Lucinda Hartley

Looking to fund your Proptech with Venture Capital? How do you know if VC funding is right for your business and when the right time is to approach?   Tom Ellis is the portfolio manager of Second Century Ventures and the entrepreneur in residence for the REACH Australia program.   In this deep dive, he will explain what do you need to do to make your proptech attractive to VCs and win investment not just immediately but for the longer term?   Plus how to hone the perfect pitch. How to Make Friends and Influence VCs will make sure you are the smartest protect in the room.    Join our members only masterclass with Tom Ellis on May 14, 1PM AEST.   Attendance is FREE but you do need to register. Email Kristel Claire Rodriguez at [email protected] to get the registration link! #Proptech #VentureCapital #StartupFunding #VC #Entrepreneurship #Investment #BusinessStrategy #Masterclass #TomEllis #REACHAustralia #SecondCenturyVentures

22

1 Comment

What’s happening in healthtech? 💊🎉 💰The Vic Gov will invest $7.5M to fund researchers to create 50 new startups  run by Breakthrough Victoria 💻 Safewill, bagged $17M to expand services like digital wills, power of attorney, & probate assistance 🧘‍♀️ Pronto Pilates snagged $1.6M in crowdfunding, to disrupt reformer pilates with affordable, trainer-free classes 💼 Hostplus committed $125M to VC, backing startups through IP Group plc Innovation Fund 📜 Private companies will now have to upload health data to My Health Record thanks to the Health Legislation Amendment Bill 2024 🧪 Aussie women will soon have access to at-home chlamydia & gonorrhoea tests 🤖 Baymatob won ‘AI Innovator - Healthcare’ at the Aus AI Awards for its maternal health tech providing early warnings for complications 🧬 The Fed Gov launched Genomics Australia, a national body to lead & coordinate genomic research, with a $30M commitment over 4 years 💼 Aus's $15B National Reconstruction Fund begins investing in deep tech, allocating $300M to boost quantum, robotics, & clean energy innovation ~~~🌎 US & Beyond the Borders 🌎~~~ 💍 ŌURA raised $75M, reaching a US$5B+ valuation, partnering with Dexcom to integrate glucose monitoring data into its platform 🧠 Headspace laid off 13% of its staff & is transitioning all therapists from employed roles 📈 WHOOP adds psychedelics tracking to its Journal feature, letting users log ketamine, LSD, & psilocybin use ⚽ David Beckham codeveloped longevity supplement brand IM8 Health with biotech company Prenetics, launching a longevity drink 💻 Eli Lilly & Company, the global pharma, invests S$42M in Singapore to launch a Digital Health Innovation Hub 🛠️ Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers trained a surgical robot using imitation learning from surgery videos Keen for the links & delicious deets?? 🍩🙌 Take a gander at last week's newsletter in the comments below👇😊 --- PS - if you liked this and are keen to join >8700 legends getting health tech and innovation news dropped direct to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter, What the Health, linked in the comments below! 💜 📩 #healthtech  #health  #healthcare  #digitalhealth  #medtech  #biotech

117

15 Comments

The Creative Co-Operative* spotted in TechCrunch! Through our 2022 report led by Dr Sana Ashraf*, the State of the Startup Ecosystem for Bla(c)k and Women of Colour Founders in Australia, we released the continent's first intersectional datapoint around financial inequality experienced by early stage First Nations, Black and Women of Colour founders. The funding discrepancy was 0.03% (link to Executive Summary in comments below). Since then we’ve seen the ecosystem start taking steps to do something about it - its a start. We look forward to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency collecting and reporting on the intersectional pay gap. Making this start is long overdue but it’s better late than never. #intersectionalpaygap #blackwomen #womenofcolour #startups *PS The Creative Co-Operative has been referred to as a consulting services agency as I assume the journalist referenced our old website. Unfortunately it is out of date as of 2021! We only consult on very specific projects, our focus is on building Maya Cares and programs such as the Anyone Can Community Startup Program to create mental health and economic access, equity and justice for the communities we serve. ** Dr Sana and I are not related, we just happen to share the same surname 🙂

