Issue #8 - The 2023 round up & final deals to close out the year!
Hello 👋 and welcome to Issue #8 of Playbook Deal Flow!
It happens every year, but I still can’t believe it’s December already. This year has been especially packed with 1FF & Playbook Angel Network. It was great to finish strong with our EOY celebration where we brought together a room of 100+ founders, investors & operators, alongside our friends at Skalata, Antler & LaunchVic. Thanks to everyone who came by!
It was great to see our latest investment through Playbook Angel Network (everlab) announce their $3m pre-seed raise! Congrats to Marc, Sam, Anshul & Steven, we’re so excited to support this very important mission! (article). Learn more and sign up to the waitlist here.
I decided to write a quick wrap of the year in the Memo sections below, but in short, it’s been a massive 12 months for Playbook Angel Network, and we’re really only just getting started! If you want join us in 2024 to invest in early stage startups alongside an incredible community of founders, operators and investors, you can apply to join the Playbook Angel Network below:
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Before getting into the meat of this newsletter, I wanted to share a disclaimer that this newsletter is not here to provide financial, legal or investment advice of any kind. All of the information presented in this newsletter comes directly from the founder(s) and you should always do your own Due Diligence before making an investment
With all that said, let’s get into Issue #8 of Playbook Deal Flow!
The Deal Room
A quick note on this section: Unless explicitly stated, I haven’t invested personally or through Playbook Angel Network in these companies, the goal of this section of the newsletter is to share some great companies I’ve come across who are currently raising.
If you would like more information or want to connect with the teams, hit the “request an intro” button…I always do double-opt in intros…
Here are the companies selected for Issue #8 👇
VOLI
An all-in-one gamified social impact marketplace. We connect business, individuals and cause to make social impact easy, measuring it even easier and reward users for their impact.
🤔 The Problem: Companies are under more pressure than ever to prioritise and demonstrate CSR and impact. Companies are committed to action... but are having their intentions restricted by low employee uptake & inability to measure CSR outcomes.
🙌 The Solution: An all-in-one impact marketplace driving employee impact, and providing business with measurable CSR and ESG data.
🔑 Key Team members:
Charlie Crozier (Co-founder & CEO) - A career exclusively spent in Start-ups with expertise in technology, Sales & GTM strategy. Worked & consulted with companies throughout AUS & the US in technology & blockchain Start-ups including an AUS Federal Govt funded venture.
Liam Higgins (Co-founder & COO) - Expertise in Operations and Business Optimisation for org's such as the national body for renewable energy in Australia. Currently completing a Master’s Degree with the United Nations.
Tom Grimshaw (CPO) - Experienced designer and business leader who specialises in product and strategy design for complex problems in the impact sector. Supported CSIRO, Beyond Blue, Federal Government and SA Power Networks. Pioneered National innovation labs for the water and energy sector, with public and private consulting experience.
🚀 Traction:
Completed our MVP with our first customer being onboarded next week
Built our waitlist to over 12 businesses which is now growing weekly
😇 The Ask: Raising a Pre-Seed round to further build out product and team.
Peak Medical
Peak Medical is a healthcare startup with an all-female team that delivers evidence based, digital physical therapy + live AI clinical guidance pathways to patients in the Orthopaedic + Osteoarthritis Sectors.
🤔 The Problem: There is a high cost and lack of human resources in healthcare, especially in the Orthopaedic + Osteoarthritis Sectors. Patients with joint disease can be stuck on year-long waitlists for joint surgery or have limited access to physiotherapy for chronic Osteoarthritis.
🙌 The Solution: Our App is for patients with joint disease to access Physiotherapy at home - we have designed the technology to mimic the experience you have in a face-to-face Physio appointment - But without the need for the Physio. Making the solution accessible, highly affordable, and on demand.
🔑 Key Team members:
Hayley Saddington: Founder & CEO - previously commercialised a medical device from concept to exit, deep networks in Hospitals (our customer) and with key stakeholders.
Clarie Chek: Engineering team lead - Uniquely holding both a Medical and Engineer degree Clarie holds the special skill of speaking and translating between Tech and Med.
🚀 Traction:
MVP ready with multiple pilots underway
TGA submission under way (Class 2A)
😇 The Ask: Raising a round to accelerate growth (lead investor secured)
Want to have your startup featured in a future issue of Playbook Deal Flow? Get in touch here
The Memo:
Writing this final edition of Playbook Deal Flow for 2023 made me reflect on the year that has been. We now have a community of 600+ investors who read this newsletter and it’s been fulfilling to play the role of dot connector between amazing investors and incredible founders. We’ve made numerous introductions via this newsletter that have directly resulted in funding for founders, and great deal flow for investors.
