Geoff Holmes

Australian retail sales finished fiscal 2025 with 4.6% growth for the month of June 2025. It was the strongest growth in over two years. The leaders were online, recreational goods, pharmacy, cosmetics and electronics. Liquor, cafes & restaurants and supermarkets were all laggards. The strong finish to the year partly reflects end of financial year promotional sales. Retail spending for FY25 was up 3.3%, which is far better than FY24 up 1.8%, but below long-term trends of 4.9% growth. For more, click here https://lnkd.in/gZGrv47E

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Are you a NSW startup looking to commercialise your innovative product? Unlock your potential with the Minimal Viable Product (MVP) Ventures Program! The MVP Ventures Program is a NSW Government grant to support businesses bring new innovations to market. A total of $3 million is available each year for the next four years starting this financial year. There will be three application rounds for funding throughout 2025-26. The program will offer two funding streams, with a tailored stream for businesses founded by women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and regional entrepreneurs to address systemic barriers to raising required co-contribution funding. ◾ Stream 1 is available for all eligible businesses with a maximum grant of $50,000 and a minimum co-contribution of 50%. ◾ Stream 2 is available for eligible women-owned businesses, regional businesses and Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander businesses with a maximum grant of $75,000 and a minimum co-contribution of 25%. Applications for Round 1 of the 2025-26 MVP Ventures Program will open on Monday 1 September 2025. To check your eligibility and how to submit your application visit: https://lnkd.in/gkhPdR55 #NSWIndustryPolicy #InnovationBlueprint #StartupSupport #MVPVenturesProgram 

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At 13, Liam Millward started a travel magazine from a caravan. At 17, he raised Australia's biggest pre-seed round ever. At 21, his company hit a $100 million valuation. From the Dinner Stories series: Meet Liam Millward, co-founder and CEO of Instant . Most founders wait until they're "ready." Liam started building businesses before most kids had their first job. While traveling Australia with his family in a caravan at 13, he launched Navigate Australia, a travel magazine that hit 50,000 monthly readers in its first year and partnered with 150+ tourism brands. Then COVID hit and killed the travel business overnight. Most teenagers would've given up. Liam pivoted to e-commerce, building a store that grew to $10K monthly revenue. But he kept running into the same frustrating problem: cart abandonment. Customers would add products, then disappear. He had no way to bring them back. That frustration became his next business. At 17, he teamed up with William Gao (a software engineer who'd been coding professionally since he was 17) and founded Instant to solve the problem every e-commerce brand faces—98% of visitors leave without buying, and most brands have no idea who they are. They raised $2.2 million in what became Australia's biggest pre-seed round ever. The pitch: Instant can identify up to 40% of anonymous website visitors and automatically trigger branded emails at the exact moment they abandon their cart. Within 12 months, they hit $1.5 million ARR and reached 1 million users. And earlier this year, they closed an $18 million Series A in under two weeks, hitting a $100 million valuation. At 21, Liam’s on his third business and already figured out what most founders spend decades learning: solve your own problem, move fast, and don't wait for permission.

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We have a great fireside chat planned for Retail risk - Melbourne, and we are inviting you to get involved. Our chair Josh Gatt will explore Emerging tech – cutting through the noise on the legal requirements with Tanvi Mehta Krensel. Facial recognition, AI, and biometric tools are rapidly reshaping retail—but they come with serious legal and ethical questions. In this session, a globally experienced data and technology lawyer shares practical insights from advising multinationals across the UK, EU, and APAC. With a sharp focus on the Privacy Act, AI governance, and cybersecurity concerns, this session will help retailers cut through the noise and understand what’s legally required and what’s simply smart practice, when using emerging tech. The session will explore how retailers can stay compliant while embracing innovation, covering changes to privacy legislation, the legal realities of facial recognition, and how to responsibly manage customer data in a rapidly evolving digital space. If you have any questions on the topic, please email [email protected] https://lnkd.in/ejANrnj8 #rrmelbs25