61

13 Comments

#SXSWSydney Show Recap: *Whose Startup Is It Anyway?* A talented team from Improv Theatre Sydney (Hayden Wright, Joshua Magee, Jeeves Verma, & Kate Wilkins) and Playful Purpose (that’s me!) turned startup pitches into clever in-the-moment improv scenes. Here are the top takeaways: 📣 Using the Gaddie Pitch Technique 📣  Throughout the show, players and founders structured pitches with this powerful yet simple format:   1️⃣ Start with a relatable problem: “You know when…?”   2️⃣ Present your solution: “What we do…”   3️⃣ Prove your success: “As a matter of fact…” ❗Why Improv Skills Are Essential for Entrepreneurs (Founders)❗ 👂🏻Active Listening 👂🏻:  🎭🎭 Improvisers must fully absorb information to build on what others say. 🧐🧐 For founders, this means deeply understanding customer needs and market signals.  💫 Adaptability💫:  🎭🎭 Improvisers pivot in a scene,  🧐🧐 Founders must pivot their ideas and strategies as they learn more about their market.   🖇️Collaborative Creativity🖇️:  🎭🎭 Improv is all about building together.  🧐🧐 Founders must harness the creativity of their team, partners, and community to move forward. 🙊Being Unafraid of Failure🙊:  🎭🎭 Improv encourages risk-taking without fear of embarrassment.  🧐🧐Founders benefit from embracing failure as a learning tool, #TrialAndError 💡Not Every Idea Needed to Make Sense – It’s the Process That Counts💡   Many of the improvised “slides” may not have made perfect sense or warranted serious investment. But that wasn’t the point. The value lay in the process: exploring new ideas, being willing to play with concepts, and learning to think on the fly. 🤖Improvisers as Human LLMs (Large Language Models)🤖  Improvisers, like LLMs, transform a pitch (the "prompt") into a captivating scene. They synthesise information in real-time, weaving together diverse elements to create a unique narrative. Like LLMs learn from data, improvisers use their collective experiences and imagination to craft relatable and entertaining scenes.  🔵⚪️⚫️ Connecting Dots in Real-Time  🔵⚪️⚫️ More than just playing, the show highlighted the value of quick thinking and connecting ideas in the moment. This approach is key to tackling the challenges of today’s fast-paced, information-rich world. ⚡️As Adam Grant puts it⚡️,  “The hallmark of expertise is no longer how much you know. It’s how well you synthesise.” 💡 Summary💡 The Future Belongs to the Playful & Curious 🤔 As Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to automate our lives, Applied Improv (AI) and #PLAY is essential in preserving our ability to connect meaningfully alongside the tech. We need to prioritise activities that enhance emotional intelligence, spontaneity, and listening—skills that tech can’t replicate. Thanx for playing: Asha Murphy, Jessica Wong-Saunderson, 💼🧚‍♂️ Vinisha Rathod, Lee Schofield, Andrew E Scott GAICD (Tasty Tofu), & CSIRO crew! cc: SXSW Sydney

66

13 Comments

It's important that commentators have begun to recognise that a reduction in rent growth is not the same as rents getting more affordable. A good example with better analysis from today: https://lnkd.in/gethx4Wt One of my favourite charts demonstrates the problem we face. When we look at where rents would be if over years they had stayed in line with either wages growth or the more general rate of inflation, we can see a large divergence that grows, and never quite comes back, creating a 'new normal'. That gap today is more than $12,000 a year by either measure! But importantly we can see how periods of slow growth, or even reduction need to be significant and extended. You could describe Sydney as having gone through a hop, skip and jump - the Olympics, the GFC and now COVID. After each of the previous bounces we never came back down to where we had been. the question now is where will we land?

