Perth startup Agworld lets farmers manage crop production cycles through the cloud

June 10, 2015, 12:30 pm

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Doug Fitch Agworld

Farming may seem simple to us naive city folk, but make no mistake: it’s getting increasingly high-tech as the agricultural industry figures out new, better ways to cope with and manage trying conditions and do business better. Agworld, a Perth-based startup that helps farmers and agronomists connect and share data in order to better manage the crop production cycle, counts 17,000 of Australia’s estimated 30,000 farmers as clients. Launched in 2009, the platform is available across mobile and web. Focusing on the idea that farming is done in the field and not in the office, it allows users to map out farms on interactive geospatial maps, collect data while in the field, create detailed season plans, have instant access to a huge library of information on crops, pests, and products, and check a farm’s financials. Marcus Figueroa of Agworld said the platform has been developed over the years through collaboration with clients. The initial growth came primarily through word of mouth, proving that the agricultural industry was hungry for innovation. “We believe the continued growth is because the people within our market generally work on tight margins and are time poor and so our product enables them to manage information in real time on the go. What was once work done in the office at night is now done in field during the day, delivering real time results for the next decision,” Figueroa said. The startup, now tracking 16 million hectares of cropland across Australia, New Zealand, the US, South Africa, and Chile, was launched when co-founder and CEO Doug Fitch realised that he was often unable to consider and minimise risks to his farm as he didn’t have the right information on hand at the right time. Fitch and co-founder Chris Ramsey worked on developing a model for Agworld themselves before hiring a software developer and trialling a database-oriented model with a number of farmers and agronomists across Western Australia's wheat belt. It may seem like ancient technology now, but the first iterations of the software saw users input data using digital pens and dot matrix paper. Agworld first launched into the broad acre market, which Fitch was most familiar with, before moving into other markets like cotton, viticulture, and other horticulture crops. International expansion also came quickly. “[We] soon realised that assisting in the management of agronomic and financial risk and the need to increasing crop production was a global issue, and so we extended our reach into South Africa, New Zealand, and the USA as we had a high level of acceptance,” Figueroa said. “We focused on English speaking countries from a product perspective, and where we saw similar market needs - not wants - to those in Australia.” The startup has now launched an Apple Watch app, and expects agronomists and farmers managing large-scale operations to be among the first adopters. “These people have a lot going on everyday, decisions that need to be made are usually high cost, technical, done in a small window of time and they must be right, so this is just another device that will assist with the information management in a noisy and sometimes adverse environment,” Figueroa said. Agworld raised a $6 million Series C round last year, which brought the total capital raised by the startup to $12 million. The startup will be looking to push its growth in North America over the coming months, while also strengthening its product offering. Figueroa said, “One of our key goals is to keep improving the product through customer feedback supported by system analytics. We also aim to deliver a new design and approach to the use of spatial information in a simple way.” Image: CEO Doug Fitch

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Startup BarBooks demonstrates there is value to creating platforms for small niche communities

June 11, 2015, 8:31 pm

≫ Next: The rising popularity of Impact Investing means less barriers to funding for socially conscious startups

≪ Previous: Perth startup Agworld lets farmers manage crop production cycles through the cloud

Bar Books

As a general rule, I would argue that Australians wanting to create global technology companies need to think bigger. Although there are a growing number of home-grown companies that do just that like Atlassian, Campaign Monitor, Canva and 99designs, we definitely are far from reaching our national potential when it comes to high-growth businesses. Having said that, one area Australians do excel at when it comes to creating technology products is building premium solutions for niche verticals that may have less of an addressable market to go after, but are strong performers financially and deliver impressive profits. Doing one thing and doing it well - like targeting one specific industry vertical - has worked for many Australian startups. Companies like Safety Culture with its iAuditor product for OH&S personnel is a classic example of this, and now Sydney based startup BarBooks, founded by Joshua Knackstredt and Pouyan Afshar is looking to dominate the accounting software space its own specific niche: barristers.

BarBooks' accounting software has been designed to make it easier for barristers to manage and keep track of their bookkeeping. The platform has been created in a way that allows users to record specific information that they need to record and manage; features that big box business solutions like Xero, Quickbooks and MYOB don't have. For example, it allows barristers to record their time within the platform, meaning they can do their administrative tasks in real-time like invoicing a solicitor or direct client straight away as well as chase up fees that have not been paid. The mantra of the platform is that it is simple to use, intuitive to the needs of barristers and reliable for users who are mostly solo practitioners that may have a secretary or admin support person working with them.

"Barristers are sole practitioners, we run as sole traders," said Knackstredt, a barrister by profession. "We can't form companies. We do the work, we provide an invoice which sets up all the time that we spent on the matter and time is characterised as either an hourly, daily or for some specific applications a specialised fixed amount. Then we invoice it and we give them a particular amount of time to pay. We invoice to the solicitor most of the time."

"What you're selling is your time and your experience. The key point in that context is for you to be able to get your time down as accurately as possible and then have the tools to send invoices and record your time in a way where the solicitor can see what you've done so that they can discharge their obligations to their clients by being as detailed as possible with how their clients' money is being spent."

Across NSW and most of Australia, individual barristers are usually responsible for their own bookkeeping and administration. It is therefore important for them to minimise the time they have to spend on these types of tasks to enable them to work seamlessly each day. Having software also saves the barristers money on hiring support staff.

BarBooks is a product of the CENSEA Software Corp of which both Knackstredt and Afshar are owners. The reason for this entity being the owner of the BarBooks asset is because in the long-term, the founders plan to build and create a number of products targeted towards barristers and other legal professionals.

This first product is a classed as a premium service by the company and will set barristers back around $60 per month which can also be purchased as an annual payment. The startup is pushing the latter payment preference by giving all those new clients that sign up paying the annual amount up front an iPad.

In Australia, there are between 5,000 and 6,000 barristers that are actively in the profession; and while that puts limitations on the revenue potential - it is still well into the millions - it allows the company to market itself in a very strategic and grassroots manner.

"We've actually taken a tiered marketing approach," said Afshar. "Basically, we have been working through our own contacts to get people onto the platform. Barristers is a small niche profession, so we have also started to work with a lot of clerks, who are the people that run the administration side of things for many barristers at their chamber based offices and who spend a lot of wasted time dealing with the issues arising from other accounting programs."

"In addition to that [grassroots strategy], we are doing some high level marketing activities showing [the industry] that this accounting software works, that it does what it's supposed to do and that it does this in a really easy and effective way."

Although the platform only launched a little over a month ago, BarBooks currently has 120 barristers actively using the system right now, many that have migrated away from other accounting packages. From this pool of users, the founders have begun to discover things that is now shaping the direction of the development of the platform, such as the resounding feedback that the application should be available for both mobile and tablet as they are two tools majority of barristers use on a daily basis.

Though the startup is focusing on local dominance, both founders told Startup Daily that in places like the United States, barristers operate in a very similar fashion from an administrative perspective to Australia and New Zealand. As such, there does exist the potential to scale the business globally, with slight iterations to the software so that it suits local markets.

"At the moment, we just want to make sure that we've got a product that works, that does it well and is not trying [to service 100 different markets at once] and not executing in any of them well," said Afshar.

To get the execution right and migrate BarBooks' target market of barristers en masse, the founders said that a small round of seed funding in the vicinity of $250,000 to $350,000 is something they will start to have conversations about. These funds will most likely be used to explore markets beyond the borders of Australia.

Expansion plans aside, what BarBooks shows us is that there is a trend towards creating more specialised solutions for niche industries, especially in the business-to-business sector. It is not just applicable to SaaS products either; we are seeing it in publishing with products like Tablo as well as many other verticals.

"Businesses want something that works exactly the way they want it to work," said Knackstredt. "Instead of providing a whole suite of things that customers don't necessarily want or need to use, startups can focus on addressing specific needs in order to capture a particular niche."

