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Hey Startmate Fam,

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Life moves pretty fast.

If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

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Startmate is 13 years old.

It is easy to get pulled into the latest challenge and continue what sometimes can feel like running in a hamster wheel.

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Every now and again, it is worth stepping back and looking at the larger picture.

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With that in mind, we revisited our Startmate Alumni and how incredibly far they have come!

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We’ve backed 250+ startups worth $3.5b+, employing 3.5k+ people.

Our 2011-2016 funds have cash on cash already returned 2.69x with a Net TVPI of 10.29x.

(and that’s numbers which are 12 months old, they’re higher since!)

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BUT that’s the abstracted version that doesn’t move any of you.

You probably won’t even remember the numbers tomorrow.

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What sits behind that are thousands of moments of life, near death and ecstasy.

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Startmate invests in founders right at the beginning - an idea, an obsession… the solo visionary or a couple of founders dabbling in the garage or lab… the success these founders have achieved against all odds is wildly impressive.

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Here are the Top 20 Startmate Alumni who have built global businesses.

I’m proud of every single one of them, as well as the ones who will break into that ranking soon and importantly I have so much respect for any founder who has given it everything to make a change happen, even if it didn’t (yet) work out.

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@StartmateAlumni - I’d love to share your pre-Startmate and now story with the world.

Hit reply and tell me.

1. Where were you before SM?
2. Where are you now?
3. Most pivotal moment during Startmate? Who are you eternally grateful for?

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What’s coming up at Startmate?

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🙏 Invites & Asks

• REFER to Startmate - HERE!
  • Do you know a Founder, Investor, Operator who has to do a Startmate program?
  • Refer them to Startmate, and we’ll give them all the info, help + loop back with you if/when they get into Startmate!
• W24 Accelerator applications close tomorrow!
  • 12 weeks laser-focused on your customer and building the best product.
  • Apply - here
  • Refer someone here
• W24 Student Fellowship applications are open!
  • Are you (or do you know of) a student keen on exploring startups as a career? In 2 weeks you'll gain all the knowledge, practice and connections to get started.
  • Apply by 10 June - here
  • Refer someone here
• Ladymates Leadership (Membership: Intake 2)
  • A highly vetted, mentor-driven community for women in leadership.
  • Apply here
• Pre-Accelerator - Launch Club (Cohort 4) -  applications are open
  • Pre-Accelerator for early-stage/aspiring founders to validate a problem, build an MVP and start testing it with customers
  • Apply by 21 July: here
• Want to get started Angel Investing? First Believers applications are open!
  • 14 weeks of investing theory and EPIC practice. 
  • You’ll get deeply involved in making investment decisions alongside the Startmate team, to turbo charge you knowledge, skills and confidence.
  • Apply by 28 July: here
• Women Fellowship (Spring’24)
  • Program for women who are curious about startups, seeking mentorship, and are ready to land their dream job.  
  • Apply here
• Come coach our Student Fellows! 
  • Want to help unlock the next generation of startup talent? 
  • Sign up by 15 June: here
  • More info on dates/time commitment here

🚀 GREAT alumni news

• Bugcrowd 2013: Bugcrowd, the crowdsourced white-hat hacker platform, acquires Informer to ramp up its security chops
• Mindset Health MEL18: Mindset Health: AFR Best Places to Work Award (2024)
• Great Wrap S21: Great Wrap raises $5 million to scale compostable pallet wrap with Opal ANZ
• Student Fellow W21: Superpower raises $4m in pre-seed round
• Xylo W22: Xylo Systems founders on tackling AI and 'tech bro' VCs
• Andromeda W22: ‘No one’s gonna buy a robot’: How Andromeda’s co-founder Grace Brown overcame VC rejections
• Pitcrew.ai S23: Autonomous tire inspections and artificial intelligence can improve safety, uptime, and compliance
• Kite Therapy S24: Autism startup Kite Therapy secures $750,000 to help more children and their parents

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😀 Good

• 🪩 Demo Day with 1,100 legends: We’re still buzzing from the SOLD OUT Summer24 Demo Day held on May 2nd. We had 1k+ people show up to watch our incredible founders…they shared their progress during the Accelerator. It ranged from building out an MVP in 5 weeks to 4x revenue during the program - the pitches weren’t to be missed. You can check out the Demo Day recap video HERE. 
• 🐞Ladymate Leadership pilot cohort kicked off with 40 legends: We’re now ⅓ of the way through the inaugural cohort and the pilot has been a great success so far. The Leaders are really leaning in to challenging themselves and lifting each other up. Delightful to see. We’re now setting up to launch the second intake in August!
• 🌱Climate Tech Fellowship #3 done: Aaaaaand we’ve just wrapped up our third cohort of the Climate Tech Fellowship. Across 30 hours of sessions we heard from 25+ guest speakers and met with 45+ climate leaders.
• 🧱Buildmate kicked off with IRL founder accountability: We kicked off our MVP cohort of Buildmate with 21 founders across Melbourne & Sydney. This is a really exciting step to help our founders build momentum alongside equally ambitious founders. Thanks to Stone & Chalk for the collaboration.
• 🧑‍🚀Launch Club finishing up with founders launching new startups: After close to 40 sessions across 10 weeks, our 125 Launch Club founders are coming into their final week. It’s been incredible to witness their growth over the last 10 weeks and we look forward to supporting them beyond the program. To cap things off, we are having 3 pitch events next week across Melbourne, Sydney & virtually to celebrate their progress.
• 🚀Accelerator Applications continue to be healthy: Over 500 bright-eyed founders have already applied to be a part of the next accelerator cohort. Our community of selectors are now diving into our new and improved selector portal to surface the best!
• 🐝First Believers getting deep into Accelerator founder selection: Somehow we have passed the halfway point, and are now in the depths of practical investment training. First Believers are SMASHING it by helping us choose the next wave of Accelerator companies. Collectively, this cohort has completed over 450 reviews of ANZ’s most promising startups, with many more to come.
• 💃Women Fellowship: We’re into the final stretch! After nearly 8 weeks, our Autumn24 Women Fellows are nearing the end of the program. It has been incredible seeing them all grow together over the past two months. For anyone hiring, come along to our virtual WF Talent Mixer on Wednesday to meet them! 

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🥴 Bad

• 🙋 Need more women selectors voting: as we’re currently live in our selection phase for the next accelerator cohort, we have a leaderboard where we track who has reviewed the most startup applications. We worked hard to increase representation of women selectors for this cohort, but as of yet that isn’t reflected well in the leaderboard. Luckily, we’re tracking it early, which gives us time to course correct before voting closes.

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😵‍💫 Ugly

• 🐛 Airtable form bug: An airtable bug with the new airtable interfaces forms caused our Accelerator Application form lag to the point it was unusable. We switched to the older style airtable forms, which didn’t have the ability to save unfinished responses. Some of our applicants who started the form in the interface version that was saving their data as they went lost their data when we had to switch the form over to the new type

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👏 Kudos to the Community!

• Marcus Schappi - Startmate Accelerator alumni from 2012, now leading the way with Accelerator Selection reviews. As well as the sheer volume of reviews he has completed so far, we are deeply impressed with the quality of Marcus’ thinking, and the empathy he brings to founder questions. Marcus, kudos to you for being such an iconic member of the Startmate community.  
• Emma Earley - Startmate Women Fellow from 2022, delivered an amazing motherhood in startups workshop and panel alongside Olivia Dyet (Startmate Accelerator alumni) for all our Startmums. Sharing such vulnerability and candidness with the community, and bringing structure and workshop such a chaotic topic, is no mean feat - thank you Emma! 

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Hope you enjoyed the read, fam!

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