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Hey Startmate Fam,

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Slight change in tact - story time is in the GOOD of the GBU.

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What’s coming up at Startmate?

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We’re in the swing of things with all our founder programs - LaunchClub (validate problem), Buildmate (build along founders) and the Accelerator.

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All other initiatives are about to kick off with the Women Fellowship (get into startups), Ladymate Collective (women in startups), Ladymates Leadership (startup leaders), First Believers (angel investors), Student Fellowship and our new Engineers Collective (engineers in startups).

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🙏 Asks

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REFER your friend to any of the above Startmate programs - HERE

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Women Fellowship Coaching - want to help build a more diverse startup ecosystem? Join us to coach the next Women Fellowship (14 Oct - 6 December) > find out more & apply HERE

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Programs - applications are open for:

• Women Fellowship - here (by 15 Sept) - get a job in a startup!
• Ladymates Collective - here (by 9 Sept) - are you already in a startup? surround yourself with peers.

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🚀 GREAT alumni news

• 11 Winter24 Accelerator companies announced - StartupDaily
• Bugcrowd finishes largest quarter in its history - here
• Sitemate (Startmate alumni) acquires Nomad Fleet (Startmate alumni) - Forbes, Capital Brief, StartupDaily
• Great Wrap, Jigspace and Kiwifibre in Forbes Asia Top 100

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😀 Good

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Two main themes here:

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1/ Focus: clear Founder and Investment Pathways

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Our focus this year has been to reduce the hurdles founders face from starting to scaling their company. 

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Up until now we had a disconnected of thousands of fellows coming through our operator programs, where many wanted to start companies rather than work in a startup, but we could help and invest in them through the Accelerator. So we lost our community in the most critical and lonely part of starting a company.

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The Good: Now, you can do the entire exploration and founding journey with Startmate.

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You start exploring with the Student or Women Fellowship whether you want to work or found a startup.

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You validate your customers’ problem in LaunchClub.

You build alongside founders in Buildmate. 

You get customers and fundraise in the Accelerator.

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And we’ve seen the first few companies make the move through the programs in that sequence.

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Story: Lyrebird Health

The perfect example of this at work is the Lyrebird Health team.

1. Student Fellowship: met during the program, won the Founders Challenge towards the end
2. LaunchClub: won their free spot into LaunchClub and launched the company
3. Accelerator: raised a US Seed round

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Within 12 months of starting got to $1m+ ARR.

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That’s what our community flows strategy is designed to do: be there for founders throughout the whole journey.

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The Good: Now, you can get funded (1) all-year round and (2) forever after.

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We’ve switched on our all-year round Spark Fund (= small bets fund).

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Rather than just being able to fund companies at two points during the year through the Accelerator. 

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Founders can now apply all-year round for funding.

First Believers do the DD and investment recommendation.

We fund you.

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Similarly, October will be our final close of the Continuity Fund at ~$12m (currently $11.3m).

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A fund designed to back the most successful Startmate Alumni forever after.

Since the first close, we’ve already written 19 checks ranging from $25k-$375k.

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2/ EOFY Update: our FY24 investor reporting is out with world-class results

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On Friday, we released our FY24 fund performance reporting to investors for all our funds.

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The highlights:

• 4 funds are in the Top 5% of global VC funds.
• 9 funds are in the Top 25%.
• We returned the 2013 fund 6x cash on cash in a secondary by selling just over half of our Bugcrowd holdings.

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🥴 Bad

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Demo Day - it is seriously hard (and expensive) to get a large enough venue…

…yep it is here again in Bad, still no luck and Demo Day is 6 weeks away.

BUT I think we might be signing a venue on Monday, so fingers crossed!

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Tentative date: Monday,14th October

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Hope you enjoyed the read, fam!

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