Gemma Clancy: The Startup Retro is recorded on the lands of the Gubbi Gubbi and Wurundjeri people.

Will Richards: G'day and welcome to the Startup Retro, a weekly show brought to you by the team behind the Overnight Success Newsletter, where we help you level up on the Australian startup ecosystem by giving you an insider's view on Aussie startups and venture capital.

Gemma Clancy: The Startup Retro is brought to you by Day One, the podcast network for founders, operators, and investors.

Gemma Clancy: I'm Gemma Clancy.

Will Richards: And I'm Will Richards. In today's episode, we dive into three new funds and initiatives that have launched in the past week. Paul Bassett's new not for profit Amplify and why Australian Super has written off a 1. 1 billion investment.

Gemma Clancy: And we'll cover our top startup picks of the week, including a tool to make doing data analysis a dream and an ag tech company using AI to improve the way growers assess the quality of their grain.

Will Richards: Plus a short interview with Gav Parry on the launch of the for arts, sport, and technology. Also known as CAST and what it means for Australian entertainment startups.

Gemma Clancy: And we'll finish off with our CAST of the week, including a list of common VC scams to be on the lookout for.

Will Richards: And a special announcement.

Will Richards: Next week, we'll be joined by a new host, Cheryl Mack from Aussie Angels, who will be gracing us with their presence while Gemma drinks Aperols in Italy for a few weeks.

Gemma Clancy: Okay, well, why don't we start by talking about all this money that's coming into the ecosystem this week. There's three new funds.

Will Richards: Yeah, three new funds and they're all, and they're all very differently structured, which is, um, yeah, super exciting. They're all targeting very different areas. So let's get started with the first one.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah. So the biggest one first cab off the rank is the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute's 66 million fund, which is, uh, called 6610. And it's called 6610, I assume because the 66 million is going to be invested over 10 years. Um, if you haven't heard of Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Um, it's actually rebranded a few years ago to Wee High.

Gemma Clancy: I know that because I actually worked on the rebrand, which is kind of cool. Um, so yeah, so they are one of Australia's biggest, uh, medical research institutes. They've been around for a very, very long time. And, um, they started up 6610 about a year ago. And now they've announced, um, the kind of value of the fund, which is, um, going to be the largest internal pre seed and seed fund by an Australian medical research institute.

Gemma Clancy: Which is very, very exciting. So, they're going to be, yeah, investing in obviously science based innovation.

Will Richards: And they're targeting pre seed, seed businesses and basically getting them to commercialization. So, having a real focus on obviously outcomes for, you know, patients, people with serious conditions, but then also commercial success as well.

Will Richards: So, good collaboration of for profit and for purpose.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah, definitely. So yeah, they don't really have like LPs in the traditional sense of like a VC fund. It's, um, I would imagine largely just the philanthropic funds that they've had come into WeHi, um, as well as maybe also some government support that they've received over the years.

Gemma Clancy: And, um, any of the financial returns that they're going to generate will go back into supporting WeHi research and help contribute to their long term fulfillment. Um, financial sustainability, it's still got an IC, the investment committee, um, which is largely external and it's got serial bioscience entrepreneurs in there, life science, investment managers and research and development leaders from the biopharmaceutical sector.

Gemma Clancy: So probably a very, very smart investment committee and relevant, obviously. Yeah,

Will Richards: they've, um, they've definitely got an edge over your traditional VC looking at this space. So really exciting.

Gemma Clancy: So that's the number one next one was, um, seed lab Australia's secured, um, an extra 7 million from Wool Ease Woolworths supermarkets and seed labs and accelerator that focuses on food, drink, and sustainable personal care products.

Gemma Clancy: Um, and so they've, they received about 4 million investment in 2021, um, to support that program. And, um, yeah, Yeah, they've, they're trying to target around 500 businesses across Australia, New Zealand over the next three years. So, um, if you're a food, drink or personal care product, um, company looking to kind of join an accelerator program, it looks like they will, um, be propelled forward by that extra funding.

Will Richards: Yeah, it's, it's a, it really is just worth being like, how can we get more products and get a clip of, of these new products, um, bring them to market, support them along the way, make sure their packaging is right, make sure their marketing is right, make sure the compliance and all that sort of stuff is all sorted before basically we would accept them.

Will Richards: So they, they want to be that helping hand along the journey, but then as soon as they're, they're ready, Woolies is like perfect, you know, we'll get you in our shelves and we'll also help you get into our competitive shelves as well.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah, well, I've heard it's pretty bloody hard to get on a supermarket shelf, so I'd say this is a bit of a fast track.

Gemma Clancy: Maybe it comes in at the expense of giving away some of your equity to, to Woolworths essentially by, by extension of the accelerator program. But it's, um, yeah, I mean, I think if you were thinking of starting a product like this, and especially if you'd never done it before, it sounds like a pretty good program to go through compared to maybe others are a bit broader.

Will Richards: Willys is pretty like surprisingly, like maybe we just hear about it more, but like Willys compared to I suppose the other supermarket in Australia, like Willys has their own venture fund. They're doing these sort of direct investments. Like I'd be really keen to explore like is, Is Coles doing similar stuff that we just don't hear about it and they don't market it or does Coles focus on innovation internally and maybe doesn't have as much of an external focus as Wool Ease?

Will Richards: It's quite interesting like we do hear about Wool Ease doing this sort of stuff way more than Coles.

Will Richards: Mm. Mm.

Gemma Clancy: Yes, my impression? Um, is that Woolies is a little bit more technologically advanced in general. Um, uh, so yeah, I think that that's probably represented from this outside kind of activity that they're doing.

Gemma Clancy: And I, I mean, I am a Woolies person when it comes to Woolies over Coles. I don't know about you. Well, you Woolies or Coles, or you kind of, do you go to some fancy independent grocer?

Will Richards: Why do you think I go to some fancy independent grocer? I'm a Costco boy. It's

Gemma Clancy: just a vibe. Oh, true, actually. Costco. Are you an Audi person?

Will Richards: Yeah, I don't mind. I'm a, I'm a also a fan of the, I do use the Woolies Unlimited, um, delivery service as well. I find that, that absolutely fantastic to get stuff just sent across, um, you know, schedule it the night before and it arrives, you know, before you wake up, it's pretty fantastic.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah, we're big home delivery people.