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The rising popularity of Impact Investing means less barriers to funding for socially conscious startups

June 14, 2015, 6:38 pm

≫ Next: Seedstars investment prize pool is $1.5 million this year with the additions of FinTech and TravelTech tracks

≪ Previous: Startup BarBooks demonstrates there is value to creating platforms for small niche communities

Impact Investment Fund

Melbourne-based Geoff Gourley worked in the corporate world most his life, making money so that he could buy houses and cars. He was doing well financially until he realised that he wasn't very happy at all. He came to the conclusion that focusing on profit over social impact was a poor way of doing business. "I wasn't getting any good feeling out of not giving back," says Gourley. "I had a real pivotal moment in my life in 2008 and that really changed the way I looked at things. It was at that time that I started to create and work in businesses that were making a difference, predominantly, at that stage, in the environmental space." Three years ago, Gourley and a number of partners established a business focused on energy efficiency, renewable energy and solar power called NuGreen Solutions. Through that experience, Gourley learnt a lot about creating a profitable venture that also made a social and environmental impact. This was one of the main reasons he created the recently announced $100 million Impact Investment Fund. There are real barriers for startups out there that have great ideas that will make a social or environmental difference but the access to capital for these ideas does not exist as readily as it does for other ventures. "You go to a bank or investor and and say I've got this idea that's going to improve the social equality of women in the workforce and people often don't invest in that," says Gourley. "However at Impact Investment Fund, we'll invest in those types of businesses, those types of projects, whether it's large renewable energy projects, wind farms or forest projects. There are a whole range of businesses that we will invest in that are ethical and sustainable. We want to make a difference and leave a legacy, but also open a pathway for others to do the same." Where Australia has been quite strong to date with socially conscious startups is in the food industry. Organisations such as Amazonia and Zambrero have programmes core to their business operations that solve issues directly related with what they do. Both are also highly scalable multimillion dollar companies that have produced millionaire founders. It's also worth noting that both businesses are also highly acquirable if the founders ever wanted to sell. The same can work just as easily for sub-service and technology based businesses with the same mantras. Tech giant Salesforce is an example of this with their 1 | 1 | 1 model, which is integrated into their company culture. They give 1% of profits to people and organisations that need it. They do the same with 1% of their product value. And all employees spend 1% of their time supporting causes they are passionate about (this equates to approximately 20 hours a year). Since starting this, they have given away over $53 million in grants, 580,000 hours of community service, and provided product donations to over 20,000 non-for-profits. Salesforce started doing this once they were a large company. But more and more startups are looking at making social impact and is the core reason the business exists. The primary focus of socially-focused startups is to make as much money as they can, and drive a profit. The greater the profit, the greater the impact. In fact, I'd argue they need to steer their companies towards profitability faster than that of other startups because having the revenue to deliver on the social or environmental aspect of the business is critical to the entire operation. For Gourley, the last 12 months has been spent formatting the fund and getting it registered. He told Startup Daily that setting up this kind of operation requires a fair amount of due diligence. "Looking at our own profile, investment appetite, how are we going to spend the money, having conversations with all the hedge fund managers all takes a fair bit of time," says Gourley. "The intention is to open the fund around the 1st of July. Once the fund opens, we're in a position to start assessing and making investments into various private and ASX listed entities." The fund will be looking to invest in companies that promote a positive social or environmental outcome. It will also be looking at investing in media ventures that communicate social and environmental messages, such as digital media companies that have a social focus. Examples include highly-scalable startup companies like ThankYou Group and TOMS Shoes. It is also the world's first Impact Investing Fund to be Branded Trust Certified. Branded Trust is similar to B Corporations, however, the process for certification is a lot more rigorous in the assessment and the benchmarking.

"We'll be originally be making investments in Australia and New Zealand" says Gourley. "But we're certainly going to be having both a local and global focus. It'll be fantastic to invest initially in all great Australian ideas because we do want to give local businesses and entrepreneurs and individuals access to this level of capital. I mean a $100 million impact investment fund is one of the biggest in the country. Funds by VCs that fund startups at the moment, (the ones on the bigger side of things) are still only around $20 million in size. That's not sending a message out there that we want to back Australian ideas. $100 million is. That's our starting point."

"We want this to be a billion dollar fund not just $100 million. We want to be a billion dollar fund investing in Australian businesses, particularly ones that have a social environmental angle outcome to them. We see that now's the time to do that, to try to create change for the future".

It's certainly a grand vision and I would agree that the taste and interest in socially impactful businesses has grown significantly over the last five years. However, labelling $20 million funds as not sending a strong message that people are behind Australian startups is perhaps a little harsh, especially as some of those local funds have played pivotal roles in now global startups like Safety Culture, Canva, Culture Amp, Shoes of Prey and strong local performers like GoCatch and Airtasker. Impact Investing is becoming more prominent across the country and take a number of different forms. There are retail funds like Australian Ethical Super and Future Super; there are wholesale funds like the soon-to-launch Impact Investment Fund and The Impact Investing Group. We also have organisations like Renata Cooper's Forming Circles that invests small amounts of seed funding into small businesses and startups that have a social impact.

"As more funds become more successful, the mainstream will start to shift saying 'You know what, I am going to invest my self managed super into that fund because I'm going to get a return but also I'm doing a good thing," says Gourley.

"Right now there is a very small group of people playing in this space. We all know each other, we're all in it for the right sort of reasons. If anything, it's good collaboration between the players in this space. So people like Berry Liberman from Impact Investing Group and Danny Almagor who owns Small Giants, are big players in this sector. They've been in it a bit longer than us. They're doing some amazing stuff and now if there's a way we can collaborate and help each other, then we're definitely open to that."

Featured image: Geoff Gourley. Source: Supplied.

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Seedstars investment prize pool is $1.5 million this year with the additions of FinTech and TravelTech tracks

June 15, 2015, 7:09 pm

≫ Next: Digital cricket platform CricHQ raises US$10 million from Singapore based firm Tembusu Partners

≪ Previous: The rising popularity of Impact Investing means less barriers to funding for socially conscious startups

Seedstars

On July 18th this year, Seedstars World, one of the most prominent global seed-stage startup competitions is returning again to Sydney to check out the local technology ecosystem. This is the third time the organisation has held a regional heat within Sydney, in a competition that now includes more than 50 countries, up from 36 countries that were involved in the series of events last year. All regional winners of the local competitions are invited back to Switzerland to pitch at the finale held in February 2016. Previously the winner of the overall competition received a USD$500,000 equity investment. However, this year two more equity prizes of USD$500,000 were added to the FinTech and TravelTech categories, meaning the total investment available totals USD$1.5 million. The competition is open to any seed-stage company founded less than two years ago that has raised less than $50,000 in funding and has a MVP available. Seedstars mentioned in a statement that the competition is also looking to shine the light on companies that solve regional issues or develop profitable products for the global market. Seedstars partners with businesses such as MEST, Google for Entrepreneurs and Microsoft to help it identify who the fast-growing startups are. “Seedstars World is a platform connecting investors to the next generation of startup entrepreneurs pulling the spotlight from Silicon Valley and Western Europe," says Alisee de Tonnac, Seedstars World CEO. "We honestly think the best way to have an impact in fast growing startup scenes is by investing and promoting entrepreneurship. We look forward to seeing how the different startup scenes have evolved in a year and the new startups in the country.” In Australia there will likely be 12 startups that will be invited to pitch for the opportunity to compete at the final event. Last year the winner of Seedstars Sydney event was Fishburners based startup GoFar. [caption id="attachment_41775" align="aligncenter" width="900"]

The GoFar team based at Fishburners in Sydney[/caption] GoFar is a Sydney startup modelled on Formula 1 technology and is looking to change what drivers spend on each tank of fuel. It claims if drivers save up to 20 percent on each tank of fuel. Using a dongle plugged in under the steering wheel, and a ‘Ray’ that sits atop the dashboard, combined with a smartphone app, the startup tracks trips and energy released and used by things like accelerating, braking, and driving up and down hills. With energy released translating to fuel used, tracking this data allows GoFar to tell drivers where they are spending money and help them change their behaviour behind the wheel – often, inefficient driving like particularly fast acceleration or harsh braking mean petrol is wasted. The Ray emits a red light to signal drivers that they are partaking in wasteful or dangerous driving behaviours. GoFar recently raised 320% of its goal during its recent Kickstarter campaign. “Seedstars is a tremendous organisation that provides Australian startups with access to investors and global networks, rarely seen in Australia," says Steven Arthur, Desk X Space and local ambassador of Seedstars. "I am excited to be the Australian Ambassador for 2015 and canʼt wait to see who our 12 finalists will be.” This year, Seedstars has partnered with Deloitte, who is the local sponsor and host for the Sydney event. Further support is being provided by General Assembly, LawPath, Stripe, as well as TechinAsia as the regional media partner. The jury panel will consist of Craig Blair from AirTree Ventures, Rui Rodrigues, Managing Partner at Tankstream Ventgures, Garry Visontay, General Partner at Sydney Seed Fund, Andrea Kowalski, Investment Director at Balidor Investment Management and Dean McEvoy from Blackbird VC.

