G'day and welcome to Overnight Success! A big shout-out to the 23 new subscribers who’ve joined since the last edition.

This week’s headlines are a little bleak, but forge on and check out the amazing start-ups that announced funding this week.

Oh! And we’re planning our first birthday, and you’re invited! To help plan, please vote below if you want to join an Adelaide or Melbourne-based event.

Headlines

• Australia’s only cybersecurity-focused accelerator closes 🙅‍♀️

  • Since opening in 2017, the accelerator has made 39 investments in startups locally and abroad. Alan Jones’ tweet thread aptly explains why this is such a huge loss for the ecosystem. (Smart Company)

•  Ocean City Labs opens on the Sunny Coast 😎

  • Capturing growing startup and innovation activity in the ‘Sunshine State’, the new hub joins its start-up lab counterparts in Brisbane (River City Labs), Sydney (Harbour City Labs) and Melbourne (Bay City Labs), as well as overseas trade mission company Startup Catalyst - all owned by ACS Group. (Business News Australia)

• No appetite for Providoor 👨‍🍳

  • If you didn’t serve yourself up some confit duck and kingfish sashimi at home during or while sheepishly emerging from Melbourne’s lockdowns, you’ve now officially missed the boat.

  • The restaurant delivery service founded by well-known chef and restaurant owner Shane Delia announced that it has entered liquidation after waning popularity post-lockdowns. (AFR)

• Ready-meals & gourmet pantry business prepped and packed for acquisition 🍝

  • CoLab says a last-minute funding pull-out made them decide to liquidate, but this opened the door for Efoodz, who were already supplying their own meals to the website, to purchase and continue running the business. (Smart Company)

• Airtasker & CultureAmp announce redundancies 👋 (Business News Australia)

  • Despite having no debt and reporting YoY revenue growth so far this year, ASX-listed Airtasker has cut 20% (45 people) from its workforce in a bid to manage operational expenses, which increased following its acquisition of rival platform Oneflare.

  • Last week, Culture Amp made 9% (~90 people) of its team redundant due to customers of the HR platform reducing head counts and, in turn, Culture Amp’s users.

• The Startup Year Bill is one step closer to success 💰

  • Legislation that could see 2000 higher-education students accessing HECS-style loans to pay for university accelerator programs inched forward this week, passing through the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee.

  • It still needs to pass in the Senate and will likely face opposition from the Coalition before getting the green light for a planned pilot in July. (Innovation Aus)

1. Start-up Retro & Crowdfunding: Australia's start-up raises with a smidge of context.

2. Aussie Raisins: Start-ups looking for fresh funds.

3. New Fund, Who This?: New funds flowing into the ecosystem.

4. Wins: Highlighting wins, big and small.

5. Notice Board: Signposting key events and opportunities.

6. Accredited Tweeters: Snippets from mostly Aussie start-up 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⚡️

HealthTech / D2C

Eucalyptus increases post money valuation to $560M with a $50M raise

Eucalyptus has secured $50M in funding at a $560M post-money valuation, up from a late 2021 valuation of $450M when it raised $60M. Eucalyptus operates a house of brands model for demographic-focused brands. Using tele-health, Eucalyptus can prescribe medicine for weight loss, hair loss, erectile dysfunction, skincare, and more. Eucalyptus also spanned up and spun out the sex toy brand, Normal. The round included BOND Capital, W23 (Woolworths') and Blackbird. The raise comes following scrutiny from the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, which has been critical of Eucalyptus' online advertising strategies. The raise also follows Tim Doyle, co-founder of Eucalyptus’ interesting comments about lying to investors on The Sachin and Adam Show. According to the AFR, Eucalyptus has successfully reduced its burn rate across its product lines.

To go deeper on Eucalyptus, check out this insightful Blackbird interview with Tim, published in April.