Gemma Clancy: So I think that's why I think, uh, Woolies is tech is a lot better than Coles because we've tried both out extensively and Woolies is, um, by far better. Far better on that front.

Will Richards: Okay. This isn't, this isn't the Woolies podcast. Onto the next, the next, the next one, which I think is really exciting is, is a new main sequence.

Will Richards: Um, I wouldn't say it's like really a fund. I think it's just more of an initiative, but they've definitely budgeted, um, some money for this new initiative, which will be led by. Uh, Grace Bird, who was previously a senior director at Breakthrough Victoria for a few years, um, and has worked at a few big Australian companies as well.

Will Richards: And this initiative is called Atmosphere.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah, they're calling it a platform. I think it's, you know, because you've got to figure out what to call these things. Yeah. Is it an accelerator? Is it a fund? Is it an incubator? And, um, they're, they're structuring it slightly different. Differently to a typical incubator program or accelerator, which usually has cohorts kind of go through.

Gemma Clancy: You take an intake of like anywhere from depending on how big the program is from like maybe 10 to up to even like 50 odd startups and founders, and then they go through a cohort based program, taking them through. This is what we do. Accounting is all about and for startups and their marketing and things like that.

Gemma Clancy: Whereas these guys there, how they're running atmosphere sounds like it's, it's a lot more customized and curated per startup. So they say, what do you need? And then give them that advice.

Will Richards: Exactly. It's not, yeah, there's no cohorts in this continuous running initiative. So, um, if there's a piece of, it's really focused on.

Will Richards: Bringing research out of universities and helping them become, you know, venture backable businesses. So you obviously need the research, you need the people to, to make that happen. And then Atmosphere really there is to, to support that, but it's, it's really on a, on the basis of when it needs to happen and, and when there's an interesting initiative to, to jump in and offering that support it basically a la carte.

Will Richards: So, um, yeah, cool to say this, this kickoff.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah, yeah, pretty much anything I think that gets funding from main sequence is usually pretty incredible to learn about usually something you've never heard of before, never thought about before. Um, if you're not aware and you listen to this, you're like, who the hell is main sequence?

Gemma Clancy: Main sequence is the VC that sits under the CSIRO. So the government funds the CSIRO and then, um, and then main sequence also like kind of invests in these more commercial operations and they try to bridge that gap between research and commercialization. So some of the money that. The government's invested, carved out about 150 million to go towards the CSIRO recently.

Gemma Clancy: Um, some of that money will go towards this new program. So getting out of the new funds realm and, um, into something quite different. There was some news out this week that's not necessarily directly startup relevant, but it's, it kind of, it makes it into our headlines because it's been founded by one of, um, the biggest names in VC in Australia, Paul Bassett.

Gemma Clancy: Stool walls, definitely. Paul Buzzard, um, is, uh, was a partner, founder of, of SquarePeg.

Will Richards: Yeah, he's, he's, um, his description on the website is founder of SquarePeg, which I think is very true, like he is the founder, partner, I think he's The top dog, essentially, of SquarePay, but he was also co founder of Seek as well.

Will Richards: Um, yeah. And yeah.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah. So Paul Bassett has launched, um, this initiative called Amplify. It's not a business, it's not a VC fund. It's essentially a not for profit, um, and like a community based organization that is all about kind of bringing people together to have conversations about the future of Australia and what they want to see happen and kind of, I guess, the information that they want to get to decision makers around the future.

Gemma Clancy: Of, um, I guess how this country should run. Uh, I guess when I first heard about it, what was your first impression when you heard, um, this, I'm interested in your first like thoughts before you started looking into it, what did you think?

Will Richards: I, I think it's like, if, if I was a extremely wealthy, you know, person, I wanted to have influence on, uh, modern democracy, I think this is, this is a really nice way of, of attempting to do that.

Will Richards: And I think the, maybe the incentives are all, you know, I think the idea of it is really interesting and quite pure. Compared to, let's say, Elon Musk, you know, buying or X and, you know, now my whole feed is completely one sided. I think the idea of it is really nice. Maybe when I jumped onto the platform and sort of logged in and had a look at the conversation, I was probably a little bit like, Oh, I'm not really sure what's supposed to be happening right now, but I think it's really early days.

Will Richards: And they, they do do a lot of, they have a lot of talk around live events and, hosting conversations that people can attend and participate in. Um, so it's sort of hard to get a sense of how much of this is going to sit online and how much it's going to sit offline.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah. Yeah. It'd be interesting to see what happens.

Gemma Clancy: It was my brain kind of went straight to, um, kind of what's happening in the U S at the moment, when it comes to the interaction between VC and people in tech and What's happening with the US election over there. And I started to think, Oh, is this Australia starting to do a little bit more of a, an American approach to democracy where we have people in business and people VC getting involved.

Gemma Clancy: And then, um, uh, cause I think that's just on the brain at the moment, obviously with everything that's happening, it's like half my newsfeed. Um, but then when I started to look into it a bit more, it's certainly not, Anything really like that, at least, um, from what I can tell so far, like, so they, they're, they're very, very keen to kind of say that it's a very bipartisan, um, initiative.

Gemma Clancy: When you look at the people on the board, they actually have, um, Don Perrottet on there. So the ex, um, New South Wales Premier, as well as a ex, um, Queensland state. Um, minister on there, Kate Jones. And when you start to look at the composition of the board, certainly you get a sense that there's a balance of political views in there.

Gemma Clancy: Um, so yeah, my first impression was, Oh, this is interesting. Like, are we kind of, um, like, where is this going to go? What are the kind of, you know, maybe it's a bit of a cynical view, like what are the motivations behind this? But then when I started to dig in more, I was like, no, this is quite. I, you know, it certainly seems to come from quite pure intentions, which is, um, really cool to see and just interesting to see what they do with it.

Will Richards: Yeah. I think if you look at online social media and like the increase in polarization and that sort of stuff, like maybe having something like this will hopefully decrease that. But I just think like listening to people with opposing views, giving them the space, um, you know, having a, A very valuable like that can be a very valuable conversation, a very valuable thing to listen to.

