G'day and welcome to Overnight Success, the newsletter that quenches your Australian start-up thirst. A warm welcome to the 18 new subscribers that have joined since last week! You've just joined 875 other legends learning about Aussie start-ups.

🧹 Housekeeping: Last week's edition was a little long, and this weekend could have been even longer. We've cut back on a few deeper summaries to ensure we cover everything this week. Next week will be a little shorter as we slow down into Christmas. Pending the activity in the market, we'll ramp up again in early January. Get ready for a massive 2023!

⚽ World Cup Update: Argentina takes on France this Monday morning, 2 AM (AEST). Interestingly, both teams are the only two countries to beat Australia in the world cup, which means we get an honourary 3rd... if only.  

Headlines:

• 🤓Fishburners appoints new CEO who wants to take the co-working hub beyond Sydney. (AFR)

  • Martin Kalifiris takes the top job.

• 🚀 Startmate announced their bigger-than-ever Accelerator program fund, with support from Atlassian, Canva & Culture Amp founders. (AFR)

  • See below for a deeper dive into the details.

• 💭The ecosystem started reflecting in 2022.

  • AFR - Australian VCs went earlier and smaller with deals in 2022 & US firms retreated in H2 of 2022

  • Observations from Archangel Ventures Founder Ben Armstrong at the bottom of the newsletter.

• 🙅‍♀️The 'crypto crackdown' hit close to home…

  • Finder faces a first-of-its-kind lawsuit in Australia for running an allegedly unlicensed financial product in the form of the crypto-investment platform 'Earn'. The founding team disputed the allegations in a recent article with Smart Company.

  • Binance also got into hot water for spam emails sent to Australian accounts. They were hit with a $2M fine. (Smart Company)

• 🛒No Christmas turkey delivered to the doors of YourGrocer customers.

  • YourGrocer is the latest Aussie food delivery service to shut down amidst difficult market conditions. (Smart Company)

• 🛋 VC-backed online furniture retailer Brosa enters voluntary administration. (Smart Company)

  • The business received $2M from AirTree Ventures in 2015 and raised a $5 million Series B round led by Bailador Technology Investments, AirTree Ventures and BMY Group in 2017.

1. Start-up Retro: Australia's start-up raises with a smidge of context + a lightning round-up.

2. Crowdfunding Raises: Handpicked Aussie crowdfunding from this week.

3. Aussie Raisins: Start-ups looking to raise some money.

4. New Fund, Who's This?: Fresh capital announced by Aussie VC's this week.

5. Notice Board: Signposting key events and opportunities.

6. Accredited Tweeters: Snippets from Twitter.

7. (KaaS) Knowledge as a Service: Articles to make you smarter. Or to share with co-workers to make them think you’re smart.

Start-up Retro 

Analytics / Process Mining

✨ Apromore lands $15.4M & a strategic partnership with Salesforce to help businesses make better decisions

Apromore, a Melbourne-based SaaS company, has closed a $15M Series B. The funding came from Salesforce and GBTEC, both with different value add. Salesforce already has solid relationships with many enterprise clients, while GBTEC is another Process Mining company. Apromore allows companies to take all their IT data and automatically visualise how every process interacts. After this, bottlenecks can be analysed, optimised and monitored. The product is called Process Mining and allows operational team members to identify sources of waste and opportunities to improve. The University of Melbourne, which spun out the start-up, increased application volumes by 56% while reducing overall application turnaround times by 28%. These impressive results can be explained by detailed flow diagrams highlighting issues and opportunities. Clients include two big banks in Australia, Deloitte, FPT Software in Asia & US and Heartcore in Japan.

Due Diligence: (Business News Australia)

Carbon Accounting

📈 Avarni raises a $3M Seed round to help companies understand their carbon emissions

If you can't measure it, you can't improve it. Avarni, a carbon data software platform that helps companies measure and understand their carbon footprint across the supply chain, has raised a $3M Seed round. The platform splits a business's carbon footprint into three separate scopes. Scope 1 is directly attributed to the operations of the company. All indirect emissions like heating and cooling fall under scope two, while supply chain, procurement, and business travel fall into the third scope. Main Sequence Ventures led the funding, with Vulpes Ventures and Common Sense Ventures pitching in. Avarni has already locked away 30 clients, with many working in professional services. Consultancy firms love the software as they can quickly analyse a company's carbon footprint and make recommendations.

Due Diligence: (AFR)

BioTech

💩 BiomeBank lands $10.7M after getting regulatory approval for faecal transplant

BiomeBank, a South Australian biotechnology company that has secured the first approved fecal transplant, has secured $10.7M in funding. The therapy is already available in 40 hospitals and helps those with chronic significant intestine infections. The company relies on healthy people to donate their poo to BiomeBank, which is matched with viable patients. The donations attract a small payment and can be shared with multiple people. Although a GP can prescribe BiomeBank therapy, the treatment must be administered in a hospital. The fresh capital comes from Ellerston Capital and Artesian Venture Partners and will be used to improve the product user experience. Instead of the injectable version they're currently running, BiomeBank will become a capsule that can be swallowed.