27

1 Comment

Continuing on with the early modelling of Bioregional Institute Melbourne, we started thinking with the end in mind with how the operational businesses will be able to cover the mortgage on the facility while expanding the field of regenerative development into the localised sectors and community We now want to look at what potential is in a facility like this as a development, which although is very high level, gives a lens for people to see a place for themselves in the work that also helps pay some bills. This applies to potential project partners, land owners, investors, local and regional regenerative practitioners, and interested community partners Having no idea (some) what is going to come out of Melbourne's Story of Place and what that looks like through the Essence Triad. I don’t know if this is going to be an intercity mixed-use development as a 7 story affordable housing tower with ground floor commercial space for the core businesses to operate, or a peri-urban permaculture and education facility is a base for life centred innovation. To give us a start, I generally use the last development I was looking at that basically fits the ticket size, so here using the affordable housing CHP development model we are looking at in Sydney (another high level draft that I scratched together as an example for a post, I use our partner’s property development feasibility suite for real work) We have no idea what landowners, investors, or finance companies might be interested in the results of the Story of Place or Bioregional Institute Melbourne, so the scope is very wide from an Ecosystem of Value Reciprocity perspective, though below are some opportunities that come to mind and also resourcing ideas for local teams looking to get involved Continue in Post... https://lnkd.in/gdDbUW_K #regenerativedevelopment #regenerativedesign #regenerativebusiness #regenerativeeconomy #regenerativetourism #regenerativeagriculture #communitydevelopment #melbourne #communitylandtrusts #bioregion #bioregionalism

11

6 Comments

As an angel investor, I’ve made over 50 early-stage investments across the UK, US, and beyond. Now, as a Partner at Antler in Australia, I’ve experienced firsthand the shifts between angel and VC investing - and these findings have transformed my approach to supporting founders. I share 5 surprising lessons I learned that about angel vs. VC funding that I wish every founder knew in the article below. From the unexpected empathy VCs have (yes, we pitch too!) to why VCs reserve capital for follow-on funding and how market size can make or break a venture-backed business. Thinking about joining our February '25 residency and/or raising your first round? This is an inside look at the mindsets and strategies VCs use when investing, offering takeaways to help you get funded. 👉 Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/g_jStAWS

58

1 Comment

This is great to see. Fifth Dimension AI were our first Case Study on the #GenerativeAIforRealEstatePeople course. It was so clear how strong their pitch was and the size of the opportunity awaiting them. And to date they have executed with aplomb. Generative AI has extraordinary potential within real estate. Once you break the industry down into actual ‘tasks to be done’ you can see use cases galore. And with immediate utility. Sure Predictive AI also has a strong place, but the lack of high quality actionable data is such that rollout is hard. Those who can make things happen are very well placed but as an industry we can get 10X, 100X more out of Gen AI TODAY than we can with Predictive AI. Cohort 7 will start in November. And onwards and upwards Fifth Dimension AI !

7

Huge news in the business and climate reporting space for those that missed it last week. Mandatory climate reporting is here! Our founder Catherine (Cat) Long shared her thoughts on what this means for business with Startup Daily #climateaction #netzero #reporting #esg #carbonfootprint #climaterisk #financialreporting

10

1 Comment

It's inspiring to witness leading developers in Sydney and Melbourne venture into the new asset class of affordable housing. With a deep sense of social responsibility for inclusiveness in my previous major urban projects, I have proven myself as a "Placemaker" over the last 50 years. In that era, I set aside 30% and 50% of all my major urban projects for affordable housing. We won many major sites at State, international, and Local Government tenders with no mandatory requirements. Unfortunately, Australia's current slow and inefficient custom building methods cannot meet the market's needs. "New thinking" is required around scalable, advanced modular quality incisive residential grade midrise apartments in renewable plantation forest trees into cross-laminated timber (CLT), just like the Scandinavian countries have been doing over the last 30 years. The Thrive Alliance has over 100,000 major CLT urban projects worldwide. Our "Thrive Alliance" Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) in Australia and Internationally is made from renewable plantation forest trees. With CLT, the stored carbon capacity is up to 40,000 "residential grade" midrise apartments per year, targeting the "Baby Boomers" and "Essential Workers" including social housing on a scale (including disability workers) across Australia, including Regional Australia, built in up to 75% less time than current custom construction methods, in excellent designs, detailing and finishes with almost zero waste of valuable building materials. Let's work together to meet the shortfall of around 25,000 affordable, inclusive residential grade midrise apartments per year in Sydney and around 15,000 in Melbourne per year required over the next 5-7 years. "Speed to market" is the market opportunity for CLT advanced modular construction. Our "Thrive Alliance" Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) in Australia and Internationally is made from renewable plantation forest trees. CLT=stored carbon capacity is up to 40,000 “residential grade” midrise apartments per year, targeting the “Baby Boomers” and "Essential Workers " including social housing on a scale (including disability workers) across Australia, including Regional Australia, built in up to 75% less time than current custom construction methods, in excellent designs, detailing and finishes with almost zero waste of valuable building materials. https://lnkd.in/gWyWuHD #Australia #AffordableHousing #housingcrisis #clt #advancedmodular