Due Diligence: AFR & Startup Daily

AgriTech

Whole. lands $1.5M Seed round to develop food processing technology, WINX™

Whole Green Foods (Whole.) has raised a $1.5M Seed round from the Grain Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) and Artesian. The investment will be used to develop the new food processing technology, WINX™ (Whole Ingredient Nutrient Extraction). The WINX™ process aims to help reduce global food waste with its chemical-free, cost-effective process of making ingredients for food and beverages. The main use, at the moment, is extracting oat milk from oats. CEO Nick Stamatiou said the technology currently focuses on commercialising functional oat products with zero waste. Unlike current oat milk production, which generates significant wastewater and decanted fibre, WINX™ eliminates these waste streams. Following the development of WINX, Whole. plans to partner with ingredient manufacturers.

Due Diligence: Startup News

Hospitality

me&u announces $30M Series C raise from December

The pub meal ordering platform me&u raised $30M in December 2022, only formally announcing it this week. Acorn Capital led the round. Launched by Stevan Premutico in 2019, the start-up allows customers to order and pay for food and drinks in restaurants and pubs via QR codes. The recent funding, which brings the total amount raised to $66M, will help me&u target profitability in FY24. me&u is a direct competitor to Mr Yum and can be found in 1,250 venues in Australia. The platform has also expanded internationally, with a foothold of 120 venues in the US and 100 in the UK. The start-up has decent backing from the hospitality industry, with large pub portfolio owners having a vested interest in its success. The likes of Merivale CEO Justin Hemmes, Neil Perry and Urban Purveyor Groups founder John Szangolies have all invested over time. According to a recent quarterly update, me&u can be found in 70% of Australia's large pub groups. In 2022, the company processed over $1B of transactions - that's a lot of chicken parma.

Due Diligence: AgFunder News & SMH

Music

Melodie lands $1M at a $15M valuation to simplify music licensing

Sydney-based music licensing platform Melodie has raised $1M at a $15M valuation. Melodie provides high-quality stock music to storytellers with simple licensing processes. The capital comes from follow-on investor Code Barrel and The Drop Festival co-owner Peter Strain. The funding will be primarily used for growth, focusing on the US market. In the last 12 months, Melodie has seen revenue growth increase by 250% with solutions in the creator economy, film, TV and more. The platform has ridden the tailwind of UGC video to sync music with a custom video. Currently, their API is receiving over 2M search queries daily. The platform services large Hollywood productions with Melodie’s music now featured in TV shows like Ninja Warrior and Real Housewives. Subscribers also include large broadcasters like the BBC, Foxtel, MTV and Sky News. To celebrate Australian artists, Melodie has added an ‘Australia’ feature to display music produced by home-grown artists and composers. Furthermore, the platform is looking at growing its catalogue of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists for sync opportunities following client demand.

Due Diligence: Business News Australia

AI / SME

Empiraa raises $637K Seed round pre-launch to enable SMEs to utilise AI for strategy development

Empiraa, a Melbourne-based software that helps SMEs manage their strategy, has raised $637,000 in Seed funding. The funding follows on from a $110K pre-Seed and the start-up remains pre-product with a launch scheduled for Q2 2022. Empiraa is a cloud-based platform that can spin up a business plan using sophisticated frameworks and the power of AI. The company was founded by Ash Brown, who has a strong sales background with experience from TAXIBOX and Jumbocorp. The target market for the platform is small to medium enterprises that often struggle to execute strategy. This raise follows the footsteps of Sydney-based Cascade, another strategy execution platform that raised $40M in early 2022.

Due Diligence: Startup Daily

If you're a founder or investor who has just closed a round, please reach out to us at [email protected]

Crowdfunding

• Vitable closed a $2.54M Series A round on Venturecrowd.com.au after seeking $1.7M.

  • The investment comes in the form of a convertible note capped at a valuation of $32M

  • The D2C subscription HealthTech provides personalised vitamins, minerals and herb products. The funds raised will be used to grow across ANZ and SEA, as well as aid product development.