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Let's talk about Accelerators as VC Funds TIL ANZ has 69 active Accelerators, but only 4 invest: 👉 spreadsheet with all Accelerators in comments 1️⃣ Accelerator as a Business Firstly, Accelerators are shocking businesses. (Don't start one 😅) How do they pay the bills? There are 4 usual business models: 🏛️ Government - you get a grant for 2-3y, the grant stops, you have no revenue, you die 🧳 Corporate - corporate cares about you, until there's a leadership reshuffle, stops caring, you die 🧑‍🎓 Universities - similar to corporate, but more aligned with getting students into working world, usually grant rather than commercial funding 💰 VC - you run it as a VC fund, full alignment of LPs to the outcomes you and founders want to achieve BUT as you've learned in this series (post #5), management fees on SMALL funds are barely enough for a skeleton team So yeah, in short - bad, bad cashflow But ofc if you can make it work >> small funds = better VC returns (post #14) 2️⃣ Accelerators as VC Funds 🤯 there are 69 active Accelerators in Australia and NZ! BUT only 4 that actually invest money. 🔥 1/ UNSW Pretty epic deal at $100k SAFE note 15% discount Varies program by program though, so couldn't exactly find online if the deal still exists and for which program 👀 2/ Techstars Tagline: $180k for 5% + ~5% future equity Reality: [Tranche 1] $30k at $600k post (5%) >> $30k at $600k val 👀🤯 >> not entirely sure how that works, as it also triggers everyone else's MFN clause so you get extra diluted! [Tranche 2] $150k uncapped with MFN >> AU$150k So your startup is really valued at $600k. Note: converted from USD to AUD at $1.50. 😬 3/ Antler Tagline: $260k at $2.2m post-money (12%) Reality: $260k investment - but you don't see the money, because: $75k fee 😱 Effective investment: $185k for 12% which implies $1.5m valuation 😢 Even worse off are actually LPs, because only 😱 45 cents on every $1 invested goes to the founder = working capital 👉 you get charge mgmt fee + expenses (~25%) AND 👉 the investment to startups gets charged back via the fee to Antler (~30%) ❤️ 4/ Startmate ofc biased here, but no hooks nor surprises in our investment terms: Simple SAFE or equity (whatever you prefer) either: 1. $120k at $1.5m post-money (8%) or 2. we match your latest valuation if you have raised $250k previously Fun Fact: Startmate is the only investing Accelerator in NZ 🥝 👉 today's comment request if you liked the content: 🥝 ("kiwi") for the hidden gem and the love for Kiwi founders that Startmate backs ❤️ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ What is this? Day 16/30 - I'm posting one VC fund insight per day this month. I'm often wrong. What did I miss this time? 👉 cut my usual outro as I ran out of characters on this post 🥲

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Cuttable | Good Ads, Instantly has raised an additional $4.5M in seed funding, led by Square Peg with participation from Rampersand and Brand Fund by Previously Unavailable and Icehouse Ventures, bringing total funding to $10M. The Melbourne-based startup has launched the world’s first AI creative agency built to scale online businesses, producing hundreds of on-brand ads in minutes for Facebook and Instagram. https://lnkd.in/expy9VQ6 #AI #AdTech #CreativeAI #Ecommerce #DigitalMarketing #FundingNews Sam Kroonenburg Daragh Kan

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How do you find a $107 billion market opportunity that your competitors are too scared to talk about? You look for the taboo. Up to 40% of Australian adults deal with digestive issues, but it's a conversation often had in whispers. My latest Handpicked podcast guest, Rudi van der Vlies, turned his personal battle with Crohn's disease into a thriving business by stepping directly into this uncomfortable space. He co-founded the scientifically-backed gut health brand TUMME, and our conversation is a masterclass for any entrepreneur looking for a competitive edge. In this episode, you will learn: * The playbook for taking a "taboo" topic and making it mainstream. * Why your traditional SEO strategy is dead (and how to optimise for AI language models instead). * Guerrilla growth tactics for a saturated e-commerce market when you can't afford a massive ad spend. * The critical mindset shift required when moving from distributor to a direct-to-consumer brand builder. This isn't just a chat about gut health; it's a deep dive into finding opportunity where others see awkwardness. Listen to the full episode now (link in comments) and get the insights. Plus, Rudi generously offers a discount on Tumme products for all my listeners. What "taboo" industry do you think is ripe for disruption next? #Handpicked #BusinessPodcast #Entrepreneurship #Marketing #DTC #StartupStrategy #HealthTech #Innovation #NaomiSimson

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