Due Diligence: (AFR)

Neurology / MedTech

🧠 Synchron secures $100M Series C to keep building a brain-computer

In an oversubscribed Series C, MedTech company Synchron has secured $110M. The company is developing an endovascular brain computer that assists people with paralysis to communicate. The tech gives patients with paralysis the ability to communicate via a computer. The technology is fully implanted into the body, so it has no visible effects and detects patterns of thinking which are translated directly into digital commands. The technology uses the blood vessels in the brain, which reduces implantation trauma. So who could benefit from this breakthrough technology? A typical patient with paralysis could be anyone who's suffered from a stroke, spinal cord injuries and motor neurone disease. In the future, the technology could eventually help other neurological conditions like Epilepsy or Parkinsons'. This fresh funding comes from a slew of different investors, including University of Melbourne, Subversive Capital, Khosla Ventures, Project X, Shanda Group and ID8 Investments.

Due Diligence: (Smart Company)

Solar / Renewables

☀️ 5B locks in $55M Series B to deploy more solar panels 

The Sydney-based solar power company, 5B, has raised $30M to deliver more solar projects with its rapidly-deployable solar technology. The 5B Maverick is an Australian-designed solar package with up to 90 panels. They're melted on specially designed racks and are a quick plug & play solar farm. A major issue solar companies have is the cost of specialist labour when setting up a new site. The 5B Maverick system cuts through this labour need with fast assembly and deployment. Additionally, the system is designed to optimise power generation by reducing the space between panels. The panels are pre-fabricated and can be transported by trucks. Once on-site, the panels can be dragged out and put online within minutes. The round was led by BP Ventures, who invested $20M into 5B.

To see the Maverick system in play, check out this 2-minute video here.

Due Diligence: (5B Media Release)

Urban Analytics

🏙️ Neighbourlytics raises a $1.3M Pre-Series A

Neighbourlytics gives developers, builders and councils the ability to understand how people use the local environment. The software can even help developers understand potential ROI on projects. The software tries to give a much more in-depth depiction of a locality, adding deeper insights than 5-year-old census data. Neighbourlytics can decipher why a particular retail location is more sticky than others and what causes patrons to stay. These insights allow developers to understand the development mix they should plan and build for. Already the platform is used by over 100 property developers worldwide. Controversially, the Qatar government used the platform the plan precincts around the FIFA world cup stadiums. The pre-Series A was led by Californian-based VC ALIAVIA Ventures, with additional investment from LaunchVic's Alice Anderson Fund.

Due Diligence: (Startup Daily)

Entertainment & Leisure

🎢 Roller closes a $28.2M round while early investors secure payday

The all-in-one software for attraction-based businesses, Roller, has closed a $28.2M round. The round included a line of credit from Partners For Growth (PFG) and existing investor Acadian Software. Acadian doubled down on the investment and bought-out shares of early investors who secured a ~10x payday. Roller targets and services the niche of entertainment parks. These businesses could include amusement parks, water parks, entertainment centres and play parks. Across their clientele, Roller handles $3B in transactions a year with over 70M visitors annually. The platform can enable several specialist features like online tickets, group bookings or memberships and takes a heavy admin load out of the attraction business.

Overnight Success chatted with the CFO of Roller, Mark Finn, who said the following about the investors.

⚡️Lightning Round-up⚡️

There were SOOO many raises this week, and we didn't want to miss a single one! We also didn't want to write you a novel. So, here's a quick summary of the remaining raises so you can dive into the ones that tickle your fancy.

• Mortgage Tech company Tic:Toc raises a $54M Series D

  • Tic:Toc's tech allows them to offer home loans at competitive rates & provide approval faster than competitors. They now plan to add insurance products to the platform.

  • 💰: IAG & Regal Funds Management

  • Due diligence: AFR

• Healthcare compliance SaaS Zipline raises $10M

  • Zipline provides emoji-based customer experience surveys. It was originally named RateIT and built for a retail setting. The company pivoted to health & aged care and is reportedly now in 1 in 3 aged care homes in Australia. Next up - hospitals.

  • 💰: EVP (lead), King River Capital, TechnologyOne founder Adrian Di Marco, Aconex co-founders Leigh Jasper and Rob Phillpot, SecondQuarter Ventures, Sypkes family office

  • Due diligence: AFR

• ESG software FairSupply raises $6.3M Series A

  • Gives clients visibility over ESG risk in supply chains and investment portfolios, including modern slavery, Scope 3 carbon emissions, biodiversity and water use risk.

  • 💰: AirTree (lead), Tidal Ventures, Dr Andrew Forrest's Minderoo Foundation, Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC)

  • Due diligence: AFR & Startup Daily

• UK-based fin-tech company Banked gets investment from NAB

  • National Australia Bank's venture capital fund has invested in the company to enable the roll-out of a digital real-time payments service for Aussie customers.