Will Richards: And I do think that's kind of like if you're only on the algorithm as a young person right now, anyone like you only really see a certain type of, you just get pushed into a certain direction. So having these like platforms, like whether it was like Talkback Radio back in the day where everyone kind of listened to the same conversations and, and they were able to have that balance.

Will Richards: You know, viewpoint, and there was an adjudicator and lots of stuff like that's definitely no longer the main way a lot of people consume information. So hopefully this can sort of help push us back into a direction of like, let's have valuable discussions around these key issues.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah. Given the slant of the people in the founding kind of team or the people on the board right now, um, towards tech, I'm really interested to see how they try and use tech to, um, Build out this platform.

Gemma Clancy: One of the main challenges I think they're going to face is like actually attracting like a diverse range of people to the platform. And then like, kind of, it seems like surveys and polls are quite a big component of the platform right now. So it'd be interesting to see how do they like first launch that kind of very grassroots style research and then what do they do with those insights?

Gemma Clancy: Like, are they going to involve AI in this? What are they going to do? Yeah, I would be kind of surprised if it didn't take. A slightly more like tech savvy route, um, as it moves forward.

Will Richards: I think definitely. And I think hopefully what we see is some really, you know, because you do need the numbers for this to really be effective.

Will Richards: And like I logged onto the platform and, you know, some of the top posts weren't exactly, you know, flying with, with comments. So I, I think it's just going to be a slow build, you know, the type of person that engages with these sorts of things, you know, are they representative of, of an everyday Australian who knows?

Will Richards: Um, it's, yeah, it's an interesting one, definitely one to watch. I think it's. You know, maybe we can get Paul on, on the show one day and ask him some questions about how it's all going and where he wants to take it.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah, that'd be cool.

Will Richards: I'm sure he listens. Yeah,

Gemma Clancy: I'm sure he listens to it.

Will Richards: And the final interesting headline is quite topical because of a raise we covered a few weeks ago, which was Cuttable.

Will Richards: And one of the key founders of that business was a gentleman called Sam Kronenberg. And he was the co founder of a, one of Australia's darlings that sold to, um, Cuttable. another business called Plurisight back in 2021 for around 2 billion. So quite a successful exit for the people involved at that stage.

Will Richards: But Plurisight went private a few years or a year earlier with a big contribution from Australian Super, which is sort of Australia's biggest super fund. Um, and essentially what's happened, and this is just really a case of, or maybe an example of how challenging the environment is right now, but they've written that whole investment off.

Will Richards: And that was a business that was at one point worth over 5 billion USD and that's now completely written off to zero.

Gemma Clancy: So what does that mean? Like if somebody's listened to this and they're like, what does that mean they've written it off? Like is the business dead? Like why would they, why would the, have they decided that?

Gemma Clancy: Yeah. Like they've essentially decided that investment's dead. Like worthless, right? Is that, is that what they're saying? Is that fair enough?

Will Richards: So yeah, the best way to explain a markdown really isn't, it really becomes apparent in the private business valuation world. Because I think when you have a listed business, you can obviously see it's market cap reported, you know, Every day or every minute, um, every second essentially.

Will Richards: But when you're in the private world of investment, you have to obviously audit your, um, or get your results ordered or report your investments back to whoever it is, your LPs, your board, um, those sorts of things. And, and those investments are marked, um, at, you know, Throughout time, whether it's, you know, and investment firms have different cadences of which they do this, and I'm sure Australian super has, um, their own way of doing these sorts of things in their own cadence.

Gemma Clancy: It's like they're aware of assessing, like, how much is, are these investments worth given it's not reported on a regular basis? Yeah,

Will Richards: exactly, exactly in due to whatever reason. And I think what's happened here is due to the rising cost of inflation, I'm assuming customer demand has also dropped off as well.

Will Richards: Um, and potentially they've got some, some debt as well. Basically Australian super has looked at this. investment that they've got and sort of said, this isn't going to go anywhere and it's not going to grow. And, um, potentially it's, you know, Maybe not in administration, but we just don't think it's actually worth anything at this stage.

Will Richards: So they basically tell their, um, their LPs and their investors that, um, this investment, which they poured a fair bit of money into a few years ago is now worth zero.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah. Wow. Thanks for the explanation. That makes a lot of sense. And looking at what Pluralsight does, you do kind of wonder whether it's just a really crowded space and it's actually like a quiet, maybe quiet.

Gemma Clancy: Difficult for them to, to grow into a really big business. It's kind of, I mean, looking at their website, they talk about, um, essentially helping people develop critical tech skills. And a cloud guru was focused on, um, cloud computing skills, developing deep cloud expertise, you do kind of wonder whether like.

Gemma Clancy: There's just too much, um, competition for a company like that these days.

Will Richards: Potentially. Yeah.

Gemma Clancy: With the rise of so many other similar kind of platforms.

Will Richards: Yeah. Maybe, maybe they're all their margins being competed away by, by competitors. I, I think the broader story probably is, is, you know, this is a business that was, well, I think a cloud grew is obviously.

Will Richards: One part of the Australian story here, but then Australian super is also the other Australian story here as well. But a cloud guru is a business that, you know, the founders, they're sold at basically the best time for them. Um, so they, they really orchestrated that deal and got a fantastic result. And it's really exciting to see them starting new businesses in Australia, new startups in Australia and raising capital and, and doing some interesting stuff.

Will Richards: So it's good to see that that flywheel is continuing the broader concern, I think with Australian super. Is, you know, they're an LP in a lot of VC funds here in Australia and writing off 1. 1 billion is awesome. A lot of money. Like there's, there's no two ways about it. That's a lot of money. So the investment committee at Australian super or the board or, you know, even let's be honest, like people who, um, you know, users of Australian super their customers may start asking questions around, you know, is investing in private technology companies really the best use of my capital and our capital.

Will Richards: And if you're a VC here in Australia or another VC that Australian super invests in, You know, you might be a little bit nervous around, are they going to have the appetite to keep dipping their toes into Australian startups, basically.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah, that's a really good point. I think it's, it can't, can't help, like, but affect sentiment to an extent you would imagine, but, um, hopefully we're wrong.