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Digital cricket platform CricHQ raises US$10 million from Singapore based firm Tembusu Partners

June 16, 2015, 4:59 pm

≫ Next: Startups in creative industries invited to pitch to investors at Creative3 competition

≪ Previous: Seedstars investment prize pool is $1.5 million this year with the additions of FinTech and TravelTech tracks

Simon Baker, CEO and Co-Founder, CricHQ (Left), Stephen Fleming, Director and Co-Founder, CricHQ (Center), Andy Lim, Chairman and Founder of Tembusu Partners (Right), at the joint press conference

Wellington based startup CricHQ announced yesterday afternoon that it had secured US$10 million (NZ$14.3 million) in funding from Singaporean private equity firm Tembusu Partners. The funding will help the company scale globally and enhance its digital cricket platform. Cricket is the the second most popular global sport that has a presence in 102 countries around the world and an estimated global following of over three billion people. CricHQ was founded by serial entrepreneur Simon Baker and Stephen Fleming (New Zealand's most successful captain and test batsman in history) and is a platform that makes it easier for cricket clubs to take care of their administration. Cricket admin usually consists of paper-based, time-sensitive methods of data collection. The startup solves this issues through its digital platform which combines integrated competition management, live scoring and customer relationship management to negate the problem of data loss. The platform also includes a cricket administration module that integrates with its real-time scoring app and offers performance insights for coaches and players, whilst providing fans the latest essential cricket information. Thus far, 41 out of the 106 national governing bodies in New Zealand have partnered with the Wellington based tech business to better administer games in their jurisdictions.

Other than using the cash injection to upgrade the current platform and build additional features for its users, the company will begin to expand its reach geographically by making senior appointments to its operations team in India, the United Kingdom, South Africa and Pakistan. India is an obvious large focus for the startup considering it is the single biggest market in the world for the sport.

"[This] investment enables CricHQ to expand significantly and achieve our growth targets," said Baker. "An institutional investment of this significance, and the support of shareholders and clients such as New Zealand Cricket, validates our business strategy. CricHQ will benefit from Tembusu's experience and network in Asia, and is based in Singapore; the ideal gateway to our key markets."

In addition to being supported by key industry bodies such as New Zealand Cricket, CricHQ has also had significant support from the New Zealand Government, with it being viewed from very early on as a key home-grown innovation and digital product with enormous export potential.

"Tembusu believes that CricHQ's business model is highly scalable and it has a huge opportunity to become the world's leading online repository of cricket information," said Andy Lim , Chairman of Tembusu Partners. "We are proud to partner CricHQ in its exciting growth journey."

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Startups in creative industries invited to pitch to investors at Creative3 competition

June 16, 2015, 5:30 pm

≫ Next: Kano wants to help kids learn how to put together a computer and then program it

≪ Previous: Digital cricket platform CricHQ raises US$10 million from Singapore based firm Tembusu Partners

creative3

Startups in the creative industries have been called on to pitch at the third annual Creative3 Pitch, an event connecting creative startups with early stage investors. The competition, to be held in Brisbane in September, is looking for startups in the design, fashion, entertainment, photography, music, film and television, digital technology, games, and interactive content fields. The event is part of the Creative3 Conference, to be held by QUT Creative Enterprise Australia (CEA), a company from the Queensland University of Technology that helps create, grow, and scale startups in the creative industries. The winner of the event will go on to represent Australia at the world championships for creative entrepreneurs in Copenhagen, the Creative Business Cup. Anna Rooke, CEO of QUT Creative Enterprise Australia, said that Australia’s creative industries are often underestimated. “Our creative industries sector employs more people than mining and contributes $35 billion to our GDP, however creative startups struggle to find funding as they are often viewed as high-risk by investors,” she said. “Denmark has shown international leadership in this area by forming the Creative Business Cup, which profiles creative entrepreneurs on a global stage and highlights the potential for growth, jobs and innovation in this sector. This will only be the second time Australia has been able to compete on the world stage.” The startups will be judged based on creativity and market potential. The finalists selected to take part in Creative3 will receive pre-event coaching from CEA to ensure each startup is ready to pitch to investors. Previous Creative3 finalists include TradeMarkVision, which allows people to conduct visual searches for trademarks, and HandKrafted, which lets artisan makers to respond to product briefs posted by customers, who can then choose which maker they would like to commission to make a product. Both startups received investment from the CEA Startup Fund. Applications for Creative3 Pitch close on June 26th.

Image: Sandra Mau, Founder & CEO TradeMarkVision & Anna Rooke, CEO of QUT Creative Enterprise Australia. Credit: Erika Fish, QUT

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Kano wants to help kids learn how to put together a computer and then program it

June 17, 2015, 2:56 pm

≫ Next: LeadPages closes $27 million Series B round, but has not yet spent money raised in former rounds

≪ Previous: Startups in creative industries invited to pitch to investors at Creative3 competition

Kano

The future of the tech industry lies in getting kids interested in computers, specifically in getting kids interested in coding. Of course, getting kids interested enough to want to learn anything properly can be harder than it looks. London startup Kano came up with an interesting solution, launching a build-it-yourself computer kit that, once built, helps kids learn to code. The project originally launched on Kickstarter two years ago, offering buyers a $149 kit which included a Raspberry Pi Model B computer - a credit card-sized single board computer designed to help people learn programming - a keyboard, case, cables, the Kano OS, and illustrated books explaining how to put the computer together and begin to code. Looking to raise $100,000 through the Kickstarter, Kano ended up making $1.5 million, shipping 18,000 kits to 86 countries. This month Kano launched its second computer, built on the speedier Raspberry Pi 2, also offering users of the original kit a Powerup Kit to update their model. Alex Klein, co-founder of Kano, said the startup sees itself as a computer company that puts creativity, rather than just consumption, at the core. “Everyone, any age, anywhere, has a shared human urge to look inside, take control, make, and play. Kano is a simple, affordable playkit that makes it possible in the digital age,” Klein said. The idea for Kano came from Klein’s experience with a little cousin who wanted to make and talk to a computer, like Lego. Once a user puts the computer together, they can learn how to build games themselves. The concept of Kano has drawn comparisons to the early days of the personal computer, when passionate users had to largely put machines together themselves. Indeed, the Raspberry Pi was developed in response to the droves of computer science students arriving at university without having done much outside of web development, unlike say, Bill Gates. With over 30,000 kits now having been shipped, Klein said the average age of the Kano user is about 9 and a half, with the split between boys and girls at 60 to 40 percent. However, he said girls have proven to be some of the community’s most active creators. While the Kano kit is targeted towards kids, it’s also being used by adults. “We want to make coding child’s play, for adults too...we’re for the spirit of the curious 9-year-old in everyone, and we’re working to democratize the ability to make, not just use, technology,” Klein said. Last month, Kano announced it had raised $15 million in Series A funding, which TechCrunch reported will go towards expanding its product platform and expanding the business outside its core markets in the US and UK. The startup is also giving its community of users the chance to invest in the round, with $500,000 available for people to invest via equity crowdfunding platform Quire. With the startup also having launched the Kano Academy charity, Klein said the startup is also looking at partnerships that can help provide kids in need with greater access to computers. “We’d love to do a Minecraft Master Builder kit with Microsoft, or a Drone Kit with LEGO. In the education space, we’ve partnered with organizations like UNESCO and Pearson to get the kit out to more kids, faster,” he said.