Aussie Raisins

• Ready Team One 🎮 

  • The WA-based VR gaming start-up has officially launched their equity crowdfunding campaign and has already attracted $276k at the time of publishing, with 2 weeks still to go.

  • Check out the full details on Birchal.

New Fund, Who This?

• Startupbootcamp launches the Sustainable Fintech Fund

  • This $5,000,000 fund will be deployed over a three year period to accelerate and invest in 30 global startups focused on one of the largest issues of our time: bringing and driving sustainability through finance. You can find more info here.

• Infradebt receives $100M of extra funding

  • The funding is from the Federal Government’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), which has previously tipped in $50M, and joins $200M of funding from Mike Cannon-Brookes’ Grok Ventures. The ACT-based firm offers debt finance for specialist infrastructure such as renewables and battery storage projects as well as social infrastructure. (Startup Daily)

Wins

• MadPaws 🐶 Announces 189% revenue growth thanks mainly to the success of its eCommerce arm. (Business News Australia)

• Our Cow 🐄 Our new favourite food delivery start-up that’s emerging amidst the rubble of it’s collapsing peers is continuing its acquisition streak by buying Brisbane Valley Farm Direct - an online meat retailer and catering service. (Business News Australia)

Notice Board

• KPMG High Growth Ventures 2023 Tech Innovator in Australia - Entries now open!

  • Startups who enter the competition will gain amazing exposure with the chance to pitch their growth plans to a panel of judges, and an overall winner progressing to the Global Tech Innovator final in November, held during Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal.

  • Submissions close 21st June - find out what's involved & if you're eligible.

  • Best suited to: Founders of tech start-ups breaking new ground and ready to take their business to the global stage.

• Startup Catalyst’s mission to London Tech Week - Applications to join now open!

  • Taking place in June, participants will travel to London Tech Week, featuring over 300 events. This year there are 10 State Government sponsored spots available to Queensland-based entrepreneurs, which are sure to be hot property.

  • Expressions of interest are open until 27 May - register here.

  • Best suited to: Australian technology leaders looking to set up operations in the UK.

• Melbourne Accelerator Program (MAP) Launch - 4 May, 📍 Melbourne

  • After an intense four-stage selection process, 11 teams have earned a coveted spot in MAP – Australia's oldest and most sought-after University-aligned accelerator program.

  • Meet the start-ups joining the program and hear the pitches that got them their spot by registering for a ticket here.

  • Best suited to: Entrepreneurs, business leaders, investors & ecosystem supporters

• Stone & Chalk Melbourne Ecosystem Drinks + Investor Mixer - 18 May, 📍 Melbourne

  • “An evening of startup networking, investor discussions and new opportunities as innovation and investment collide”. Interested? Here is the link to RSVP.

  • Best suited to: Investors & Founders

• Startmate W23 Accelerator - applications now open

  • Last week, 12 epic startup founders wowed the crowd at Startmate Demo Day. Will you be next? Learn more and apply here by 21 May.

  • Best suited to: Early-stage start-up founders

Have something to put on the Notice Board? We're always looking for upcoming events & opportunities across the Aussie start-up ecosystem. Reach out to [email protected] to add yours!

Accredited Tweeters

KaaS (Knowledge as a Service)

• Gemma’s Pick 💁‍♀️ Startup Equity Matters podcast

  • A fresh pod (we’re 2 episodes in…!) from Jason Atkins and the Cake Equity team where they unpack startup equity, including how startups can build awesome employee ownership culture, manage dilution and stock options, handle cross-border equity, raise better, and have great exits.

• Will’s Pick 💁‍♂️ Are Bigger VC Funds Better?  by Rampersand Investor Hunter Watkin (Medium post)

  • A hot-off-the-press blog post that highlights why a seed-stage-focused fund could be a better fit for a seed-stage start-up than a larger fund that invests across the journey.

  • It’s a great read for all founders, especially those early in their journey; often, a simple strategy around approaching investors can pay dividends in the future.

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‘Til next time,

👋 Will & Gem