimble, and experimental - and total focus on servicing both customers and all stakeholders - says Ross Chaldecott from Kinde !

 At Kinde, we have two core team focuses - alignment and autonomy.

We take it to the extreme - says Ross 

Weekly

“Every Friday we have an all hands where we openly take the team through everything that has happened in the week, followed by a QA session. This includes all financials and everything else that seems important for the team to know - completely candid and open

.

Monthly 

Monthly we send a shareholder update. Our team are all shareholders so this goes to them too. And quarterly, after our board meeting, we take them through the entire board deck and every bit of discussion that happened. 

To some this is heretical. 

To us it's critical.

Quarterly

It means that our team knows how we are doing. They know what is going well. And they know what is not going well.

It’s all about  Alignment.

A team that is highly aligned needs the space to make decisions.

Ownership 

 At Kinde, autonomy feeds off ownership. Every member of our team is an owner. They have equity in the company. They act like owners and think like owners. This is the same as treating them like adults. And it's incredible what happens when you give people the benefit of being treated like adults.

Never feel Failure 

On top of this, they never fear failure. Mistakes are a part of a high performance culture. A team too afraid to take risks will never achieve anything great. We hire well. Every one of our team members is incredibly smart and capable. After that we get out of the way and let them get on with it.

Trust

This takes a remarkable amount of trust. I think that's probably the real magic.

Kinde

Some Classics from Some Rich Listers Snippets from a great article in the afr by Michael Bailey, Lauren Sams and Yolanda Redrup

“Never forget that happiness, health and family are far more important than any amount of money,” 

My everyday car on the Central Coast these days is a 20-year-old LandCruiser, which I’ll drive until the day I die.

Tony Denny

It’s given me the privilege of being able to learn from other successful people through association. 

Jack Cowen

Money changes other people’s attitude towards you - money makes you funny! 

Erin Deering 

I like my real friends and I’ve got mates I’ve had for 50 years and they’re not going to want to hang with me if I’m a wanker. 

Max Beck 

Beyond $150,000 – there was basically no correlation between happiness and financial success.

Being born in Australia with parents who gave me an education and money for a house deposit was the greatest luck

Mark Carnegie 

 

I rip through it like a man with no arms anyway – I’m not leaving much! What Warren Buffett says is right – money is the scorecard. I laugh when people say money’s not important. It’s the one thing that lets you do what you like, when you like.

Ian Malouf

Nvidia and Intel?

From my friend Kanwal Rekhi

Nvidia shares  closed at $1068 on Friday, giving it a Market Cap of $2.6 Trillion. Intel closed at $30.7, giving it a Market Cap of $130 Billion, just about 5% of Nvidia.

Market is clearly signalling that it loves Nvidia and its management and hates Intel and its management. If I were Jensen Huang, I would be thinking of acquiring Intel. Nvidia could pay 100% premium over market and still not dilute more that 10%.

The fit is impeccable. Intel has spent heavily to build latest fabs; Nvidia outsources its manufacturing. Intel is still profitable and will not be too dilutive.

US government would love it as the AI chips will get manufactured in US rather than shaky Taiwan. It probably will waive all antitrust considerations.

In any case, my mind wanders and I can't help it!

Songtradr the next Unicorn?

2023 was a big year for SONGTRADR the music licensing platform founded by the musical genius   PAUL WILTSHIRE (in Picture )

Songtradr raised $109 million in 2023  at a valuation of $879 million.

Investors included  

• Epic Games — the same company that sold the D2C music sales platform Bandcamp to Songtradr last month 
• WiseTech’s Richard White
• Perennial and 
• Argo.

Investors in Songtradr include the 

• St Baker family office, 
• Regal Funds Management, and 
• Aware Super.

What it does 

Songtradr is like a B2B version of Spotify, says Paul - with songwriters and producers earning fees whenever a Songtradr client licenses their music. 

Songtradr aims to be an all-in-one music licensing platform for corporates, small businesses, and content creators. Its subscribers can select songs from the Songtradr marketplace or browse from playlists, including ones inspired by popular films and TV shows.

Wiltshire has previously described the platform as a B2B version of Spotify

Is Data Zoo on way to be the next unicorn?

