Seb Wilkinson

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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Big news. Airtree have just announced their new $250M Seed fund and $400M Growth fund which will be used exclusively to back Kiwi & Aussie founders. Another huge win for the NZ / AUS tech ecosystem 🚀 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gWZiiuRn

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Aussie 🇦🇺 Payments unicorn Zeller will spend $20 million over the next year to fund an aggressive expansion into the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 , its first international market. Founded in 2020 by former Block executives Ben Pfisterer and Dominic Yap, Zeller made the most of favourable market conditions in 2021’s boom period to raise $75 million over two rounds before it launched its suite of small-business banking products. It then secured another $100 million at a $1 billion valuation in early 2022 from investors such as Paul Bassat’s Square Peg, superannuation fund Hostplus and US-based venture capital firm Headline. The start-up has not raised any capital since 2022. However, Pfisterer said the company would embark on a fundraising campaign in the coming months to fund its next phase of growth. The company aims to reach $100 million in annual revenue from 1 million merchants across 10 countries. Zeller’s products are currently used by more than 100,000 small and medium-sized Australian businesses. The company offers eftpos payment terminals, transaction and savings accounts, corporate cards and software to manage expenses and invoices. It competes with banks, as well as FinTech disruptors such as Square and Stripe. Source/more info: https://lnkd.in/dEud24K3 Find this helpful? [ 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 ] Anything to add about this subject? [𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁] Nice story, Marcel. Next! [ 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 ] 

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🚨 FUNDING ALERT 🚨 After bootstrapping to profitability since 2021, Fleetyr, co-founded by Tim Hill and 🚦Brodie Ruttan, has closed its first round of external funding in an investment led by 77 Partners, with participation from QIC Ventures. The business’ fleet and safety analytics platform, which integrates scattered data into a single interface, is used by customers across five continents. Tegan Jones has more: https://lnkd.in/gnKjUMCA #StartupFunding #Startups

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Melbourne-born startup Lucent, founded by 22-year-old Alisa Wu, has raised $2 million in a pre-seed round, backed by Long Journey Ventures, Horizon, Browder Capital, and Weekend Fund. The round reportedly closed within just 36 hours of launch. Despite being a solo founder with no team or product yet, Wu’s strong track record drew investor confidence. Her first venture, Stella AI, was acquired in 2024, and she earlier worked as a founding engineer at MagicBrief, an AI ad platform later bought by Canva. Lucent aims to provide behavioural datasets grounded in real web interactions for frontier AI labs — enabling them to build more differentiated and capable AI systems. “Lucent provides data that allows labs to build differentiated capabilities. We focus on behavioural datasets from real-world web interactions,” Wu said. Wu also confirmed that Lucent will relocate to San Francisco within 12 months to expand its dataset offerings and deepen collaborations with frontier research labs. #Founder #Hired #ChatGpt #CTO #PreSeedFunding #AIStartups #StartupUpdates #Startupro

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Climate tech startup Vycarb has raised $5 million in seed funding. The money will help the company develop its new method of capturing and storing carbon using natural waters. SGInnovate is one of the investors in this funding round. The funding round was led by Australia’s Twynam. Other investors included MOL Switch LLC, Hatch Blue, Clocktower Ventures, Idemitsu, and SGInnovate. Garrett Boudinot | Lindsey Dukles | Jason Glover | Greg Humphries | Lydi Keppler | Prafull Moona | Matt Pfeiffer | Farhana Rahman | Benjamin Smith 🔗 Read full article link in comment #vycarb #climatetech #startupnews #funding #businessupdate

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Australia has slid down the productivity leaderboard compared to other OECD nations, and Australians are no better off than they were ten years ago. In a new article, together with my colleagues Wesley Walden, Chris Bradley, and Jules Carrigan, we outline the need to unlock new investment, create a more competitive business environment, balance market and nonmarket sectors, and forge a national compact that prioritises productivity. Now is the time to focus on a return to productivity to improve living standards - for everyone. Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/gjJK2FDB

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Twenty-one of Australia’s most innovative startups will take to the SXSW Sydney stage to pitch their companies next month. Thirteen of them are from NSW, five are based in Victoria, and three are located in Queensland. One Kiwi startup will also be pitching at the October 16 event, and one from the USA. The grand finale of the pitch competition will be judged by VCs Bill Tai and Kim Jackson, and founders Lars Rasmussen and Lucy Guo. 🖋️ Shivaune Field for Forbes Australia https://lnkd.in/gshncBPH

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