Will Richards: But that's, I think it's just, it's just an example of like how the markets changed so much in the last few years. Like people were really riding that high in 2021, 2022, and now it's really, really challenging. And it doesn't matter if you're a small business. Basically, a public company that was taken private at one point worth five billion, like it is hard out there.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah, definitely.

Will Richards: All right, Gemma, let's get stuck into our favorite startup raises this week. And to be honest, it was actually a very busy week for startup raises as well. It wasn't just the funds that were kicking off this week. It was also startups announcing that they've got some fresh cash. So, who was your pick of the week?

Gemma Clancy: Yeah, my pick this week was a company called why hive and they raised, um, a 600 K round and it sounds like a small round, but it's like, actually such a cool, cool, um, startup that I, I think it's, it's definitely worth everyone checking out. Like, pretty much, I think anyone listening to this podcast could use this tool.

Gemma Clancy: And I think that that's probably reflective of the market opportunity, the opportunity that they're facing and, um, from what the founders have said, that, that, that is, um, a. Big reason why people did invest. So the round was led by Scalata Ventures and backed by Culture Amps, John Williams, Linktrees, Alex Zachariah, and Artbanks, John Pym.

Gemma Clancy: So as, as well as a range of probably other angels as well, but they're kind of the headline ones because they have quite Well known and respected in the startup ecosystem, um, investing alongside Scalata. Um, essentially what YHive does is that it's, that they've taken inspiration for the likes of like Canva and Miro, and they want to democratize data, um, analysis and make it feel actually more fun rather than like, really, it's like, I think most people hear data analysis and unless you're a real data nerd, The actual process of setting up a spreadsheet, looking and like turning into something that you can use.

Gemma Clancy: Um, I would say most people are more interested in the insights than they are in the process of getting the insights. Um, and that is exactly what YHive is kind of trying to solve is like make that whole process. A lot easier, a lot more accessible to anyone, regardless of what your background in data is.

Gemma Clancy: Um, so you can get to those insights really fast and you can then share those insights with anyone um, really easily in the same way that you could just jump into Canva and whether you're a designer or not, you can make a design and you can ship it and share it, um, really quickly. So yeah, I spent some quite some time just playing around in the, um, YHive platform.

Gemma Clancy: Platform watching their demos, um, looking at some of their example spreadsheets. And, um, I'm super excited. Like I want to jump in there and figure out what data I want to put in there, which is kind of weird, right? Like that's unheard of.

Will Richards: I've, I've definitely heard a few investors sort of say. You can look at every way people use Excel spreadsheets, um, for their particular, like problem set.

Will Richards: And it could be something like people use Excel for thousands, millions of different reasons. And basically each one of those can be its own business for people who basically don't want to use Excel to solve that problem. And I think this is like the, basically the global example of like, well, Excel is used for a lot of data analysis and a lot of people just hate doing that.

Will Richards: So let's make it super easy.

Gemma Clancy: I do think regularly, and I think I was even just saying to my husband last week, like the fact that we're still using Excel for so many kind of crucial tasks, like, like so many people in kind of desk based jobs are using Excel, at least on a weekly basis, probably, and the fact that It's still so inaccessible to use.

Gemma Clancy: Like I have to look up formulas every time, like I want to do something slightly more complicated than a sum. And it's just, it's just mind blowing. So I do genuinely think that in,

Will Richards: you

Gemma Clancy: know, only a few years time, especially with AI now that, um, which, which this tool, um, is already using to do things like, um, uh, say sentiment analysis and tag different, say, survey results based on, um, Um, sentiment of, of qualitative responses.

Gemma Clancy: Um, like this is, this is the future, you know, when you say a tool and you're like, okay, this is the future, this is going to be the thing that everyone's using, um, that's, that was my reaction to this. So, um, I think, um, they were probably quite strategic about how much they decided to raise the size of the raise.

Gemma Clancy: I don't think is the reflection of the size of the opportunity or the quality of the product is incredible.

Will Richards: I think that just the. Setting up a spreadsheet, you know, trying to clean your data. Like it does all that really, really boring, shitty stuff. And just, and you get the results super quick and it, and it's kind of like, Oh, and then you can play around with exactly how you want to spit it out.

Will Richards: But for stuff like, you know, just a quick, you know, just dumping survey results or dumping like, Oh, here's some customer feedback or some just product data from whatever channel you get a result within, you know, Seconds. Like it's, it's fantastic.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah, it's really cool. So, um, yeah. So like the other interesting thing was that the founders then use their own platform to share data about their race.

Gemma Clancy: So they kind of, they didn't necessarily say who they spoke to as part of their race, but they released all the, all the data behind it. So. Um, how many people did they speak to? What percentage of them passed? Which ones invested? Which ones did they pass down? Um, and then also talked about like how long it took to, to close and like kind of how many meetings I had on average.

Gemma Clancy: And then also the reasons behind some. People investing and not investing, and this is pretty unheard of, like, you kind of hear this data anecdotally from founders, maybe after the raise. Yeah, we got most of the people towards the end. And, um, we, I had to speak to 500 founders, like investors, all these kinds of things, but it's really cool that these guys decided that They wanted to put the data out on, you know, public display so that other people can learn from it.

Gemma Clancy: And, um, I think it probably speaks to the fact that both of the founders, T. Guthrie and Matt Cohen, they come from social enterprise background. I think that they're going to be, you know, given their background, they're probably going to be looking at how can you use the platform in a really positive impact way.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah, I have to do a shout out to T actually, because. Um, they've been really instrumental in the background, uh, on the funding, the balance initiative that we've been running, which is all about highlighting the data that, uh, highlights the gap in terms of, uh, allocation of funds by gender. And, you know, obviously this is kind of, uh, also a platform that's going to help share data like that more easily.

Gemma Clancy: And I think that's a really great example of how data can actually be a really, really positive, um, force for change. So. Yeah, I'm just like super excited for this team. I wish I could have invested now, like now, now kind of like seeing it and also seeing the investing team. I kind of like want to be in the room, but, um, maybe in a future round and if I have more money,

Will Richards: do you think, are we able to share that, um, the funding data analysis that they, that they shared publicly in the show notes and on the newsletter this week?