Data Zoo is an identity verification software business founded by Accountant Tony Fitzgibbon in 2011 has just received $22.5m investment from Ellerston JAADE Australian Private Assets Fund - and others - valuing the business over $100m

What Datazoo  does 

Data Zoo’s core product is IDUX, a digital identity ecosystem for businesses to build mutual trust with their clients. 

IDUX provides identity proofing, fraud detection and user authentication tool gives organisations the ability to apply selective and intelligent friction that matches the level of risk involved in the situation, adopting privacy-by-design principles at its foundation.

It’s  identity verification software is used by financial services companies such as MoneyGram, eToro and Mitrade to verify consumer and business identities.

Data Zoo plugs into data sources from 170 countries to offer Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Business (KYB) compliance checks and fraud prevention to financial institutions, payment providers, and fintechs to onboard their customers.

Data Zoo’s Competition

Its main rivals in the identity verification and fraud prevention space are Canadian-based Trulioo, UK-listed GBG and the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG).

Growth 

Datazoo has grown organically over the past decade, gaining a foothold in Asia and its three-year revenue compound annual growth rate is more than 30 per cent.

In February Tony passed the Batton of CEO to New York-based Charlie Minutella once it landed its first USA client. Charlie was previously the boss of Refinitiv, a data provider owned by the London Stock Exchange.

Is Datazoo the next unicorn?

 

Kanwal Rekhi and Saber Bhatia - Silicon Valley legends

I had the pleasure of hosting Kanwal Rekhi at a forum when he came to visit Sydney . It was definitely a bucket list moment for me !!

Kanwal’s post on his Hotmail story!!

I first met Sabeer Bhatia when he started Hotmail. I passed on his request for investment because I could not figure out how he would make money. His Webmail was great and solved many problems with early email. Email for most was tied to their job and only available from office. Webmail made it independent of job and accessible from any browser. 

But it was free and I would say why not charge a dollar a month? He did not want any friction in way of acquiring users. Sabir would talk about building a user base of 10 million. He invented virality and was getting 60,000 users a day at one time. He would talk about upselling to those users. I would say, Sabir, you have nothing to upsell.

I finally warmed to investing one million dollar in his company. I was on my way to India in the fall of 1998 and said that I would invest when I am back in 2 weeks. While in India, news broke that Microsoft was acquiring Hotmail for $400 million. I was shocked to hear that.

It was a great learning experience for me. Sabir did not have any thing to upsell but Microsoft did. Microsoft had spent $2 billion to build its MSN and had only one million users. With the acquisition of Hotmail it was acquiring 10 million users for only $400 million. I realize for the first time that an asset has a different value in the hand of a different user.

Microsoft had a great deal at $400 million and Sabir was proven right that it would be worth a lot if he had 10 million users, even if he did not have any revenue.

The sale of Hotmail started the dotcom gold rush in earnest.

https://www.bsi.com.au/kanwal-rekhi-the-sage-of-silicon-valley/

Scott Farquhar - the Ozzie tech Godfather - creating a new chapter!

David Swan - tech editor of the Age and SMH talks about Scott Farquhar

For more than two decades Scott Farquhar and his Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes have been the most important duo in Australia’s burgeoning technology sector. Now Farquhar is going it alone, announcing that he will step down as co-chief executive of Atlassian.

It’s not a stretch to say that what the entrepreneur does next will help determine the future success of the local industry, which has billions of dollars and thousands of jobs riding on its back.

Farquhar is just 44, has a cashed-up venture capital vehicle and an interest in fostering new generations of talent. “After 23 years, it’s time to pursue some other passions I have,” he told investors on last month’s earnings call. 

“Specifically philanthropy, investing, and to help grow and build the global technology industry.”

He is a mentor to some of the leaders of other billion-dollar tech businesses: Canva’s Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht consider him a close friend, as does SafetyCulture chief executive Luke Anear.

Anear, whose business itself is now worth almost $3 billion, says what started out as a mentorship became a friendship over time. “Building a business is lonely ... there aren’t many people you can completely confide in, and Scott has been that person for me,” he says.

“Scott is many things to many people, but first and foremost, he is a family person. He cares deeply about his family, and even though they have had to make sacrifices to allow Scott to travel so much, he has set the example for balancing work and home life for the entire industry.”

As Anear puts it, of the Atlassian founders, Mike is the risk-taking visionary, and Scott is the more conservative realist.