27

7 Comments

🚀 A New Era in Australian Property: Key Trends from 2024 The Australian property market is shifting, and new trends are changing how buyers, sellers, and investors approach real estate. Some key takeaways: - Coastal Living Boom 🌊: Millennials and remote workers are turning to affordable beachside communities, pushing demand up in coastal areas. - Housing Affordability Pressures 💰: Higher interest rates and cost-of-living challenges mean city dwellers are moving to more affordable areas. - Boomers on the Move 👨‍👩‍👦: Baby Boomers hold half of Australia’s private wealth, and their property decisions will have major market impacts. Staying ahead of these trends will be crucial in navigating the evolving market. Read More: https://lnkd.in/gBZPQXCA Ready to simplify your property journey? 👉 Try S32 for Free! #AustralianRealEstate #PropertyTrends #RealEstateInvesting #AI #S32

2

Over the next two weeks I'll be interviewing many of Australia's top Investors such as... 🦄 Airtree 🦄Rampersand 🦄Scale Investors Pty Ltd 🦄Tribe Global Ventures and a handful more :) 💯 Off the back of that, I'll be running a virtual workshop about using the benchmarks we find with those Investors to reverse engineer your milestones and set yourself up for successful future fundraising. If you want to come along here's the link (Ideal for early-stage startups thinking of a future raise)!: https://lnkd.in/g7bucad8 🧠 What you'll learn: Discover how to set and achieve key milestones to position yourself for future funding. 📊 Learn to use milestone updates to build gradual, meaningful connections with investors, rather than a high-pressure pitch. 🤝

25

2 Comments

A founder's perspective on Founder Mode: It's about craftsmanship and soul Last week Brian Chesky and Paul Graham ignited the tech startup world with a discussion around "founder mode", which Paul summarizes in this post - https://lnkd.in/gC7swj59 This comparison of founder mode vs. manager mode and stream of bad advice around it really resonates with me as a multi-time founder. I find there are two areas in particular that get systematically eliminated in the process of moving from product-market fit to "building the machine" and scaling up an organization. 🔮 🛠 Craftsmanship: Early days require a lot of craftsmanship - as if you're designing and building custom homes for a small set of early customers. You need to inspire them with your vision, co-create with them, and make constant decisions about how to iterate, where to influence, and how to listen - all shaped with a view to repeatable and scalable patterns you can leverage to scale. This requires a lot of top-down intuition and hands-on crafting to get right - it also benefits from strong and fast decision making from the founder(s). As companies grow, this founder craftsmanship is easy to see as an enemy of scale that needs to be removed in favour of proven process. While it is true that this is not easy to scale, it is possible and worth it to figure out. I saw Zuck do this at Facebook as we scaled, shaping high impact initiatives and role modelling his craftsmanship to high potential people in his "Zuck reviews" for important new products and key initiatives. Combine this with a clear set of values and entrepreneurial people and you can keep the founder's touch on key initiatives without giving in to manager mode. 💙 🙏 Soul: A founder-led business can be felt much easier than it can be described. There is a passion, a set of values, a purpose that gives the company indescribable depth when done right - that feels magical and gives the company soul. This is the part of founder mode that enables people in the company to embody the same values, act with the same standards, and channel the inner purpose and passion of the founder. It attracts people that are entrepreneurial and secure in their abilities. People who see a founder's touch as a secret ingredient to add, not a box to be checked or worse to be avoided. My former Meta (at that time Facebook) colleague Fidji Simo wrote a great perspective on founder mode for non-founders in the information today, which I also see as possible. Founder mentality is a mindset and combined with an ability to imprint a sense of craft and soul into a company. I think founder-led companies like Meta and Shopify have shown a pattern to study and replicate in scaling startups, they have also produced a talent pool to mine for leaders that can operate in founder mode as the company scales. What do you think? Curious to hear your thoughts on founder mode... it's been a fun one to think about over the weekend. 🤔 #foundermode #founders #yc

