Welcome to Giant Leap’s Small Steps, a newsletter offering global insights and news on the impact startups landscape. We’ll be sharing an edited version with Startup Daily readers every fortnight. Giant Leap is Australia’s first impact venture fund, and they use this newsletter to surface the ideas and businesses that intrigue and inspire them and… Read more »
Three female-founded venture capital firms have teamed up to form WinVC, an initiative focused on fostering the success of women in the VC industry. The triad involves the founders of Woolworths’ venture capital fund W23, OneVentures and Jelix Ventures. Amid an ongoing debate around female participation in the investment community, women-led VC firms now make… Read more »
NSW Treasurer Matt Kean has confirmed he’ll allocate $10 million towards a venture capital fund to support female founders as part of the 2022-23 state budget later this month. The fund will be named in honour of pioneering Sydney fashion designer, businesswoman and philanthropist Carla Zampatti, a founding member of Chief Executive Women. Kean said… Read more »
The co-founders of Sydney early-stage venture capital fund AfterWork Ventures have made the prestigious Forbes 30 under 30 as first-time fund managers. Alexander Khor, 27, and Adrian Petersen, 28, were named in the Forbes 30 under 30 for Asia in the Finance and Venture Capital category. Previous honourees include Canva founder Mel Perkins and Bumble… Read more »
A Cloud Guru co-founder and CEO Sam Kroonenburg is pouring some of the proceeds from his London-based startup’s $2 billion exit last year into local tech companies after signing on as venture partner with SecondQuarter Ventures. Kroonenburg, who founded his online learning business with his brother Ryan in 2015, landed one of 2021’s biggest M&A… Read more »
I was in North America last month where I met with lots of investors and founders, across different stages and sectors, from around the region. Some focused on early-stage consumer-oriented startups where they observed a pickup in the velocity of founder pitches for both novel and copycat businesses. Others were later-stage investors who observed that… Read more »
The hardest conversation for an early stage investor happens when you choose not to follow on in a company you have invested in. This great tension is rarely discussed but lies at the core of the founder/investor relationship. We both know that these moments of decision will come and it matters how we handle it.… Read more »
A new venture capital fund, XT Ventures, led by Craig Lambert, founder of corporate innovation firm Slingshot, is on the hunt for startups in the sport, fitness, wellness and health sectors, with backing from health fund HCF. HCF’s tipped in a $5 million cornerstone investment in the XT Ventures High Performance Fund I, LP, through… Read more »
Welcome to our new column by Main Sequence Ventures partner Phil Morle. Every fortnight Morle will share his wisdom and insights with Startup Daily readers and also discuss it on the Startup Daily show. His first column is part of the Venture Capital Primer for Scientists series, based on hundreds of workshops he’s given during… Read more »
Auckland-based VC Icehouse Ventures has raised its first NZ$5 million towards a $20m target to invest in women-led startups. The new ArcAngels Fund II is Aotearoa’s largest fund investing exclusively in female-founded and led ventures. Theresa Gattung, Chair of Global Women and the Kiwi lead for women entrepreneur initiative SheEO, is a cornerstone investor in… Read more »
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been having conversations with several founders about employee share ownership plans (ESOPs). An important ingredient of many fast-growing startups, ESOPs are used to align key team members to the long-term success of the business by providing them with exposure to the growth in equity value of the startup. Once… Read more »
The age of fintech for investors is shifting to climate tech startups in 2022, a landmark report into Australia’s startup ecosystem reveals. The inaugural State of Australian Startup Funding report, from Folklore Ventures and Cut Through Venture, has analysed data from more than 800 Australian founders and startup investors for a comprehensive look into the… Read more »
Insurance conglomerate IAG is backing a new $75 million venture capital fund to invest in early startups for its VC arm, Firemark Ventures. The insurer, best known for NRMA Insurance, launched its first fund in 2016 through Firemark. It invested in 18 startups in 33 rounds, including cybersecurity firm UpGuard, satellite Internet of Things creator… Read more »
Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes has backed renewables funding firm Infradebt with $200 million from his private family VC firm Grok Ventures. The funding announcement emerged less than 48 hours after Cannon-Brookes had a $5 billion takeover offer for energy supplier AGL rejected as undervaluing the business by the company’s board. Infradebt is a specialist infrastructure project finance… Read more »
A new Fund-of-Funds venture capital firm, formed by veterans of the super fund Hostplus VC team, has been chosen by the Victorian government to build LaunchVic’s $120 million Victorian Startup Capital Fund (VSCF). Neil Stanford and Brighid Pappin have created V-Ignite to turn $60 million from the state government into $120 million for the VSCF.… Read more »
The lessons from Uber, Ola and rideshare’s disruption is that in the end, the consumer still pays 
Here are the finalists in Fintech Australia’s 2024 Finnies awards 
Atlassian cofounder Scott Farquhar steps down as co-CEO 
Unicorn dehorned: Nasdaq-listed Brisbane EV charging venture Tritium collapses into receivership 
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