Gemma Clancy: Yeah, yeah, definitely. So all you have to do is sign up for Y Hive. Um, I'm going to sound like an ad now. But you have to sign up for Y Hive. It's free to have an account. And then you can just jump in and it's really easy to find the example spreadsheets that they've got.

Will Richards: Oh, so it's, it's in their platform.

Will Richards: Yeah, it's in their platform. And then you can jump in and have a play. Oh, fantastic.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah. It's really cool.

Will Richards: I would love to chat to them about, maybe there's notes on it, but like why the investors that potentially were keen to invest and they were like, no, like just, just understanding that the idea of like why they went with certain investors and not others when the cash is pretty low.

Will Richards: Potentially the same is quite interesting. Like

Gemma Clancy: why, why, why have turned them down?

Will Richards: Yeah. Yeah.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah. Well, one of the reasons I think that it looked like that, um, when you look at the raw data, you can see you could filter by, um, who they pass down. And one of the key reasons I think is. Around values alignment and given their background in social enterprise.

Gemma Clancy: I'm not surprised. I'm not, I'm not saying that they had a meeting with someone, they thought they were a bad person or whatever, but obviously they just decided that they, they just want a good fit. Um, so that's an interesting one, but you can jump into the data and you can see those reasons, so you could filter by.

Gemma Clancy: Um, investor they spoke to who passed, who they decided to pass down and then look at the reasons. And you can also look at like, how were they introduced? How did they find them? All those kinds of things. So

Will Richards: this is fascinating. I've just jumped on. So they've got even like, how did we meet the investor?

Will Richards: And it's everything from, from warm introductions to cold email outreaches. And then like right in the column next to it, it's like, okay, how many meetings came off the back of. You know, that introduction and one is even like we want to pitch event at a, you know, a pitch fest or whatever. And we had three, three meetings off the back of that and it'll be so interesting to sort of see like how, you know, what's the most effective way of, of reaching out to investors here in Australia that actually like end up in successful investments that close.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, by far, the biggest, um, category of how they ended up speaking to an investor was warm intros.

Will Richards: Classic.

Gemma Clancy: I mean, I'm not surprised to me that it's like. Slightly concerning because you do kind of go, okay, well, you have to kind of be in and in the know to speak to an investor. I'm not surprised, but yeah, it's quite, it's quite interesting.

Will Richards: I think something like this, like they could easily get acquired by a Canva within like 12 months because the Canva spreadsheet stuff is just shit. And it completely, like, it just excludes people who work in finance really from using the tool at all because putting data in it sucks and it's really manual, but building nice.

Will Richards: Creative is, is like part of, like, you sort of, you need to do it. So if they can, if they can embed, like, you know, like what they've done with Leonardo, if they can embed a really interesting, like a really useful tool like this to then create, and then they do the creative, the beautiful graphic stuff on the other side, and then you can edit it all in Canva.

Will Richards: Like, that'd be really interesting.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah. Well, especially cause Canva is now doing their enterprise model and they're kind of getting into more docs and those kinds of things. They're actually almost like trying, Canva's almost trying to, um, replace like Google docs and like the Microsoft suite, like slowly, but slowly, slowly kind of edging into that space.

Gemma Clancy: So with this, this is like a design focused, almost like visual first approach to spreadsheeting. It makes a lot of sense for, for people. Okay, well, so, I mean, my, my startup was pretty cool. How, uh, how did you go? Are you going to beat me with, with yours?

Will Richards: Well, we love a live demo and unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to demonstrate what this startup does live on, on the podcast.

Will Richards: Um, but my startup, because I'm not at a farm. Uh, my startup of the week was a startup called Cropify and they harvested. I love that from, I think it was my company wrote the headline. They harvested a 2 million seed round. It's just so many puns that you can make with.

Gemma Clancy: So many puns. Agtech

Will Richards: startups.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah.

Will Richards: And what they really do is they're helping. Growers basically analyze the grains and the pulses which are edible seeds, um, of, of plants. So legumes that you, that you hear about. So dry beans, broad beans, chickpeas, cowpeas, those sorts of things. Basically as the tractor or the harvester is harvesting these things, um, the cameras that Cropify have will analyze that in real time super, super quickly and basically keep track of the quality of the stuff that's coming out of the ground.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah. Now I have to say I have a slight conflict of interest when it comes to this startup, cause I've actually worked with a different company that does a very similar thing. So, but what it does mean is that I can speak. A little bit about like my knowledge of grain grading, which is very, very niche and specific.

Gemma Clancy: I don't know why I've seemed to always have experience with this random, random, very niche, niche areas. But yeah, I was, I was blown away when I started learning about grain grading and like, it's how important it is for, for growers and the impact it has on kind of Uh, I guess how much they can charge for their grain and then like, um, how they market the product it's, it's huge.

Gemma Clancy: So like, say for example, you've got, um, like a grain from, um, that's like a wheat grain. If it's of a really high quality, they would be able to market it for completely different use cases to like a really, really low grade of grain.

Will Richards: Yeah. And like, it's all the way from this grain could be used for high end sourdough bread as a, as an example, or like really good bread.

Will Richards: Certain types of pasta. Um, and then on the lower end of the scale, it's like, this will be animal feed, um, for cattle, which is sort of the lowest quality. And it all comes down to, you know, what's the, what's the protein levels of, of, you know, what's in this. And, um, and they can basically use cameras now.

Will Richards: And this is exactly what the business is doing is, is using cameras to analyze this in real time, but it can really change the way. Farmers think about when's the exact time they actually want to harvest

Will Richards: their

Will Richards: produce. Um, and you know, is it, is it now or should we let it mature a little bit more and potentially the levels of the protein could come up and basically we just get more money per ton for the hard work we've done.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. And it's really cool to see that, um, an ag tech startup is getting support in Australia because ag tech is like so big here and just all like agriculture is obviously one of our biggest industries. Makes a lot of sense for. Aussies to be not just, you know, producing the food, being the food producers, but also being the ones to develop the tech that supports this industry.

