Hi SM Family,

Startmate is a community at heart, body and soul.

Heart - “paying it forward” is Startmate’s most deeply held mantra lived every day.
Body - everything that exists at Startmate is built for and by the community

Let’s talk about the soul.

Startmate’s soul are our values and beliefs.

We are highly selective about our community, but once you’re in, we have shared values.

At the core, it is Boundless Belief.

Belief.
Belief in you.
Belief in your potential.
Belief in your ambition.
Belief that against all odds, YOU are the one who will make it happen.

Boundless.

Pre-spark.
We believe in you before anyone else.
We believe in you before even you believe in yourself.

Forever after.
Sometimes you hear about Seed or Series A/B/C investors, investing in specific rounds.
Once we’ve backed you, we believe in you forever after, no strings attached.
You are in the Startmate Family.

Our belief has no bounds.
Not before you begun, neither when you’re well on your way.

Belief that is pure and unadulterated.

Boundless Belief.

How do we do that?
Everything we’ve built is for Founders, who are making the unimaginable reality.

1. Fellowships (women, students, athletes, climate, etc) - belief before you believe in yourself, that you can switch careers, give you the confidence to dip your toes in the water and work on a mission you’re truly passionate about.
2. Launch Club - belief before you even have a problem to solve, idea or product, a belief in your desire to explore, meet aspiring founders and go deep with future customers.
3. First Believers - as the name implies - your first angel believers - a flock of angel investors who are your first check ever raised.
4. Small Bets Fund - belief to get you started, $25k investment that can catalyse your project into reality that we write all year round.
5. Accelerator - belief in your potential to accelerate your customer obsession, $120k investment in your ambition and vision.
6. Continuity Fund - belief in your ambition forever after, we will ALWAYS take our pro-rata and keep backing you, the ultimate belief in your vision (hit reply if you want to hear more).

This is the community soul of Startmate.
Boundless Belief - before you believe in yourself and forever after.

What's on?

Australia has so many startup events.

We were sick of never knowing what events are on where and looking in dozens of places.So we brought all ANZ Startup Events together - startmate.com/events!

If you want to stay up to date, you can add the events calendar to auto-update.

If you’re hosting an event, you can add it yourself.

Ask

• Demo Day in Sydney is around the corner on 20 April, and we want your help to create a magical event!

• Become a  headline sponsor, or add some magic to our event by bringing an engaging activation to life. This might look like: providing an ice-cream cart or hosting the Demo Day After Party. Any creative ideas? Reach out to us here!

• Climate Tech Fellowship applications are open! This program is shaping up to make a huge impact in climate tech. Please share this widely and with anyone you know who is longing to work on climate but needs a push in the right direction.

• Launch Club applications are open! If you know someone who is interested in becoming a future founder,  share this with them. The program will provide aspiring founders (don’t have an idea? That’s totally fine!) with the networks, resources & practical learning to kickstart their founding journey. Got questions, sign up here for our Q&A session this Thursday.

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Good

• We have two new Startmates!! A red hot welcome to Niel Reitmann (Marketing Associate and Student Fellow!) and Doug Oliver (Accelerator Lead) who have joined the team with gusto. We are stoked to have you.
• The inaugural Athlete Fellowship kicked off this week with 47 incredible Athlete Fellows joining the community. Not only are they some of the most elite athletes in ANZ, but they are also some of the most ambitious and hungry to crack into the startup world.
• Startmate is heading to Southstart! Join us at the ‘Pitch Stage’ Mar 9th! Grab your tickets here
• S23 Accelerator is halfway through! Recent speakers include Paul Bassat, Luke Howes and Adam Schwab
• Our Student Fellowship saw 150 ambitious students from across ANZ hard launched into the startup ecosystem. They learnt from some of the best (e.g. Robyn Denholm, Chair of Tesla and Blackbird Partner) as well as 88 Coaches from ANZ’s most exciting companies. A highlight was seeing 17 exciting startups created in the 3-week period.
• Product Management 101 cohort 2 launched this month with 53 seriously phenomenal fellows. We just wrapped up week 3 and the workshops, guest speakers and group discussions have been next level!

Bad

• Gender diversity in First Believer applications: We're still seeing that women are less likely to put themselves forward to becoming an angel investor, and are struggling to get to gender parity in this program. We want to do more to change that. Read more here.

Ugly

• Website is overdue for an update. Startmate has evolved a lot over the last few years (breaking news!!) and we’ve dealt with our website by just continuing to add pages like some sort of grotesque many-headed monster. Can’t wait to give this a big old cleanup.

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Bonus: New programs!

‍You heard it here first - we’re launching 4 x brand new fellowships!! We’ll get these out in the stratosphere in the coming weeks, but be honoured to know that you are the first humans in history to feast your eyes on these magnificent programs

• People & Culture Fellowship: Startmate X Laura Sloane. A first-principles approach to creating world-class teams, for people passionate about solving problems in the people space. Register interest here

• Product Marketing Fellowship: Startmate X Angela Catalan. Launch products with impact. Whether you're a product, content or digital marketer, this program will help you supercharge your startup career with product marketing skills and knowledge, among a network of highly-curated peers. Register interest here.

• No-Code Fellowship: Startmate X Connor Finlayson: For builders and founders looking to learn the skills necessary to validate an idea and build their dream products with no-code tools. You will gain the knowledge, skills and network to supercharge your learning process and startup. Register interest here.

• Learning From The Inside Out: Startmate X Craig Davis. A combination of the latest techniques in neuroscience, emotional intelligence and mindfulness to lift your performance, improve health and wellbeing, enhance self-awareness and motivation for anyone working in startups. Register interest here.

Thanks, team!