28

1 Comment

✨ Listen to Grounded Director, Karl Fitzgerald speaking at the Build to Rent inquiry raising serious concerns about the corporatisation of housing in Australia ✨ In the northern hemisphere, software like YieldStar is coordinating rent increases across 81% of rental properties in Atlanta, prompting San Francisco to ban it as a monopolistic practice. Meanwhile, our government, which claims to support labor, is allowing similar strategies to go unchecked. The result? Fewer opportunities for mum and dad investors, reduced competition, and skyrocketing rents. Our current legislation is not prepared for what’s coming. It’s time to address these issues before they take hold in our market. #HousingCrisis #HousingAffordability #PublicPolicy #RealEstate

5

Exciting news! The Lendlease FutureSteps National Grant Round is now open. Funding applications can be submitted between 1st to 31st May for amounts between $20,000 - $100,000 ex GST.  FutureSteps is a Lendlease social impact fund based on the belief that everyone needs a place to call home. We partner with not-for-profit organisations across Australia with a focus on addressing homelessness through local systemic change and increasing housing supply to support people experiencing or at risk of homelessness. We do this through providing grants and in-kind support.  We have some criteria: Any project must address homelessness through local systemic change and/or increasing the housing supply, be located in Australia, have a local connection to one of our projects, and must be completed within 12 months. Applicants must also be an NFP with DGR status.  Please feel free to share this information with any organisations that might be eligible. Applications can be made through our partner organisation, Community Enterprise Foundation at Bendigo and Adelaide Bank here https://lnkd.in/gKCQSEyz

117

17 Comments

Great article which highlights the true diversity and value of the Deep Tech community led by Outset Ventures and housed within Future House. New Zealand is significantly better off by having such a unique privately run and funded facility. If you would like to be part of the community either as a supporter, investor, member or occupant please get in touch. The future is Deep Tech.

17

PROPTECH-PR. A Consultancy for Proptech Founders. PROPTECH-X Proptech & Property News : Rightmove share price rises 23% as REA Group circles: The Australian based REA group announces intention to acquire UK’s Rightmove    The Australian based REA group announces intention to acquire UK's Rightmove   Rightmove whose fortunes have been in the doldrums, as they failed to re-invent themselves, instead just inflating the annual cost of agency licences, has been thrown a lifeline in the shape of a formal announcement that the REA group, owned majoritively by the Murdochs vehicle News Corp wants to buy them.  It would be ironic if REA became the new owner as over 60% of REA is owned by News Corp which is of course an American mass media and publishing company owned by the Murdochs, so Rightmove which was set up as a digital antithesis of the power held by traditional print newspaper publishing, might go full circle and be owned by the Murdochs. Interestingly News Corp shares went retrograde on this Rightmove news, (it might be a sign) though of course the instant upside for Rightmove is a whopping 20%+ uplift in their share price today.  What is more interesting is to tease out if the newish CEO Johan Svanstrom coming in to Rightmove in February 2023, 18 months ago was part of a strategic play to get the company ready for sale, which would show longterm planning, or was it just co-incidental. Then of course we have the fact that Alison Dolan the Chief Financial Director at Rightmove resigned on the 29th of May 2024, which supposedly wrongfooted the Rightmove Chair. Again is this just co-incidence. Well the clock it ticking and in a month we will see if a formal bid lands or this is just the first round of what may be a protracted campaign, for sure the CoStar Group has mixed up the portal landscape in the UK, the other interesting thought is will Zoopla be next in line for a sale, watch this space.  Read all articles #Property #digitaltransformation #startups #realestate #Proptech