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LeadPages closes $27 million Series B round, but has not yet spent money raised in former rounds

June 17, 2015, 5:42 pm

≫ Next: Australian startup Flirtey and NASA team to execute the first FAA-approved drone deliveries in America

≪ Previous: Kano wants to help kids learn how to put together a computer and then program it

Clay Collins

Lead generation platform LeadPages has announced the raising of a $27 million Series B round, led by Drive Capital with participation from Foundry Group and Arthur Ventures. This latest raise brings the total capital raised by the startup to date to $38 million. Interestingly, the startup has been cash flow positive since its inception in January 2013, and has not yet spent any of its VC funds. However, Clay Collins, CEO and co-founder of LeadPages, said that they will be looking to spend over the coming months, with the funds allowing the company to “make larger bets.” He said, "In the next 12 months we'll be tripling the size of our engineering team, acquiring two or three companies, and growing our enterprise sales team. This backing will help us expand our reach even further and it makes us not only the largest company in this space, but the most well-funded." LeadPages, which is based in Minneapolis, has worked with over 35,000 clients since its launch two years ago, helping boost conversation rates by up to 400 percent. It helps businesses generate leads through simple to use customised landing pages, as well as through email, social media, and texts, and supports interactions like webinar sign ups, whitepaper downloads, and the capturing of contact details. Unlike platforms like Wix and Squarespace, LeadPages focuses on conversion rates. As well as built in split a/b testing, LeadPages allows clients to sort through over 70 page templates by conversion or opt-in rate, and also boasts that it can turn a 404 error page into the highest-converting page on a site by giving viewers an opt-in box rather than an error message. The startup has also today named Chris Olsen, co-founder and partner of Drive Capital, to its board of directors. "Cloud software continues to improve enterprises – increasingly at the departmental level. Companies like LeadPages are setting a new standard. LeadPages does for marketers what Salesforce did for sales reps. They are a great example of a Midwest company using the region as a strategic advantage to build the market leading business in a major category," he said. LeadPages also launched an enterprise-level version of its platform today, LeadPages Corporate, and announced its first annual user conference, to take place in October.

Image: LeadPages CEO Clay Collins.

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Australian startup Flirtey and NASA team to execute the first FAA-approved drone deliveries in America

June 17, 2015, 6:12 pm

≫ Next: Adelaide startup Little Birdy is leveraging ibeacon technology to enhance the nightlife experience

≪ Previous: LeadPages closes $27 million Series B round, but has not yet spent money raised in former rounds

Flirtey Team

The vision at Flirtey has always been to transform four key industries through the use of drone technology: Humanitarian, Online Retail, Food and Courier Delivery. The company has been actively rolling out initial commercial drone trails in New Zealand in partnership with TradeMe, one of the country’s largest online retailers, and New Zealand Search and Rescue (LandSAR), through which Flirtey demonstrated its ability to deliver urgent medical supplies via drones. Today marks a significant milestone in not just the Australian startup's journey, but the US drone industry as well, with Flirtey and NASA both anticipating the green light to conduct the first Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approved deliveries by drones on US soil in Wise, Virginia, as part of an event labelled 'Let's Fly Wisely'. There are two types of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that will deliver pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies at a free medical clinic in Wise, Virginia - one is a fixed-wing aircraft operated by NASA in Langley, and the others will be multi-rotor delivery drones operated by Flirtey, which can safely be called the world's first autonomous aerial delivery service. 'Let's Fly Wisely' is a collaboration between Flirtey, NASA, The Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership at Virginia Tech, The Health Wagon, Remote Area Medical, Rx Partnership, Seespan Incorporated and Wise County. The FAA selected Virginia Tech in December of 2013 as one of six national test programs to conduct research about integrating unmanned aircraft into the nation's airspace.

There is a huge gap across the country in the medical space where many citizens across Virginia and rural America are outside the reach of essential health services. Each year, Remote Area Medical USA and Health Wagon organise a clinic at Wise County fairgrounds that provides free eye, dental and healthcare services to those in the community in urgent need. In fact, this is the largest healthcare outreach program in America. From the next clinic on July 17th, the most urgent prescriptions will be provided from pharmacies located out of town. To get these to the community as soon as possible, the pharmacy will deliver them to the local airport where they will be collected by large fixed winged aircraft operated by NASA and flown to Lonesome Pine Airport. When the prescriptions arrived there, they will then be loaded onto Flirtey drones and delivered directly to the Wise County Fairground. Flirtey are expected to deliver around 24 packages of prescription medication, weighing approximately 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms). “This is a Kitty Hawk moment not just for Flirtey, but for the entire industry,” said Flirtey Co-Founder and CEO Matt Sweeny. “Proving that unmanned aircraft can deliver life-saving medicines is an important step toward a future where unmanned aircraft make routine autonomous deliveries of your every day purchases.” This is the first time that America will be able to view how delivery drones can have a real-world impact in important industries like health, where urgent care can be provided more quickly. “This is the first step in proving that on demand drone delivery can revolutionise the way medical care can be delivered to remote communities, and eventually from your local pharmacy to your front door,” said Flirtey Co-Founder Tom Bass. “This will be a game changer for millions in America.”

The Flirtey delivery drone is a hexacopter constructed from carbon fibre, aluminium and 3D printed components. It is a lightweight, autonomous and electrically-driven unmanned aerial vehicle. It has a range of over 10 miles return and lowers its cargo via tether. It has built-in safety features such as low battery return to safe location and auto-return home in case of low GPS signal or communication loss. Flirtey was established in Sydney in 2013 and is today based in Nevada, USA. Sweeny told Startup Daily previously that the company’s strategy is to “develop scalable drone delivery technology". He said that development is taking place in the US office; and New Zealand was being used as a test bed for Flirtey's technology. The way the startup began rolling out its commercialisation strategy is by starting 'test' operations over unpopulated areas, then slowly expanding across populated smaller sites and eventually cities. The startup has learned a lot from New Zealand that it will be able to take and use as part of its strategy to roll out drone delivery programmes across the world. In addition to its commercial testing efforts, Flirtey is also in the early stages of looking at a new investment round to help it keep up with its growth plans and compete on the world stage. Product iteration and investor talks will most likely happen in parallel.

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Adelaide startup Little Birdy is leveraging ibeacon technology to enhance the nightlife experience

June 18, 2015, 12:04 pm

≫ Next: Sydney startup Boxbird picks up where Rocket Internet’s SpaceWays left off

≪ Previous: Australian startup Flirtey and NASA team to execute the first FAA-approved drone deliveries in America

Jack Haines Little Birdy

There’s nothing worse than spending time getting ready for a night out only to arrive at a venue and find that it’s full or, worse, that there’s absolutely no atmosphere. Adelaide startup Little Birdy is looking to solve that problem and make sure everybody has a great night out by showing them where their friends are and what’s going on at different venues in real time. The app leverages iBeacon technology to track who is at which venue at any given time. A beacon installed at a venue will be able to connect to the Bluetooth on visitors’ phones when they are within range, relaying that information back to the server. Users can also check into a venue directly. Founder Jack Haines said the idea for the app came from his own experiences going out. “We thought there had to be a real time way of knowing what was going on out in town without having live streaming cameras set up,” he said. App users can see how many people are at a bar or club, which venue has specials going, where their friends are, tell friends where they’re going and ask them to join, and receive rewards for taking photos of and posting comments about a venue. Meanwhile, the app allows venues to advertise directly to people who are out and about and prompt nearby users to visit, tell people what’s going on at the venue in real time, and track visitor statistics. Venues can currently only track attendance numbers, but will soon be able to look at things like age and gender demographics, entry and exit times, and the duration of the average stay. They will also be able to message ‘VIP’ or frequent guests directly through the app. The kind of data to be tracked by Little Birdy will undoubtedly prove valuable to venues, who will be able to refine their marketing and see what is or isn’t working inside their venue. For Haines, the communication element is what makes Little Birdy different from the myriad other social event listing platforms. “We see Little Birdy as being the hospitality industry’s ‘go-to’ for communication with the people that matter to them most – those that are out and about and are looking for what is available,” he said. The development of the app was largely self funded by Haines, while a number of friends also invested some money into the project. He brought an Adelaide-based development company, Digital Noir, on board to create the app, with the company taking an equity stake in the startup. There are now 40 venues around Adelaide using the app, with more now contacting the startup to have beacons installed. According to Haines, the app will always be free for users, while all venues will also be entered into the directory free of charge. They will also be able to maintain their venue page and post into the feed for free, though Haines plans to monetise Little Birdy down the line by charging venues a subscription fee to access statistics and enable messaging. Haines expects Little Birdy to launch in Sydney and Melbourne within three to six months, and across Australia within a year. Given that Adelaide, once known as Melbourne’s frumpy, unfashionable cousin, is developing a booming bar scene that may just rival that of its Victorian counterpart, it may just be the best city in which to test out the app. The current focus is securing the Adelaide space. Little Birdy is running monthly pub crawls to encourage people to get out and about using the app.

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Sydney startup Boxbird picks up where Rocket Internet’s SpaceWays left off

June 18, 2015, 6:35 pm

≫ Next: StartupAUS appoints Peter Bradd as its first CEO

≪ Previous: Adelaide startup Little Birdy is leveraging ibeacon technology to enhance the nightlife experience

boxbird-team-20150619

Launching online self storage startups seems to be all the rage this year, with Rocket Internet-backed SpaceWays launching in Australia in February, and Melbourne-based competitor Boxly following soon after. Whether consumers are actually taking to them is a different story - SpaceWays recently shut up shop and headed back to London. Now, another startup is trying its hand in the $753 million self storage market. Christie Whitehill came up with the idea for Boxbird, a service that delivers boxes to a customer’s door then picks them up to store in a warehouse, with her father, a property developer and founder of a Queensland self storage garage business. “I live in a two bedroom apartment in the Eastern Suburbs, so I've got quite a bit of clutter taking up space - things like golf clubs, and luggage that I wouldn't bother taking to a storage facility,” she said. The services offered by Boxbird are basically identical to those offered by Boxly and the dearly departed SpaceWays: customers can order boxes online which are delivered to their door and taken away for storage once packed. Then, when they want the items back, they can go online and ask to have them delivered to their door. The startup also has a service for larger boxes which can fit the contents of a one bedroom apartment. Boxbird will deliver a large box on a flatbed truck, which a removalist will then pick up for storage. It’s also offering boxes for rent for people moving house. The pricing for the simpler storage service sits somewhere between Boxly and SpaceWays, where standard boxes cost $8/month and $9.90/month to store respectively. Storing a standard box with Boxbird ranges between $1.60-2.00/week, while bulky items like bikes and skis can be stored for $2.50-3.00/week. The large box service costs $145/month. Whitehill, who is also founder and CEO of the digital agency Hatching Lab, began researching the concept in February, at which point she says there was no competition in Australia (SpaceWays launched at the end of February). She said her experience working with startups at Hatching Lab, as well as the experience of co-founders Richard Atkinson and Ryan Catzel in storage, logistics, and startups, meant Boxbird was able to go from concept to launch in just over three months. Interestingly, Boxbird already has a number of customers - SpaceWays referred its customer base to Boxbird when it left Sydney. For now, Boxbird is the only player in the Sydney market but, with Boxly cornering Melbourne and looking to expand, it soon won’t be. Of course, there’s still traditional self storage companies to content with. Despite this competition - and the fact that SpaceWays lasted only a few months - Whitehill remains undaunted. “I think competition is a good thing, especially when you're trying to create a new market and a new service in a market. This kind of service is something we're going to need to educate the customer on, because it hadn't been in Australia before. It's good to have similar people out there,” she said. “Like watching any competitor, what marketing tactics competitors use is always a good sign, the pricing model...there are lots of things you can learn off competitors that can help you get an advantage, especially if you're second or third in the market.” The agreement Boxbird made with SpaceWays also allowed Whitehill to learn more about the business itself. She said Boxbird now has a solid PR and marketing plan in place, as well as a timeline for expansion. The startup is focusing on Sydney first, before rolling out to Melbourne in the coming months, targeting urban areas with people that are either relocating or downsizing, people storing in between having families, and people who are going travelling overseas. Boxbird has a 5000 box capacity warehouse in Rockdale, with another secured in Alexandria when more customers come on board. Whitehill is looking to raise a seed round soon, having funded the development of Boxbird with her co-founders thus far.

Image: Ryan Catzel, Christie Whitehill, Rich Atkinson. Source: Provided.

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StartupAUS appoints Peter Bradd as its first CEO

June 18, 2015, 6:37 pm

≫ Next: Brisbane startup StreetEats wants to streamline the street food scene by letting customers order through an app

≪ Previous: Sydney startup Boxbird picks up where Rocket Internet’s SpaceWays left off

Peter Bradd StartupAUS

Peter Bradd, founding director of StartupAUS, has today been appointed as the organisation's first CEO, with Andrew Larsen joining the organisation's board and Steve Baxter giving up his board role to become Chief Advocate. The move comes after the StartupAUS board mapped out its plans for the year in February, with the appointment of a full time CEO a key part of the organisation's plans for growth. Bradd, founder and CEO of ScribblePics, has been a vocal member of the Australian startup community through his role at StartupAUS, and as founding director of Sydney's Fishburners coworking space. He has also been Entrepreneur in Residence at Fusion Labs, helping corporates find disruptive and innovative products and business models. Bradd said that his major goals as CEO are to increase progress within government, industry, and the startup ecosystem. "What StartupAUS has been able to achieve to-date is a testament to the hard work of volunteers, the amazing goodwill of the startup eco-system and the support of our sponsor organisations...however, we recognise that we’ve only scratched the surface of what needs to be done. We need to shift the bar on technology entrepreneurship in Australia, and take advantage of a once in a generation opportunity to transform our economy," Bradd said. “There has been progress, however our shift into exponential growth is too far behind. We have the passion and the drive but we do need more founders, more tech-skills and a world-leading ecosystem to support them.” Alan Noble, engineering director at Google Australia & New Zealand and StartupAUS board member, said the appointment of StartupAUS's first CEO reflects both the maturing of Australia's startup economy and the progress of the organisation as it moves from a voluntary body to a more "professionally run entity." "Peter’s experience as a startup founder and his pioneering work establishing Fishburners as one of Australia’s leading startup communities, along with his work on our board over the past two years made him the clear front-runner for this new role,” Noble said. StartupAUS is currently planning the third Startup Spring festival. It hopes to attract over 200 events.

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Brisbane startup StreetEats wants to streamline the street food scene by letting customers order through an app

June 21, 2015, 6:12 pm

≫ Next: You can’t sit with us: Do coaches and MLMs have a place in the startup ecosystem?