“Scott is a nerd at heart, which means he goes deep on details. His knowledge of legislative frameworks and tax implications is as good as most specialised lawyers. He holds court with prime ministers and the highest dignitaries in the land, and his understanding of how technology can positively impact society is second to none.

“Without Scott, Mike, and their work at Atlassian, Australia’s technology industry would be a decade behind. It’s hard to quantify the tens of thousands of jobs, families, and lives that have benefited from Scott’s actions, but it’s fair to say that his impact on the world has been significant.”

Farquhar’s impending departure also ends one of corporate Australia’s great experiments: could two best friends successfully co-parent a company?

The answer, for two decades, was a resounding yes.

Read more in David’s  weekend feature for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

Building our FUture and Nurturing our Innovators

Our call for Investment in Startups in 2002.... 16 years on... the time has come!! from Ivan Kaye

Guzman y Gomez has raised $134.5 million in at a valuation of $1.73 billion.

Mexican food chain Guzman y Gomez has raised $134.5 million in at a valuation of  $1.73 billion. 

Founded by by Steven Marks and Robert Hazan in 2006 - from a single store in Newtown , the chain now has more than 200 stores in Australia, Singapore, Japan and the US.

With Global Sales of $758.8M (including franchisees) – it has grown by over  29% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) since 2014.

Existing investors, Aware Super and TDM Growth Partners, have been supported by 

Cooper Investors, 

Hyperion Asset Management, 

Firetrail Investments and 

QVG Capital, 

Guzman y Gomez had as of the end of 2023.

You can read more about the chain’s business model in this SmartCompany article by Jason Andrew, published in January.

Betting before anyone else is ready to gives exponential returns in Ozzie Tech!

Blackbird has netted  $800m payday from its  Canva share sale. 

"If you find yourself in a privileged enough position to take such a risk, the bets that pay off biggest, are the bets you take before anyone else is ready to." Great quote from VC veteran Alan Jones

The transaction, which valued Canva at $US26 billion, allowed staff and early investors to sell their shares, turning some employees into millionaires and generating big returns for superannuation funds that tipped money into the local tech company! 

For Blackbird’s 2012 fund, which participated in Canva’s earliest funding round, the sale represented a return of just more than 2600 times the cost base of its original investment.

Link to AFRs article

Deputy raises $37m and becomes a Unicorn!

After nearly going bust during Covid, Deputy has joined Canva, Go1, Pet Circle , Linktree and SafetyCulture - achieving   unicorn with an investment  of $37m at a $1.1b valuation from Express Employment Professionals, a global staffing and labour hire company who was a customer of Deputy.

This has made founder Ashik Ahmed a happy man together with investors Square Peg, EVP, and US investors IVP and OpenView.

In 2018, Deputy raised  $111 million led by US investor IVP, which valued the company at $423 million. 

What Deputy does 

Deputy have  built a truly extraordinary platform that automates a broken and manual workflow for more than millions workers in over 100 countries helping them communicate, engage , onboard and organise their rosters.

Businesses onboard hourly workers via a mobile app and conduct employee engagement surveys after their shift ends. 

The company also created a communication tool, similar to Slack, that allows shift workers and managers to share information easily.

Ashik was first exposed to the need for better organisation of shift workers as a 16-year-old immigrant from Bangladesh, when he was flipping burgers at Hungry Jack’s.

He founded Deputy in 2008, alongside entrepreneur Steve Shelley. Ashik stepped aside as CEO a year ago to bring in San Francisco-based Silvija Martincevic and Joins Steve Shelley on the board.

Silvia told the AFR that Deputy are focused on the impact that they can achieve in the shiftwork community, which remains an underserved community despite being the most substantial. 

She said that there’s no better validation of a company’s mission and what we’re doing than having a customer who decides to invest in you. 

So who is Express Employment Professionals?

EEP have more than 860 franchised locations across Australia, America, South Africa and New Zealand, and will add more than 500,000 new users to Deputy - a 36 per cent increase to  its current 1.4 million global user base.

Deputy investors love them!

Paul Bassat of Square Peg told AFR that this investment would provide Deputy with the firepower to continue to invest in the growth of the business.

Howard Leibman of EVO says “I've had the privilege of working with Deputy since we were a team of 20, and of serving on the Deputy Board since 2016. Whilst it’s taken some time to exceed the $1 billion valuation, the fact that Deputy would one day be a unicorn was for me never in doubt. 