1

I’m always inspired seeing Australian consumer tech founders doing great things. Lucy Mort is no exception – as the co-founder and CEO of Sunroom, a consumer app that provides a space for women to earn money by creating content and connecting with their communities, Lucy has used product and design to create a space that feels unique, and caters to their specific community. Building a product that can sometimes confuse people (wait - I can only talk on Wednesday?!), I loved these product design insights from Lucy’s interview with Natasha Gillezeau: 📈 Most Advanced, Yet Acceptable: Pioneered by Raymond Loewy, product design should be innovative, whilst accessible and familiar. In essence, as advanced as your target customer is willing to accept. The iPhone is a great example of this, providing incremental changes over time, whilst maintaining enough of the previous design so that it is familiar. ⬇ Less is More: Build on the assumption that your users have no idea what your product is. The more features, the more complexity, the greater the barrier to adoption. Strip things back, listen to your users and your metrics, find your 1-2 key features driving value and stickiness and double down. 👌 Selective perfectionism: Work smarter. Some features will require significant A/B testing and iterating and others won’t. Have a framework to understand the demand, value and ROI you are creating to guide what will move the dial and where to invest your time. Via Missing Perspectives

35

3 Comments

What do VCs really want to see from HealthTech Founders? We all know the magic ingredients to building a successful HealthTech start up are unique and require a certain 'order' that can make building look quite different in this space. And it certainly works to different time scales. Yesterday Luke B. and I headed to the HealthTech Roundtable hosted by London Venture Capital Network to get some insights from VCs and ex-Founders about what REALLY matters when you're building 🔨 Thought I'd share the top 4 discussion points I found useful, in case they're helpful to others building in this space. 🚀 Scaling in the fragmented UK Market Each NHS trust operates independently, making it hard to scale with NHS contracts alone. The most successful build initial traction within the NHS, then rapidly expand into private markets (e.g., insurers) or take on international markets like the US or Europe - often sooner than expected. The lesson? Think big from the beginning and prepare for growth beyond the NHS - plan for multiple revenue streams from day 1. 📈 What VCs want to see from you Investors want regulatory rigour and proprietary data that sets companies apart. VCs particularly look for ventures embedded into clinical workflows; a clear marker of clinician TRUST, which is a major hurdle but also a major green flag for VCs. The advice for founders? Think beyond flashy concepts. Focus on gathering real-world evidence, establishing regulatory approval (FDA, MHRA or otherwise), and building solid, clinician-endorsed user bases. 🗺 Evidence is a journey, not a destination There was discussion around conceptualising evidence as a 'journey' rather than a destination, which I rather liked. Emphasising the ability to think creatively and collect a whole range of evidence types at every single step of the way, to build a compelling, rich case of clinician trust, real world impact, and product-market fit. Squeeze evidence out of every single customer conversation, demo, trial. Every drop counts. 💡 Hindsight from Experienced HealthTech Founders It was great to here experienced ex-Founders in the space talk about what they'd do differently next time. I think what I found most interesting was the discussion around the importance of execution, and more importantly, demonstrating pace of execution within a 'slow burn' market. It made me reflect on what hard decisions we need to make around prioritisation, to make sure we're delivering real value as fast as possible. Its so easy to feel the pressure to do everything at once; collecting proprietary data, evidence generation, clinical integration/acceptance, revenue generation. But is it better to move fast on one? We're trying to be super strict on ourselves here at Ogma. But it's hard, and we slip up sometimes. It was a beautiful Autumn day in a beautiful location, here's a pic 📸

28