≪ Previous: StartupAUS appoints Peter Bradd as its first CEO

streeteats

One of the best parts about festivals and special events is the incredible food: restaurants set up stalls next to food trucks, who work next to nan and pop stalls making traditional food from different cultures. But the downside is that the lines are always long and most stalls only take cash, leaving you running around trying to find an ATM. Brisbane startup StreetEats, founded by Chris Illuk, Michael Sive, and Jace Patel, wants to help solve these problems by streamlining the city’s street food scene through an app. Essentially, the app is like a restaurant or cafe paging system, without customers actually having to go to the restaurant to order first. Designed for food trucks and market stalls, the app lets customers order and pay for food, then get a notification telling them to go pick it up when it’s ready. They can also track the progress of their order in real time. The idea for the app came from the founders’ experiences on both sides of the street food experience, as both truck workers and as customers. They frequently saw customers walk away from vendors because they were frustrated by long lines. As Chris Illuk, co-founder and head of business development at StreetEats, explains it, the uses of the app are twofold. “From the customer’s perspective, we have built a smartphone app that allows them to view nearby food trucks and food events, to view their menus, and to order and pay through the app. They receive a text message when their food is ready to collect,” he said. “From the vendor’s perspective, we provide a two-tablet solution that includes an extremely lightweight point of sale system to take and manage cash and mobile orders, and a virtual docket line. Mobile orders automatically appear on the point of sale and are sent to the docket line for preparation when accepted.” There are number of similar apps available to the food and drink industry, but Illuk said the team has worked to determine the specific needs of the food truck market in order to develop a product that is custom-built for them. “StreetEats differentiates itself in that we are targeting a niche market with its own unique set of problems, which are not easily solved by more ‘one-size-fits-all’ solutions that are currently available,” Illuk said. StreetEats charges vendors a fee for orders that are made through the app. If vendors are extremely busy - as often happens with street food stalls - they can pause the ordering function or reject orders. The startup went the pounding the pavement route to get vendors on board, actively participating in food truck events and spending face to face time with operators and event organisers. “We are now beginning to experience a network multiplier effect thanks to some of our first vendor customers becoming advocates for our brand. This has brought in our first wave of vendor sign ups through referrals. The street food scene is small and business owners talk to each other. If we do good they all know about it straight away, likewise if we do bad,” Illuk said. When it comes to user acquisition, Illuk hopes that StreetEats will flourish mostly from word of mouth. “The street food scene is super local, tribal almost. A large part of most successful food trucks businesses is their ability to create loyal fans through social media. Our commitment is to providing a great experience for vendors and users who hear about us organically,” he said. Illuk said that the biggest challenge the startup has faced so far is securing reliable and cheaper payment processing, the crux of the app’s offering, after having dealt with outages from its current merchant facility provider. The team is now working with a number of FinTech founders to help solve this problem. The development of StreetEats was initially funded by the founders, who then secured capital through the iLab Accelerator. The startup is also one of seven to have been selected to take part at last week’s RiverPitch event, where the founders pitched to a group of investors. “We're currently looking to raise a round of funding that will allow us to grow to 100 Australian vendors in 6 months. We're also in discussions about our first venue/event wide implementation, which would put a whole event space permanently on the StreetEats network, inclusive of all participating vendors at that venue,” Illuk said.

Image: Michael Sive & Chris Illuk. Source: Provided.

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You can’t sit with us: Do coaches and MLMs have a place in the startup ecosystem?

June 21, 2015, 7:37 pm

≫ Next: Tech in Asia raises $4 million to build more features for its community

≪ Previous: Brisbane startup StreetEats wants to streamline the street food scene by letting customers order through an app

you-cant-sit-with-us

I recently came across an interesting thread on the public Facebook group Sydney Startups. The group, which has over 2,600 members and is run by local entrepreneur and Ruby on Rails developer James Martin, was set up for the local community to share resources and information as well as generate discussion about the tech startup sector. Flogging your own product or service in a belligerent manner is something that has always been well policed by the group admin - it's frankly not welcome. The thread from Friday I am referring to was initiated by business coach Laura Francis who was selling a program targeted at female entrepreneurs. While I have had interactions with Laura online and appeared as a guest on her podcast earlier this year, I am unfamiliar with her content, coaching style and business model. I am therefore unable to comment on whether or not what Francis was selling would be beneficial to female founders of startups. However I am familiar with Francis' online lead generation style on social media; she uses provocation as a tool to polarise and attract a niche audience. That is what she did in the post which started out with the line "Hey Business Lady! You say you want it all but you’re a PUSSY! You went into business thinking you know it all…. But, guess what – YOU DON’T!" - to be fair, when you read the entire post and properly analyse the content, it has been deliberately structured to attract a very specific type of person and repel the rest - that's the point of polarisation. Unfortunately, what Francis received from the post was 'feedback' from many startup founders who basically said 'you are not welcome here' and was eventually blocked by the group admin for trolling. To be blunt, a sales pitch made within a group that has been specifically set up for information sharing and discussion should be policed and group members should be vocal to others about contributing in the right way. However, what stood out about this particular thread was not the fact that etiquette was not adhered to, it was that members were more furious about the language used in the post, and that Francis was a business coach posting in a startup focused group. I have seen this kind of reaction before in the Sydney Startups group when it comes to Multi-Level Marketers (MLMs) and Coaches; it appears that startup founders don't like them and don't want them pretending that they are part of our ecosystem. Coaches and MLMs are not startups? Both coaching and MLM based businesses are legitimate industries worth billions and are responsible for employing tens of thousands of people world wide. MLM, in particular, has been around since the 1920s and can be traced back to organisations like the California Perfume Company, which we now know as Avon. Yet there is a widely held view within the startup ecosystem (globally) that these types of companies are not startups and that people working within these companies to sell products are not founders. The simple way to determine this is by looking at the characteristics of a startup and seeing whether coaching and MLM fit the picture. In his essay Startup = Growth, Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham defines a startup as a company that is designed to grow really fast. He also makes a point in the essay to highlight that in order to achieve rapid growth you need to create something that you can sell to a big market.

To grow rapidly, you need to make something you can sell to a big market. That's the difference between Google and a barbershop. A barbershop doesn't scale. For a company to grow really big, it must (a) make something lots of people want, and (b) reach and serve all those people. Barbershops are doing fine in the (a) department. Almost everyone needs their hair cut. The problem for a barbershop, as for any retail establishment, is (b). A barbershop serves customers in person, and few will travel far for a haircut. And even if they did the barbershop couldn't accommodate them. Writing software is a great way to solve (b), but you can still end up constrained in (a). If you write software to teach Tibetan to Hungarian speakers, you'll be able to reach most of the people who want it, but there won't be many of them. If you make software to teach English to Chinese speakers, however, you're in startup territory. Most businesses are tightly constrained in (a) or (b). The distinctive feature of successful startups is that they're not.

If we use this as a guide, it can be concluded that coaches are not startups, though a coaching platform that has been designed to reach a massive market could be. MLM based companies are startups as they are designed to grow quickly and service a mass audience. However, the network of 'founders' within these organisations would not be considered startups, they are technically just part of the sales and marketing strategy. Investors love startups in the MLM industry According to recent data from AngelList, there are 34,000 individual investors and venture capital firms that have actively invested in or are looking to invest in the MLM space. Some of those people include UBER founder Travis Kalanick and Eventbrite cofounder, Kevin Hartz. In April last year, entertainment and rewards focused MLM startup Viggle closed a USD$35 million round of capital, and hair extension MLM startup VIXXENN which is experiencing rapid growth at the moment attracted seed funding from firms like Brooklyn Bridge Capital and Corigin Ventures. The reason why investment in an MLM startup is so attractive is because 90% of the revenue made within a MLM environment goes directly to the company headquarters, thereby making MLM owners and investors very rich people. People like Donald Trump, Warren Buffet and Robert Kiyosaki are on record stating that it is a great industry (as an owner) to make money in. It just happens to be that the primary way they make that money is by selling the dream of owning of your own business by choosing which hours you work, and having access to unlimited marketing and technical infrastructure that will allow you to achieve your "dream lifestyle". Often, people join an MLM because they're passionate users of a product, which not only leads to advocacy, but also to the actual selling of the same dream sold to them. It is a growth strategy often seen as a turn-off by startup founders, mainly because they feel that the title of being a "founder" is something that, at least in some capacity, needs to be earned, and MLMs don't quite sync with that philosophy. A love-hate relationship with coaching Contrary to what the opening example in this article suggests, startups do actually engage with business coaches and mentors. Where technology startups founders differ to small business owners and other company owners, is that they prefer to seek these people out for themselves. Like MLM, the Coaching Industry is one of the fastest growing in the world, however unlike MLM there are no dominant players in the space. (There is ActionCoach which is the largest business coaching company in the world, but ActionCoach itself is actually an MLM). The industry is growing annually at a rate of 7.8% according to IBIS World, and in the US alone the sector is worth $1 billion to the economy. So while coaching may be a great industry to make money in and be entrepreneurial, those in the space technically would not be considered startups. Therein lies the distaste, and why startup founders are so quick to jump on unsolicited pitches and shut them down. Is it nice to do that? Probably not, but most training in the life and business coaching industry is geared around helping a particular type of client; and fast-growth, highly scalable tech companies are most definitely not part of the curriculum. You can't sit with us The debate about who is able to participate within the startup ecosystem is not too dissimilar to the small business vs. startups policy discussions that we have written about on Startup Daily. In fact, I am going to argue that defining what is a startup and highlighting what type of products and services truly support startups (i.e. looking at who does and does not actually belong in the ecosystem) is just as critical to policy formation for the space as defining the difference between what a startup and small business is. A startup ecosystem progresses based on its general culture and resources. Startup ecosystems help transform a nation's economy and create jobs of the future. In order to do that successfully, participants within the space need to be collectively working towards that goal. Individuals and organisations that do not align with that goal should not be participants within the ecosystem. The trouble with coaching and MLM is that, at its core, they both promote financial selfishness above national economic growth. That is not to say that: (a) there is anything wrong with wanting to make as much money as you can and live the life that you want; or (b) that startup founders are not financially selfish. The point being made is that in order to be part of the ecosystem, you need to be contributing to the community in a meaningful way. The vast majority of coaches out there don't understand the space properly because they confuse the term 'startup' with 'starting a business'; and MLMs are too focused on growing their own ecosystem to increase personal commissions to consider the bigger picture of what startups are trying to achieve. Although proactive exclusion from the startup ecosystem is not what I am suggesting, I do think that it is worthwhile for the community to assess who actively makes a meaningful contribution and who doesn't. There are far too many individuals and organisations out there speaking on behalf of the startup ecosystem that are in fact, not startups or supporters of startups, and that is a problem, as it sends mixed messages to the government and causes the launch of messy government policy.