  • 💰: NAB Ventures

  • Due diligence: AFR

• 3D printing has Syenta printing money raising a $3.7M Seed round

  • Canberra-based start-up born out of ANU that's making multi-material 3D printing faster than ever before.

  • 💰: Blackbird (lead), Brindabella Capital, Jelix Ventures

  • Due diligence: Startup Daily

• Carbon accounting SaaS Pathzero paves a path to success with $8.6M Series A top up

  • Helps companies measure their scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions and manage climate risk.

  • 💰: Carthona Capital (lead) Antler, Clyde Bank Holdings

  • Due diligence: Startup Daily

• Mining tech GeoMoby digs up $3M of fundraising gold.

  • Tech that allows the mining & construction industry to have a real-time 360-degree view of their sites and everything valuable on them (trucks, light vehicles, machines & people).

  • 💰: Undisclosed European & French investors, Agreement Hub, METS Ignited (Aus. Government grant)

  • Due diligence: Australian Mining

• NZ-based automotive start-up Partly raises AUD $34M

  • It is disrupting the opaque car manufacturing market to make purchasing car parts easier & more affordable.

  • 💰: Octopus Ventures (lead), Blackbird (2nd follow on), Square Peg, Shasta Ventures, Ten13, Square Co-Founder Randy Redigg, Hillfarrance, Icehouse, I2BF

  • Due Diligence: SmartCompany

If you're a founder or investor who has just closed a round, please reach out!

Crowdfunding Raises

• Flexitarians rejoice! 🍔 Flave raises $891k via Birchal

  • A plant-based burger outlet founded by former Zambrero CEO & focused on flavour.

  • Currently has two locations in Sydney (and soon to launch a third!), but its sights are set on global expansion.

  • Due diligence: Birchal & Smart Company

• Funerals, reimagined 🪦 Picaluna raises $386k via VentureCrowd

  • A death-tech company is connecting families with funeral celebrants.

  • Picaluna claims to make funerals "more personal, more compassionate and importantly, more affordable."

  • Due diligence: Venture Crowd & Smart Company

Aussie Raisins: Companies Looking To Raise

• Avenue Bank is looking to raise $10M (AFR).

• Want to dabble in some Aussie start-up investing over the Summer? Check out VentureCrowd, Birchal and Equitise.

New Fund, Who's this?

• Startmate land $14M to continue their Accelerator program and launch a Continuity Fund.

  • The Accelerator Program runs twice a year with circa 10-12 start-ups.

    • Previous accelerator companies include Morse Micro, Swoop Aero, and The Great Wrap.

  • The Continuity Fund will then allow Startmate to follow on and invest in the best of their Accelerator Program start-ups.

  • The capital came from founders of Atlassian, Canva, Culture Amp and Startmate's extensive Mentor list.

• MVP Ventures Program - applications opened earlier this month, and the maximum grant amount has been increased to $200k!

  • Get $25k to $200k of investment via the NSW Government Grant Program if you're a start-up with <$1M ARR and <20 FTE with your HQ in NSW. Learn more here.

• Melt Ventures launches a $20M Advanced Manufacturing fund. (Startup Daily)

  • The fund is reportedly already close to close, demonstrating increased VC interest in the space.

Notice Board

• _SOUTHSTART Odyssey tickets are now on sale! 

  • After a successful Startup Week program in November _SOUTHSTART has launched tickets to their flagship annual event in March 2023. Learn more & get tickets here.

• Startmate Athlete Fellowship applications are still open (closing 10th Jan 2023). Find out more & apply here.

• Airtree Explorers Program to learn about angel investing is taking applications here for the Feb start.

• Are you an active Angel investor? Fill in the State of Australian Start-up Funding Angel Investor Survey here.  

• There's no better time to be in climate tech! Check out these opportunities:

  • Climate Salad South Australian Showcase is on the 8th of Feb. The team is looking for relevant startups to demo & pitch as well as interested investors. Get in touch with the team if you're interested and buy your tickets here.

  • AWS Clean Energy Accelerator 3.0 is now taking applications from mature start-ups in clean energy and climate tech. Applications close 1st January 2023.

Accredited Tweeters

Want to understand what an investor sees in a company? Check out VCinsights, which aggregates VC investment momos from around the world.

(KaaS) Knowledge as a Service

• Is Art Dead? A thought provoking piece by Chantal Duffy on how AI chat models may replace art.

• Ben Armstrong (Founder of Archangel Ventures) reviewed the Aussie VC community in 2022. (LinkedIn Post)

• Newspapers Are Dead; Long Live Journalism by Ben Thompson on how media business models will continue to be challenged by new distribution.

• Demand Driving Supply by Lenny Rachitsky & Brian Rothenberg. (Lenny's Newsletter)

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