Gemma Clancy: Um, and, and it's also a South Australian startup, which, um, is always nice for me as an Adelaidean to see. So I hope that they, um, can, yeah, like see more and more success in the future.

Will Richards: Yeah. I'll just quickly say, so the, the investors were, um, Mandalay venture partners and then Singapore based Hatcher plus, and those two, um, investment firms have come together for the first time.

Will Richards: Investing in the startup, but I think it's the start of, you know, we're going to see these two outfits investing quite a bit in Australian ag tech, which is really, really exciting.

Will Richards: So super excited to be joined by Gav Perry from CAST, the center of arts, sports, and technology. And Gav is also one of the writers of PulseCheck and he does every month, a really interesting section that Gem and I love reading because we learn so much about a sector that honestly we just don't know much about.

Will Richards: And I think it's, it's sort of a, A misconception maybe that investors and startup founders and people more broadly probably don't. really have a super strong opinion about what happens in the entertainment sector here in Australia and, and we are a bit of a powerhouse that sort of no one talks about.

Will Richards: So, really excited to bring you on the podcast for a quick interview about what you're doing at Cast and also what you're doing in the, in the entertainment sector. So, thanks Gav, thanks for joining us.

Gav Parry: Of course, well, lovely to chat in a more official sense than we usually do.

Will Richards: Yeah, often, often doing uh, Zoom video calls and, and chatting about all things, but um, good to make it official.

Will Richards: So, Gav, why don't you just touch on sort of what CAST is and why you got started?

Gav Parry: Yeah, I'll um, give my life story very quickly, but basically I've spent the last 10 plus years in the music industry as an artist, manager, founder, yeah, done a bunch of different things within as an artist and really got my head around the music industry.

Gav Parry: I jumped into startups after starting a platform called Your Favourite Team, which is helping artists navigate their career in the music industry during COVID. And through that, met with a few people who got me into work at Innovation Bay with Faden Nian, which is awesome and a great, great bunch of people.

Gav Parry: And from there, then went into work at Entain, which is a global entertainment company. And I was heading up their innovation arm here in Australia called Innovate. Through that, I got to chat with some really interesting startups, but the biggest thing that stood out is that startups don't know how to sell to corporates and corporates actually don't know how to engage with startups.

Gav Parry: So Especially within entertainment, we were really focused on venues, but when my role finished up there, I started to see there's a much wider issue with entertainment, and that the people that the startups need to chat to, and connect with, and sell to, they just don't have a line to, and spend a lot of time trying to get those connections.

Gav Parry: So, Cast was very much born out of the need to connect the builders and buyers within the entertainment industry, and from, from there really, the thing that's hit the nail, I guess, with timing wise, is just being. The change in the creative economy at the moment, whether you're an artist, um, visual music, the live music inquiry, and a bunch of things going on.

Gav Parry: There's a real change happening, and we feel it's an important time to be putting investing in entertainment, the entertainment industry in general, front and center. So people start considering it as a more viable investment, I guess, category, we call it. So yeah, I think that's probably the main reason CAST is around, and really now it's about a membership organization.

Gav Parry: Well, it's a membership organization, rather. And over the next, you know, couple of years, especially leading up to the Olympics and Paralympics, we're really growing our footprint and getting more and more startups on the platform so people can discover them.

Will Richards: Yeah. I'd love to touch on the why now, obviously the entertainment industry went through a difficult time in COVID with a lot of venues shutting down in that, in that quite turbulent period.

Will Richards: And you mentioned there like there's technology change and this sort of shift to creator. Is, is that the, is there any other reasons or could you touch on maybe why those are the catalyst to the, the why now of starting this?

Gav Parry: Totally. Uh, so we know, especially now when you look at, um, how much, again, we'll just touch on the music industry is a good example.

Gav Parry: Venues COVID. Uh, consumer behaviors are really changing within entertainment and you kind of mentioned off the top no one thinks about entertainment, but it touches on everyone's lives every day. And it's almost like we expect it to be there. A lot of time you expect it for cheap or, you know, free. Uh, and there needs to be a value change in the way that we view entertainment.

Gav Parry: Entertainment is a category, uh, from sports across everywhere that you go to experience entertainment in venues. Uh, and I think without that understanding of where things are going and that changing consumer behavior in terms of what customers actually want or fans really want is what we talk to, the industry is going to be left behind and it's going to be, again, it's very top heavy at the moment, but it's going to become more and more so, um, which is really what we're trying to, uh, Avoid, I guess, is making sure it can be really distributed.

Gav Parry: You know, if you're a fan of a certain niche and we're seeing those examples on YouTube now, you can make a great living from that. But how do we make sure that is more accessible to a bunch more people? That's kind of why we think now is a really important time.

Will Richards: It's an interesting point. And I think you've got a cool dynamic of potentially how you're, how you're finding those new talents coming, coming up.

Will Richards: And that's the Triple J unearthed sort of strategy. Could you maybe talk about what, like how cast sort of replicates what Triple J does to discover new artists and new creators and new founders?

Gav Parry: I do. I do feel that I completely ripped it off. So my journey out there, it's in the name. It is in the name.

Gav Parry: But as an artist myself, our first song got discovered on Triple J on Earth. We got played within two weeks of uploading it and kind of has laid out my entire career. I know how important discovery is in the music industry and it's exactly the same in innovation. So, no difference to the way Triple J has competitions where you win a spot on Splendor, like when it's on, or another one of their events that they run, um, or partner with the festivals to run.

Gav Parry: We want to do the same thing. So, through our events, we'll give, you know, Startups and scale ups, the opportunity to showcase today's events. Uh, we're going to, in the new year, we're going to be launching quarterly grants as a way to attract more and more, I guess, startups into the space. So, we do think that, I mean, you just look at all the great acts who have broken in Australia, 90 plus percent of them have come through Triple Down Earth, and we think the same.

Gav Parry: The same can happen within entertainment. So yeah, literally just flogging a great idea.

Will Richards: Very good. And the team that's sort of around the cast board, well, sorry, the board of cast is really impressive. Um, I would love for you to explain sort of who's jumping on board and maybe the, the groups that they represent and why they're all interested in being part of this association.