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Tech in Asia raises $4 million to build more features for its community

June 21, 2015, 7:41 pm

≫ Next: Source Legal Online wants to lower barriers to legal services through a monthly subscription model

≪ Previous: You can’t sit with us: Do coaches and MLMs have a place in the startup ecosystem?

Tech-in-Asia-growth-story-photo-3

Tech in Asia, an online news site covering startup and tech news across Asia, has announced that it has raised $4 million in funding. The raise was led by the SB ISAT Fund, a $50 million venture fund launched by Indosat and SoftBank last year, with participation from Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, and Walden International. Existing investors East Ventures, Fenox Venture Capital, and Simile Venture Partners also participated in the round. The funds will be used to expand its team and build more features for the Tech in Asia community. “We are humbled to have found a league of distinguished investors who believe in the value we want to bring to the ecosystem. This investment will be used to evolve Tech in Asia’s businesses so that we can better serve the needs of our community,” said Willis Wee, founder and CEO of Tech in Asia. Teddy Himler, vice president of the SB ISAT Fund, said, "We are excited to partner with Willis and the Tech in Asia team as they solidify their position as Asia's leading source for technology-related content and pursue other strategies to bolster Asia's technology community." The raise comes just a few weeks after Tech in Asia unveiled a new look website which put an emphasis on contributions and insights from the publication's community in a bid to boost engagement and help position the site as an authority on the Asian tech scene. The overhaul has allowed readers to publish content to the site's homepage, where it sits alongside editorial content and is upvoted by readers. Tech in Asia was also part of Y Combinator's Winter 2015 batch earlier this year. While at the accelerator it unveiled TechList, an online tool enabling investors to track startups across the Asia region. The $4 million raised by Tech in Asia and the acquisition of Re/code - which has a lucrative events arm - by Vox Media shows the value being placed on media organisations that are able to diversify their offerings.

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Source Legal Online wants to lower barriers to legal services through a monthly subscription model

June 22, 2015, 2:30 pm

≫ Next: Stockspot: A flagship investment for FinTech venture capitalists, the Heap brothers

≪ Previous: Tech in Asia raises $4 million to build more features for its community

Source Legal Online

The legal industry is famous for its traditions and formality and, as a result, doesn’t exactly have a reputation for innovation. Of course, there a handful of legal professionals working in the background trying to change the way things are done. The last few years have seen new firms arise looking to provide people with greater access to legal services than traditional firms, which bill by the hour at prices unaffordable for the majority. Sydney-based law firm Source Legal, which was founded in 2011 to offer legal services on a fixed fee project or monthly retainer basis, has launched Source Legal Online, a subscription service offering startups and small businesses unlimited legal services. The subscription, which is priced at $400 per month (excluding GST) when subscribers sign up for three months or more, aims to give startups an in-house style service. It covers services needed in ‘the ordinary course of business’, such as preparing, reviewing, or negotiating contracts, employment advice, compliance advice, and dispute resolution. It also covers 24/7 phone and email support. Matters outside the ordinary course of business include litigation or mergers and acquisitions. The idea for the subscription service came from noticing that many of Source Legal’s clients came to them for the same routine tasks. Stanislav Roth, founder of Source Legal, said that the team expects that startups and small businesses will have a need for legal assistance for an average of one to three tasks a month. “We do not think or worry about ‘hours’. We have a true value-based fixed price model,” he said. Roth believes that the service will enable startups to be taken more seriously. “Earning the trust of the market partly depends on having - and being seen to have - your legal fundamentals in order. Startups in particular are often attempting to disrupt businesses whose legal resources far outweigh their own – it’s not a level playing field,” he said. “Whether they want to deal with the incumbents, or win contracts when bidding against them, constant access to professional legal support and documents gives challenger brands a fighting chance.” Roth also welcomes competition from other innovators in the legal industry; a big name in the space is LegalVision, which offers businesses services for a fixed fee. “We would like to see more - not less - competition in this space...we know and respect LegalVision and others trying to do innovative things in the market, and there are still too few of those. However, our model is quite different from LegalVision and others,” Roth said. Roth said the service has five subscribers so far, though he is confident of converting many of Source Legal’s ad-hoc fixed price clients into subscribers. He said the Online division is targeting a market different to that of the core Source Legal business, with Online designed for startups and SMBs that have up to 20 employees and an annual turnover of $2 million or less. “As the awareness of Source Legal Online increases, we expect very high number of customers and subscribers because we believe that we offer is truly unique and represents an outstanding value for money for very small businesses,” Roth said. “We also hope that some of our Source Legal Online customers will grow well beyond the $2m threshold and will then become Source Legal’s customers, benefiting from a greater range of services Source Legal can provide.”

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Stockspot: A flagship investment for FinTech venture capitalists, the Heap brothers

June 22, 2015, 6:10 pm

≫ Next: Divvy Parking raises $2.5 million Series A round to expand its team

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Stockspot

Yesterday, Stockspot, Australia's first automated investment advisor and fund manager, announced that it had raised an additional $1.25 million in funding as it continues to grow and expand its business. This is the second round of funding for the FinTech startup that raised $250,000 from the since folded AWI Ventures program last April. Unlike its first round of funding, founder Chris Brycki said this time he met with a few interested parties before settling on terms with fintech venture capital firm H2 Ventures and the investment arm of Rocket Internet Global Founders Capital, whose other high profile Australian investments include peer-to-peer lending business Society One and disruptive design platform Canva. Brycki told Startup Daily that he was pleased that brothers Ben and Toby Heap who originally invested in the first round via AWI Ventures were on board in continuing to support the startup via their new fund H2. H2 Ventures was just recently set up by the brothers after the the parent company of AWI Ventures, ASX listed Australian Wealth Investors withdrew its support for the VC fund. Even though Toby was in charge of AWI Ventures and Ben is the CEO of Australian Wealth Investors, the pull of support came about due to the demise of financial services company Van Eyk, in which the parent company had made an investment. This led to a complete restructure of the business and the Heap brothers setting up H2 Ventures. Like AWI Ventures, H2 will not just make investments in the FinTech space, but will also run a FinTech focused accelerator program to feed its investment pipeline. In a model that mirrors AWI, H2 will invest $100,000 in each startup and will take 10% of equity in return, therefore valuing each startup going through the accelerator at $1 million. AWI Ventures ended up investing in nine companies and there are five of them currently going through the last ever AWI program - these include CurrencySpot, Piggy, PayHero, HashChing and Deposits. The other four startups from the initial program include Simply Wall Street, Equitise and Debtto10K. H2 Ventures currently operates out of the Stone and Chalk financial startup coworking space and also intends to open up offices in Auckland and Palo Alto. Stockspot has been one of Heap brothers' flagship investments, one that has seen steady growth since it first launched into the Australian market. Currently Brycki claims there are over 3,000 registered users on the platform; and client funds under management are up 300% since the beginning of the year, though Stockspot is not sharing the dollar figure that this equates to with the media. This particular round of funding will be used in two key areas of the business, according to Brycki. The first is to improve the product; and the second is for marketing activities to increase awareness around what Stockspot is doing. This will be one of the biggest challenges in terms of growth for the Sydney based startup who has found a surprise niche in Australian expats living overseas. "We found that we have a lot of Aussies working in the UK that have become early adopters of the platform," says Brycki. "Usually when people move overseas they just leave their money in an Australian bank account and they don't really know what to do with it. A lot of those people are getting frustrated because they don't gain much interest but then they can't go and set something up with a bank because they're overseas. Since we're the first completely online product, Aussies working overseas are able to set up an investment plan or investment service really easily. [Stockspot] is getting an unusually high number of expat customers." Another major way the company is looking to reach the wider community is via a solid content marketing strategy and in-depth insights. In fact, the insights are very much akin to the types of conversations and learnings you would gain from sitting down face-to-face with an advisor, with Stockspot almost being a 'digital-handholder' around financial literacy.