The business serves one of the world's largest markets - the many hundreds of millions of hourly paid workers - who have long been under-served by software and for whom technologies such as Deputy have life-changing impact. 

Through the Express Pros partnership alone, a further 500,000 hourly workers will have access to Deputy over time. Express Pro's material investment into the business speaks to Deputy's extraordinary long term prospects as we take on the US market. 

A huge congrats to Silvija Martincevic and the entire Deputy team on this milestone achievement. But in so many respects we're only just getting started!!”

Who to look out for!!!

Watch Anwar Kahlil and Martian Logic !!

https://www.startupdaily.net/topic/sydney-staff-management-deputy-boston-openview/

https://anthillonline.com/deputy-raises-us25-million-series-openview-redefine-workforce-management/

https://medium.com/authority-magazine/silvija-martincevic-of-deputy-five-things-i-wish-someone-told-me-before-i-became-a-ceo-a4022059e6f2

https://www.afr.com/technology/australia-has-its-first-tech-unicorn-in-two-years-20240314-p5fcbg

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/howardleibman_australia-has-its-first-tech-unicorn-in-activity-7175640006055616512-4rlb?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios

Biocatch founders have pay day at unicorn valuation

Founders of Israeli cybersecurity business, BioCatch, Avi Turgeman and the late Benny Rosenbaum get paid out as Macquarie buys $32 million, Sapphire Ventures $70m and Permira Growth Opportunities $40 million at a valuation of slightly more than $1 billion.

What biocatch does 

BioCatch founded in 2011, specializes in software development for identifying and preventing bank fraud and money laundering.

BioCatch  numbers 

BioCatch is currently led by CEO Gadi Mazor, employs 280 people, half of whom are based in Israel. 

The recent surge in the company's value follows accelerated growth, propelling it to a yearly revenue pace of $100 million, leading to a positive cash flow. 

BioCatch clients

This growth is fueled by a 51% revenue increase from its 152 clients, consisting of banks and financial institutions. 

Notably, 28 of the world's top 100 banks are on BioCatch's client list. 

The early investors 

The primary shareholder in BioCatch , Bain Capital, led the last $145 million fundraising round in 2020 with the major global banks such as HSBC, Citi, Barclays, and the investment arm of American Express. 

To date, BioCatch has raised $253 million, with the proceeds from the last three rounds benefiting early investors seeking an exit.

Related articles:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cwsisrael_australian-investment-giant-macquarie-acquires-activity-7163085854314336256-96E5?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios

• BioCatch enters unicorn club as valuation crosses $1 billion in latest secondary deal
• Permira Growth Opportunities acquires $40 million stake in BioCatch
• “With fintech, you get about three times more fraud than what you now get on traditional banking”

Oneventures closes first fund with 4X investment

Australian venture capital firm OneVentures has hit a landmark moment, with the official closure of its first fund, providing strong returns to its backers, including the federal government, which provided half the money for the fund back in 2010.

This is a significant moment for the local technology industry as it marks the first major fund of the post dotcom era to officially wrap up and return good money to investors. 

The return currently stands at four times the money invested, and could rise higher!!

Source AFR https://www.afr.com/technology/this-vc-firm-has-hit-a-landmark-and-it-s-payout-time-20240211-p5f427

BuPa raises a $20m VC find for Healthtech Companies

Adelle Moynihan’s  work over the last five months at Bupa, building Bupa Ventures, has come to life through launch in the The Australian Financial Review 😊 

 

Yes, it takes a minute to build a corporate venture fund, and I have learnt that's for good reason. Behind the scenes, the Ventures team has been aligning Bupa's robust capabilities to be able to deliver value beyond capital to the health techs we fund. 

 

In the words of CEO Nick Stone 

 

"That's the hardest thing for any start-up, getting a customer base. We can offer a readymade one as well as a very well capitalised business to support their growth".

 

Here's a fund overview for you

- $20m to deploy with an allocation for follow-on

- Seed - Series A stage

- Backing APAC companies

- Strategic fund with a focus on predictive and preventative healthcare, genomics and personalised medicine, and in-home and remote monitoring solutions. 

- Value beyond capital with a partner that is one of the worlds few, truly global, healthcare provisioners

Health techs, start applying!