Gav Parry: I guess it's the first time I've been able to have a project where I've met a lot of great people on my, okay. Journey in startup and music and I guess the entertainment industry more broadly, and I've been able to bring them around a goal that we're trying to achieve and really that shared vision. So Ella Petit, who's joined us, um, marketing and, um, Um, membership manager.

Gav Parry: Ella has spent 15 years in the music industry at Mushroom before jumping into Innovation Bay, um, and working and really understanding both sides of the entertainment and tech space. On the marketing angle is great. Joel Edmondson, um, on the advisory board, who's the CEO of the VMA, so the Venue Managers Association of Australia, um, and that's H Specific.

Gav Parry: Uh, he actually employed me when I was at Q Music and Big Sound and Joel and I stayed in touch over the years. Just sharing our love of arts, um, music, and really knowing how the importance that plays in every everyday life. So Joel on the music side, Nicole Kelly, who's had 25 years in the, in government across innovation, sport, and arts.

Gav Parry: So Nicole can bring a wealth, well brings a wealth knowledge for us to better understand how to navigate the government space. Cause obviously when we're setting up an organization like this, Interaction with the government is super important. Uh, and finally, uh, Brad Moran, who I actually met at a start up event four years ago, and heard him talk about his journey and just how tough it was.

Gav Parry: Brad and I started to do some work together and really, I love Brad's story as an athlete and professional AFL football player, who then has gone on to do incredible things off the field. And obviously, really, that time he spent as an athlete really shaped his future and set him up for everything he did.

Gav Parry: So, yeah, having Brad on the athlete side and someone who's probably, I mean, arguably one of the most successful athletes in Australia off the field is incredible. And, you know, the wealth of knowledge he brings in building huge tech platforms that can be acquired is incredible. Awesome for the community.

Gav Parry: So yeah, it's a really interesting group of people. And finally Alan Smith, who's knows pretty much everyone across recruiting, um, especially within the creative space. So yeah, interesting bunch, but all really love entertainment and the role it plays in our everyday lives.

Will Richards: Yeah. It sounds like a really well rounded board for this particular problem set.

Will Richards: Like you've got sports, music, venues, um, government relations, and obviously the people factor all covered. It

Gav Parry: was a fluke.

Will Richards: Yeah, sometimes things just come

Gav Parry: together, which is great, but it looks like I'm a genius. So I'm also happy to claim that it's been really well planned out.

Will Richards: Of course, of course. I'd love to maybe end the conversation with, um, with who should get involved right now and sort of what Cast is looking for from the startup community.

Will Richards: So whether it's investors or founders, you know, why should they engage with Cast and what can you help them with?

Gav Parry: Of course. So probably the biggest thing at the moment is. The amount of conversation I've had with music organizations, um, entertainment organizations, people who really are at the heart of the industry and want to, I guess, evolve and see those new products, uh, they don't have a place to go at the moment to find them.

Gav Parry: So if you're a startup working across venues, stadiums, festivals, conferences, uh, something to do with the fans, you know, it can be within Web3, it can be gaming. I'd love to hear from you. Uh, we just think the more visibility. The more people actually see the stuff happening within the entertainment and fantech space, we call it, is what's going to make this more and more successful and attract the investment and eyeballs that we need.

Gav Parry: So I'd love to chat to any founder who's in that space. So hit me up, get me on LinkedIn. Uh, love to talk. On the investor side, I think this is, it just comes down to education. And our job really is to go, Hey, check out all the cool startups that are here that are doing really great stuff. I had an interesting message exchange yesterday with the founder who, when they were raising their round, they actually are within entertainment and they went to a lot of entertainment VCs and actually found the bar to get investment from them was far higher.

Gav Parry: So, there's almost a bit of a hesitation to invest in entertainment because it is really top heavy and it's really hard to find those pathways from, I've got an idea, I've got customers, to how to get it to a billion dollar business. The entertainment industry unfortunately fights a lot of innovation, so I think there's this part where we've really got to work on, um, Trying to find those clear pathways to get a good product into the customer's hands to get them buying it so it can scale and find those pathways a lot quicker to attract more investment.

Gav Parry: So if you're an investor that just loves entertainment and would kind of really be keen to be across what we're working on and obviously that flow of all the triple jane earth of the startup ecosystem and see those startups that are coming through, I'd love to chat as well. And more broadly, Anyone who just loves entertainment and uses it and listens to it and watches it every single day.

Gav Parry: The more people we can have supporting what we're doing, the better and stronger, uh, industry that we create and we can enjoy what we love for years and years to come, which at the moment I think is the most important thing, which I don't know many people are going to argue with that. So.

Will Richards: Fantastic. I think when you ask the question, anyone who's, who enjoys entertainment, like.

Will Richards: I

Gav Parry: should, I should be getting like a million emails.

Will Richards: Are you not entertained?

Gav Parry: So, thanks dude. And I think the thing that, um, you know, has been really great with, you know, writing for PulseCheck as well is exactly what you spoke to off the top is that it's not something, it's not something people think about.

Gav Parry: And I think the more that we can start to get it front and center and get people starting to talk through an idea that they may have someone they've met, who is interested in solving a problem and we can help kind of be that home base for them as cast. That's really what we're trying to do. Um, so yeah, thank you so much for having a chat.

Gav Parry: Um, hopefully I didn't waffle too much.

Will Richards: That was a very good yarn. Thanks for jumping on Gav and I'm sure there'll be a few people reaching out to learn more.

Gav Parry: Legend. Thanks, dude.

Will Richards: All right, Gem, let's jump into our CAS of the week, which is of course, knowledge as a service, where we share our favorite startup relevant read, listen, or watch. What was your pick of the week?

Gemma Clancy: Yeah, my pick of the week this week is another podcast series. So anyone listening to this is probably, probably a podcast fan.

Gemma Clancy: So I thought that our listeners would enjoy it. Um, it's Crucible Moments from Sequoia Capital and they are launching their, well, they have launched their second season of the podcast series. Um, the last one, I think it came out in last year in 2023. And I think I actually included it as my cast in the newsletter back then.