"Most people stuff themselves up when they invest because they invest according to their behavioural biases," says Brycki. "We make these types of bad decisions because our brain makes us think a certain way about investing when we shouldn't. A lot of our work around educating consumers is about improving the financial intellect of our clients and educating them about this sort of thing. That's why we're publishing a lot of research and writing a lot of content around helping people make better decisions."

"I guess the reason why we're putting a lot of this content and research out as well is because we want to be seen as the consumer champions in finance, the company that is actually standing up for all the little guys out there that seem to get ripped off."

This sentiment is evident when you analyse the type of research activities Stockspot has been undertaking. Last November the company released the Fat Cat Funds Report which highlighted dodgy activities in the sector. This was well received by customers and potential clients, but according to Brycki, the industry hated it. The advantage that Stockspot has over traditional players in the space is that it has no legacy business it needs to protect, and can therefore afford to be a little polarising with its marketing efforts.

Image: Chris Brycki, Founder, Stockspot. Source: Supplied.

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Divvy Parking raises $2.5 million Series A round to expand its team

June 22, 2015, 6:11 pm

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divvy

Sydney startup Divvy Parking, which allows individuals and businesses to lease out parking spaces to drivers, has today announced the closing of a $2.5 million Series A round. This brings the total raised by the startup since its launch in 2011 to $2.8 million, with Divvy having previously received $300,000 in seed funding. Divvy did not disclose the investors in this round. Divvy has also announced partnerships with commercial property groups including DEXUS Property Group, GPT Group, and Knight Frank to manage their parking assets. It also recently partnered with office tower tenant services provider Inlink. Nick Austin, founder and CEO of Divvy, said that the funding will allow the startup to accelerate its growth and expand its team as it looks to help both drivers and property managers around Australia. “The existing system has long been in need of a technology evolution, just as we’ve seen happen across industries such as city taxis and accommodation. Australia faces mounting pressures on its infrastructure and Infrastructure Australia recently warned traffic congestion could cost governments up to $53 billion by 2031," he said. “Technology will play a key role in combatting these issues as the public and private sectors work together to build smarter and more efficient cities. Finding ways to make use of existing resources through solutions such as Divvy is an important part of this." Divvy is currently active in New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland. It's one of a few Australian startups in the parking space, with competitor Parkhound active across the country. Aaron McGhee, managing director of Knight Frank, said that the company has already seen material improvements in the management of its parking assets since partnering with Divvy. “We’d been looking for an innovative solution for some time, the industry is crying out for it. Working with agile technology companies is part of our ongoing strategy and Divvy has played a key role in driving us forward in this space, delivering flexible solutions for our clients which have not previously been available."

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Bionic Vision Technologies looking to raise $10 million to fund clinical trials of bionic eye implant

June 23, 2015, 7:00 am

≫ Next: Veil Hijab has created a climate-adapting hijab to keep Muslim women cool and dry

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bionic vision

Bionic Vision Technologies, an Australian company creating devices to restore vision to the blind, is looking to raise $10 million to fund clinical trials of a new bionic eye implant on up to 20 patients over the next 18 months. The company's products have been developed by Bionic Vision Australia, a consortium of researchers from organisations including the University of NSW, the Centre for Eye Research Australia, and the Bionics Institute. The two devices they have developed are a bionic eye that uses 44 electrodes and another using 99 electrodes. The devices are implanted into a pocket found at the back of the eye, and are accompanied by a pair of glasses with an inbuilt camera worn by the patient. Images captured by the camera are then transmitted to an external vision processing unit the patient wears, and then transmitted to the implant. The processing technology used by the device, developed by National ICT Australia, can be constantly upgraded without the need for further surgical procedures. Robert Klupacs, executive chairman of Bionic Vision Technologies, said that the company's approach is a safer and simpler surgical procedure than that used by international competitors. The prototype devices are currently manufactured at the University of New South Wales, though manufacturing on a commercial scale would require a purpose-built facility. The company is keen to keep its manufacturing in Australia, with Klupacs stating that Australia's expertise in the advanced manufacturing space is world class. “Australia already has this advanced manufacturing expertise. Indeed, some of the extensive advanced manufacturing skills of Australia have already been deployed to the medical device sector and we will be exploring the possibility of partnering with some of these groups to scale up commercial manufacture of this innovative, all-Australian technology as expeditiously as possible," he said. Bionic Vision will be looking to trial the devices on patients with a degenerative eye disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa, which affects 1.5 million people around the world and is the most common cause of inherited blindness. The market for bionic eye technology is estimated to be worth up to $1 billion a year.

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Veil Hijab has created a climate-adapting hijab to keep Muslim women cool and dry

June 23, 2015, 2:55 pm

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Veil Hijab

From the waterproof to heat resistant, technology has been innovating our clothing for years. While the hijab and other items worn by Muslim women have become more fashionable than the stereotype would suggest thanks to stores like Hijup and Soirée Designs, the fabrics used haven’t really seen the same kind of innovation as ‘regular’ fashion. Until now. Ohio startup Veil Hijab has created a hijab called ‘Cool Dry’, which, like the name suggests, keeps the wearer both cool and dry. Billed as the first climate-adapting hijab, its exterior is made up of a water repellent technology which makes water bead upon impact and roll off the fabric. It also has a cooling barrier which reflects up to 80 percent of heat rays, keeping the scarf up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the average hijab. With the majority of hijabs worn in dark colours, cooling technology will prove a welcome innovation. Veil Hijab's 22-year-old founder Ahmad Ghanem, who self funded the development of product, said he was inspired to create the product because he believes that the hijab is misunderstood in today’s society: while many think it’s oppressive, women who wear it say it’s a part of them and what they stand for. “When I came up with the idea for Veil, I felt like it was my responsibility to actually make it happen. Technology in apparel is up and coming and there's no reason our women shouldn't be exposed to it as well. It's different, but I'm excited to see where it goes,” Ghanem said. “I want my brand to inspire and encourage women who wear the hijab to go out and break barriers, whether it's becoming more active or making a difference in the world. Their strength and perseverance is what drives the passion at Veil.” [caption id="attachment_42056" align="alignnone" width="680"]

veilhijab.com[/caption] Ghanem began working on the product almost a year and a half ago, researching technical fabrics and looking at manufacturers around the US. He decided to get the fabric laser cut to get rid of the chafing that occurs with regular hemmed hijabs. He said he chose to go down the Kickstarter route because the platform boasts users from varying religions and ethnicities who would connect with the product. “It wasn't just about raising the funds for the project, but to rather make a statement for our sisters who wear the hijab as well. I knew the orders would come in one way or another but I wanted the project to gain global attention,” he said. Ghanem set the Kickstarter target of $5,000, and ended up with almost $40,000. Almost 900 backers from 40 countries have ordered over 1,800 hijabs, with two new lighter colours added after requests were made. Pre-orders are now open on the startup’s website for those who missed out on ordering through the Kickstarter, while orders are also open for wholesale distribution. Veil has already had interest from potential investors and partners, and Ghanem said the company will be looking to expand very soon. “We plan on expanding the brand tremendously and bring more to the table in regards to our products. We also plan on distributing in many countries as well.”

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