Life moves pretty fast.
If you don't stop and reflect every once in a while, you could miss it.
So let’s reflect.
Since 2010, Startmate has invested in over 300 startups
Often pre-revenue, pre-product, for all our founders, we are their very first believers.
Today, these companies are worth over $4.5b and employ over 3.5k people.
In our portfolio, we have:
- Two companies worth ~$500m each
- 12 companies worth $50m+ each and
- Have had 17 portfolio companies acquired.
But what does that matter? Numbers are numbers.
It’s the stories behind these numbers that underpin our success.
The magic of the Startmate community is the mindset of ambition and paying it forward
Our founders are world-class. They have defied all odds and achieved wildly impressive success. But what makes our founders so unique and powerful is their mateship and the attitude of paying it forward.
Mike Cannon-Brooks, Atlassian was a founding mentor and investor of the Accelerator, mentoring Mike Baukes, Upguard, and Casey Ellis, Bugcrowd in our early cohorts. Today, Casey and Mike are mentoring the next generation of Accelerator founders and join us regularly for founder drinks and office visits.
Kate Morris, Adore Beauty, mentored Andy Miller, Heaps Normal, who now pays it forward, mentoring our D2C companies.
Cliff Obrecht, Canva, mentored Rory San Miguel, Propeller, who mentored Hartley Pike, Sitemate.
Michael de Nil, Morse Micro, was our first ever hardware investment in 2016 and triggered a whole new wave of great hardware investments, like 5B, Great Wrap, Uluu and Sicona to name a few, who have all come back to mentor the latest cohorts.
And the circle of mentorship continues.
The magic of Startmate is grounded in the people who make it possible to start and build exceptional companies.
Exclusive fund, extraordinary returns
Startmate is a community-driven seed fund, we invest $120k in each startup at a $1.5m post-money valuation or match their latest funding round.
This means we don’t need to raise billion-dollar funds. Instead, we raise capped $3m microfunds every 6 months for each Accelerator cohort.
When micro funds invest as first investors, if just one company in the group reaches a valuation of $50-$100 million, it can rapidly achieve the 3x fund returns typical in venture capital.
Across our 2011-2016 funds, we’ve already returned 2.6x cash on cash returns.
But it doesn’t stop there.
At Startmate, we’ve doubled down our support for breakout Accelerator companies by investing further through our Continuity Fund. This ensures they receive significant additional investment from Startmate in subsequent funding rounds.
Action: If you’re interested in our funds, here is the full overview.
Founders helping founders
Startmate is first and foremost a community of Australia and New Zealand’s most ambitious founders.
Our community-driven seed fund allows our alumni (founders and ex-founders) to invest in current founders.
It gives them skin in the game and ensures they are fully committed to the success of the cohort. You’re not met with half-hearted advice, or fly-in fly-out advisors, but deeply committed mentors who are investing their time and money in you.
Every Accelerator mentor is an investor and our investor pool has included the likes of:
- Atlassian founders - Mike Cannon-Brooks, Scott Farquhar
- Canva founders - Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht
- Adore Beauty founder - Kate Morris
- CultureAmp founders - Rod Hamilton, Doug English, Jon Williams
- Luxury Escapes founder - Adam Schwab
There is no better mentorship and advice than from founders who are a couple of steps ahead of you, have been in your shoes and can show up with empathy.
The beauty of Startmate is the community paying it forward and alumni giving back to the next generation.
Action: If you want to accelerate your company, the Accelerator runs twice a year and invests $120k.
Startups that start careers
Over the last 13 years, we’ve backed 300 companies, many of which have grown into global businesses employing hundreds of people.
Collectively, our portfolio founders employ over 3,500 people.
As a result, the entire startup industry has grown and created real career opportunities for people across ANZ. We are seeing an increase in people actively seeking to join a startup or start their own.
We’ve seen major shifts in the following two areas:
1. Talent Influx into startups
To build a brilliant startup, you need a brilliant team.
One of the biggest challenges founders face along their journey is hiring top talent. In the past, it wasn’t uncommon for founders to poach talent from other startups. But in the last five years, things have changed. There has been a whole new influx of talent from outside the startup industry from student, corporate, hospitality, retail and more.
The Startmate Fellowships are fueling that trend. The Women Fellowship has had 800+ women go through it and seen 550+ women join or start their own startup (it runs twice a year with ~100 fellows per cohort).
Similarly, the Student Fellowship runs twice a year during uni holidays and helps 400+ students kickstart their careers into startups.
2. A second wave of talent
With the rise of fast-growing startups that hire hundreds of ambitious people comes a whole upgrade and education of talent who learn how to grow tech companies. After a couple of years of absorbing and learning - ambitious people tend to leave and try it out themselves.
Australia and New Zealand are seeing that second and sometimes third wave of talent coming through startups then starting their own company, then training the next gen of talent and inspiring them to go on and start a new company.
Startups have become a real career path for a steep learning curve and unleashing your own creativity by making an impact.
And so the cycle continues.
Action: If you want to join a startup, check out Startmate’s Fellowships.
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