Gemma Clancy: And yeah, the first episode that's out now is interviewing the founders of ServiceNow. And then some of the other episodes that they've teased are with the founders of YouTube, DoorDash, Dropbox and Reddit. So, you know, just like a slightly star studded interview lineup. Um, it's pretty cool. And it's hosted by the managing partner of Sequoia Capital, um, Roloff Botha.

Gemma Clancy: So, um, pretty cool, interesting conversations to be had, I'm sure. So yeah, If, if you've got any long drives ahead of you or like me, I've got some long flights ahead of me, I think, um, might be listening to that one and, and feeling maybe a slight, uh, element of imposter syndrome, or maybe relief that I have not had to go through the ups and downs of some building such big, um, big startups.

Gemma Clancy: Are

Will Richards: you going to go to Italy and listen to venture investing startup podcasts on the, on the way?

Gemma Clancy: Uh, I'm in two minds as to whether It's a good way to switch

Will Richards: off.

Gemma Clancy: I know. It's one of those things where, you know, I am genuinely interested in it, but as soon as I get into it, um, uh, you know, it feels a little bit too close to work.

Gemma Clancy: So we'll see. We'll see how I'm feeling about it. Maybe it'll be like getting my head back into work mode on the flight home, which I might need, uh, given it's such a long flight back from Europe, but, um, yeah, it's a good, good podcast. Definitely recommend a listen. What was your pick this week, Will?

Will Richards: My pick this week was a OpenVC blog called VC Scams.

Will Richards: And really what it is, is 13 examples of the way, um, let's say, uh, not the best actors in ecosystems can potentially take advantage of founders. Um, and basically just red flags to look out for, um, in conversations, especially at the, I think the, Really early stages, but yeah, just maybe certain things that that investors do or say that, um, probably raise an eyebrow, um, and should look out for and probably just walk away.

Will Richards: If you sort of say these sorts of things,

Gemma Clancy: yeah, such a clickbait headline, VZ scans. I said,

Will Richards: yeah, I know. I know it drew me, read

Gemma Clancy: it. It drew

Will Richards: me in.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah, but it's good. I mean, it's good that somebody is letting founders know about this stuff. I mean, for me. Capital raising is such a ridiculously long and um, arduous process.

Gemma Clancy: The fact that somebody would go through that process and then realize that they haven't actually got a good deal is um, pretty heartbreaking. So yeah, it's pretty cool. Is OpenVC's um, US based I assume?

Will Richards: Yeah, it is. But I, but I think these, these scams are sort of things that you kind of hear.

Gemma Clancy: Yes. Yeah.

Will Richards: Across the, across the globe. Like they're not necessarily, like I think we've, we've all heard Of, you know, certain people trying to get equity super early or, or angel investors, maybe not. playing by, um, the wholesomeness of rules. So, um, yeah, it's, it's just a good read for, especially, I think one to send any founder who's really maybe going for their first capital raise just to, just a heads up of like, Hey, just look out for these sorts of things.

Will Richards: I think that the biggest one is probably more around just like not wasting time. Like if you sort of see these things, it's probably just like, Oh, like it's not worth really dealing with this person and going through the whole process with them. Because at the end of it, if they've spoken around. you know, about it in a certain way, you're probably going to know at the end of it, like They're going to offer you a crappy deal, or you're going to come out the back of it worse off.

Will Richards: So,

Gemma Clancy: yeah, well, going back to that, the conversation about why Hive and they're, them releasing their data, you can certainly see what maybe was normal for them, um, from that data and also see that, um, there's a lot of different reasons why VCs will turn you down, but also that you can turn VCs down if you don't feel like it's a good fit.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah. Yeah. I can see this is a great article. Open VC always. It has some accessible, you know, tone of voice and language and I love the GIFs and I've just scrolled down and spotted a Peaky Blinders GIF.

Will Richards: Yeah. It's good.

Gemma Clancy: I'm late to the Peaky Blinders, um, uh, train. I'm just watching it now, like I'm in season two.

Gemma Clancy: So, but you know, it kind of resonates the whole, uh, Peaky Blinders corruption, uh, and scams.

Will Richards: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Gemma Clancy: Very good GIF selection.

Will Richards: Yeah. Maybe. Is it, is it good to call out a couple of examples from.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah. Let's go for it. What was, what was the one that surprised you the most?

Will Richards: Well, I think, maybe not surprised me, but I think the, the biggest call out is definitely like the angel investor or angel advisor, who's happy to, you know, tip some cash into your startup, but then wants to be paid a certain amount to be an advisor throughout the journey.

Will Richards: And you know, over the course of a year or 18 months, basically they end up with equity in your business and the original, you know, 30, 40 grand they put in, you've now paid them back more than that. So they're sitting there very happy being paid the whole way. And you're going, Oh God, I didn't get much out of this.

Will Richards: I think the most surprising one following on maybe your comments around why Hive is, is scam number 11, which is the crazy good deal. And it's actually quite interesting here because you might feel like, oh my God, this is like, this deal is fantastic. But what they're sort of saying is sometimes when the investor is offering, offering you more cash than you actually need, um, the valuations higher, um, you're going to retain more equity.

Will Richards: It's like, it's a fantastic deal, but the long term, outcome of that is potentially your next valuation will be even harder to raise. So you're exposed of the risk of a down round and then VCs protect themselves in this process through liquidation preferences. So if you're, you know, if you're not savvy about this and you feel really ecstatic about your evaluation at this earlier round, potentially the longer term outcome is basically the, the original VC can take advantage and, and, and grab it a heap of liquid preferences on that down round, which is, um, yeah, not a good outcome.

Gemma Clancy: Yeah, yeah. No, it's a great article. I think it's a good one for anyone to read, but particularly obviously people who are raising right now. And um, yeah, we'll put it in the show notes.

Gemma Clancy: Thanks for joining us for this episode of the startup retro. We would love to hear what you thought of the show. So feel free to reach out to us directly on LinkedIn or even better. You can follow us on your favorite podcast player and leave us a review so that more people can find us. And if you enjoy the podcast, you'll probably also really enjoy our weekly newsletter overnight success, which goes into even more detail on the news, headlines and startup raises and much, much more.

Gemma Clancy: You can subscribe to the newsletter at overnightsuccess. vc. Catch you next week.

Will Richards: Catch you next week.