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Hey Startmate Fam,

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Yesterday, we got featured in the AFR.

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The Story

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In 2013, Casey Ellis met Alan Jones over Laksa to ask all the questions how to optimise his chances of (a) applying successfully to Startmate; and (b) outperforming the other teams in the cohort if he was selected.

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While other founders were wondering if an accelerator might help their chances, he was already planning to get the best from it.

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As soon as he joined the cohort, instead of going deep into building product, he chose the harder path. Talk to customers. Before building any product, he signed up $100k worth of sales via a Wufoo form, for what became Bugcrowd.

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“In 2013, the idea that a hacker could help you was completely foreign to the internet. Today, we've seen the law change in the US around computer fraud and abuse to reflect the fact that hackers can be locksmiths, not just burglars.” - Casey

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Bugcrowd has grown from a team of three in 2013, to a company of 300+ employees. With half a million people signed up on the platform, Bugcrowd has paid out over $100 million in bounties to their allies (good hackers) around the world. 

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Celebrating The Years: Casey and Team Startmate virtually celebrating a BIG milestone at the Startmate offsite. Not just this investment, but Casey's birthday.

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———

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The Startmate Fund has been fortunate to be part of this game-changing story.

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In 2013, we invested $325k into 8 companies - including Bugcrowd and Edrolo.

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We already returned $2m back to investor, 6x your money (DPI).

Whilst holding another $3.5m of value, 10x more upside (RVPI).

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But we love Bugcrowd.

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So we

👉 only sold off 60% of our position, with 40% of upside growing with Bugcrowd

👉 as well as bought new shares through our Continuity Fund, which have already increased in value since

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Early investors get an incredible return, with a remaining massive upside.

New investors get to tap into great Startmate Alumni.

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Why it matters…

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…to founders?

Inspiration.

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As an Aussie you can build an awesome company competing on the world stage.

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…to investors?

Returns.

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In Australia, Venture Capital can outperform globally.

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…to builders?

Impact.

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Startups in Australia are a real career path. You can build a future you’re passionate about with impact, rather than being a cog in a big corporate machine.

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What’s coming up at Startmate?

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🙏 Asks

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Nominate a software engineer looking for an ambitious community!

• Why: We’ve launched a membership for software builders & developers - and we’re on the hunt for founding members. 
• Reply to this email with their name & LI
• More info: here

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🚀 GREAT alumni news

• Morse Micro (SYD17) >> HaLow Wi-Fi has now been tested at 9.9 miles — new Wi-Fi world record! - here
• Amber (MEL18) >> offshore debut through partnership with UK energy group E.ON Next - here
• Psylo (W21) >> How Psylo uses tech to tackle medicinal psychedelics - here
• S21 Great Wrap >> full Great Wrap episode on funding, tackling 150,000 tonnes of Plastic Stretch Wra with Founder Julia Kay - here
• Matilda Migration (Small Bets Fund) >> visa application platform Matilda Migration raises $1 million pre-Seed round - StartupDaily, Forbes, CapitalBrief

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😀 Good

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FOUNDERS

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Sparkfund (Small Bets Fund rebrand) made 3 investments in 2 months.

Reminder: this is our year-round $25k cheque fund - here.

It is led by our community of First Believers and off to a flying start. Over the past 2 months we have had 100+ applications, 30 First Believer led interviews, and 3 investments (+ more coming 👀). Applications are currently paused whilst Accelerator applications are open.

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Demo Day all systems go for the State Theatre!

Save to say this is a first, but Demo Day this year is another magnitude bigger and majestic to bring thousands of people to cheer on our W24 founders - event here.

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INVESTORS

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There isn’t a dedicated ANZ Family Office (FO) community with a focus on startups – so we’re launching one
Our first event will be a private session with Atlassian Founders FO’s Skip Capital and Grok Ventures. Other Family Offices attending include: Minderoo, Cambooya, Gandel Invest, Lance East and more!

Accelerator Fund closed in record time

We raise a new fund every 6 months for each cohort. This cohort did not fail to impress during the selection process and we closed the fund faster than ever.

Continuity Fund is on track for the Final Close this month
We’ll be investing ~$12.5M into ~60 of our best alumni over the next 3 years. The best part is we've already made 20 investments and even pre-final close written-up a bunch to newer rounds they’ve raised! Go Startmate Alumni!

End of financial year reporting was super smooth this year

With Fund reporting you only know when things don’t go well, so nobody heard anything from us, because it went so smoothly - kudos to the epic finance and fundops team! We had the Continuity Fund audited, investor reporting released, and tax obligations all sorted by September - well ahead of the October deadline.

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OPERATORS

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We launched our first Memberships for women in tech and leadership!

And they’ve seen a great take up. We’ll keep building community for ambitious women in tech. With our new offerings we can support women throughout their entire career under our Ladymates banner:

1. Women Fellowship >> get into a startup
2. Women Collective >> women in tech
3. Women Leadership >> women in leadership

These memberships are all-year around to have a supportive community you can learn from.

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🥴 Bad

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US series kicked off with Jason Calacanis, with the wrong Zoom link…

Had hundreds of people come into the wrong Zoom link. Ugh. Hiccup up on my side, so I jumped on and was redirecting everyone to the right Zoom link. Fun. Fun. Fun. All sorted in the end, no harm done, everyone got to join the right webinar, and the recording is live here. If you want to check out the epic line up, join here. I’ll keep bringing a great US investor to a live webinar for founders every month :)

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Buildmate, a small experiment for founders, isn’t quite right

We launched a small experiment for founders, to bring them together and build alongside each other. Turns out we didn’t quite nail the value proposition fully and priced is so low that it ended up being a No-Brainer to join for the co-working (thank you Stone & Chalk for hosting us - the space is epic), BUT beyond co-working it didn’t quite hit the nail its head to solve a founder problem. SO, we’re back to the drawing board.

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😵‍💫 Ugly

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The Startmate Community Slack is overwhelming

There is a lot going on there!

5,608 Startmates and counting.

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It probably is still ok if you’re checking it as a community member.

But when you’re in a program, it goes OFF, a lot channels, a lot of messages.

We gathered your thoughts on alternative tools with Circle coming out on top, so I think we’ll have to transition in the new year. A big project to get everyone aross smoothly AND ensure a better experience, otherwise it was pointless.

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👏 Kudos to the Community!

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Shoutout to Shannon Poulton, SM Alumni (MEL20) and mentor!

• Shannon went through the Accelerator MEL20 cohort - check out Good Thnx
• Since, he’s been a mentor for 6 (!!!) Accelerator cohorts
• He was chosen to be a partner mentor to several teams in the S24 and W24 cohorts because of his reputation for being an excellent sounding board to founders and a sales wizard.
• Moreso, he was also voted a Top 5 mentor in two different cohorts.
• Finally, an instrumental Startmate cheerleader, always leaning in and providing incredibly though, but thoughtful feedback.

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HUGE thank you and shoutout to Shannon for his contribution to the Startmate community. <3

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Hope you enjoyed the read, fam!

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