Safe to say it’s been a packed year with Playbook Angel Network! In the past 12 months we:
Have now invested in 7 incredible companies (and 30% of our portfolio are female led!)
Had our first acquisition! (Steppen was acquired by Alta)
Just launched our first follow on investment (a company we invested in earlier this year when they were pre-product smashed all their milestones and are raising their Series A to accelerate growth at a healthy valuation bump!)
Hosted 2 incredible angel investor dinners in Melbourne
Hosted our end of year celebration alongside our friends at Skalata & Antler with 100+ attendees
Featured 10+ companies who were fundraising in this newsletter
Made 41 introductions between founders and investors off the back of being featured, some of which directly resulted in funding
Grew our Playbook Deal Flow community to 600+ readers
To all our investors who have joined us this year, thanks again for being a part of this journey. To those reading who want to invest into early stage startups alongside an incredible community of founders, operators and investors, you can apply to join the Playbook Angel Network below:
The Folio:
Each issue I’ll share some recent funding announcements from the previous month (Note: This is by no means an exhaustive list)
everlab (the latest Playbook Angel Network deal 🚀 ) announced their $3m raise led by b2venture (The Australian)
Fintech Upworth banks $1 million in first raise (Startup Daily)
Ex-Canva staff land $4.2m for AI cooking start-up (AFR)
Building regs analysis startup PropCode nails $400,000 pre-Seed round to simplify development planning (Startup Daily)
Envato founders back plastics reduction startup Refilled in $1.3 million Seed round (Startup Daily)
Ex-Xero employees bank $1m for super tech start-up (AFR)
Process digitisation proptech Sitemate nabs another $7.5 million in pre-Series A (Startup Daily)
Main Sequence once again backs carbon management startup’s $2.5 million raise (Startup Daily)
Rich List Envato founders back high-tech drinks venture (AFR)
Corporate gifting startup Elliephant presented with $560,000 pre-Seed round (Startup Daily)
Job-ready sales talent edtech Earlywork banks $1.5 million Seed round (Startup Daily)
Airtasker cofounder Jonathan Lui’s proptech app, Soho, banks $750,000 to hit $20 million valuation (Startup Daily)
Andisor has raised a $1M Pre-Seed round (SmartCompany)
Blackbird doubles down on Kiwi healthtech Carepatron in $6 million Seed round (Startup Daily)
Anti-PowerPoint financial training startup Nuggets Academy raises $700,000 (Startup Daily)
Kiwi funds management platform Caruso raises $3 million in Seed round for Australian expansion (Startup Daily)
Main Sequence, Steve Baxter back defence surveillance startup in $4.45m Seed round (Startup Daily)
Blackbird backs generative AI startup Leonardo.Ai in $47 million raise (Startup Daily)
The Stash:
Each edition I’ll share a few resources that I found useful.
📰 VC news:
HSBC launches venture debt offer for Australian scaleups (Startup Daily)
Kiwi VC Icehouse Ventures raises $10 million (Startup Daily)
New VC fund Happenco closes first fund (AFR)
📝 Resources:
Superfluid - A fantastic newsletter about tech and business strategy
Explore the Victorian startup ecosystem (LaunchVic)
OnePitch.VC - Submit your funding pitch to 25 investors in a minute
And that’s time on Issue #8! Thanks so much for reading The Playbook Deal Flow and for making it all the way to the end.
I would love to hear from you to see how I can make this newsletter more valuable for you:
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See you at the next issue!
Cheers,
Rohit Bhargava, Playbook Deal Flow
This information is provided by Playbook Ventures Pty Ltd (ACN 661 102 825), Playbook Ventures Pty Ltd is a corporate authorised representative (CAR No. 1302084) of GXE Fund Services Pty Ltd (ACN 162 966 609, AFSL 460870). This information has been prepared by Playbook Ventures Pty Ltd and it is for general information purposes only and is not intended to promote or recommend any particular product or services offered by GXE or Playbook Ventures Pty Ltd. This information does not take into account the objectives, financial situation or needs of any investor. Before making an investment decision, investors should read the relevant offer document and (if appropriate) seek professional advice to determine whether the investment is suitable for them. This information is intended only for wholesale clients within the meaning of s761G and s761GA of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth).