Raaj Rayat, investment manager at AirTree Ventures and Bevan McLeod managing director - accounting at BlueRock.
On August 10 in Sydney, six Australian early-stage startups pitched their hearts out to win SmartCompany’s third instalment of the Pitch. On show as usual was the innovation and creativity often exhibited by the founders, but what stood out even more was the support, enthusiasm and community exhibited by the buzz in the room as the Sydney startup scene got together once again to make connections.
In three-slide pitches, the shortlisted startups vied for the winner-takes-all prize of $15,000 in BlueRock consulting services and $100,000 in AWS active credits. A guest judging panel of esteemed members of the VC, startup and business communities had much to consider from the six pitches.
Raaj Rayat of Airtree Ventures, Laura Faulconer of x15ventures, Bevan McLeod of BlueRock, Jill Berry of Adatree and Wayne Clarke of AWS delivered insightful questions and feedback for each founder, before conferring to pick a winner.
Faulconer in particular was excited about the early stage freshness of the founders and their ideas. “I love early stage startups,” she said. “I’ve seen so many early stage founders with their ideas still quite malleable, and I love helping be a part of giving them feedback and help them find that path forward.”
The shortlisted early-stage startups
Penny
Penny supports women with the financial education and tools to make confident decisions about their money. Founder Jemi Jeng came up with the concept “while working in a small team partnering with startups to address complex policy problems, and following a series of candid conversations with other women about their money goals.”
Fetchie
Fetchie bills itself as the “game-changing shopping companion that is on its way to becoming the world’s largest e-commerce marketplace.” Founded by Nivya Saseendran and Joseph Joy, it provides shoppers with a personal space to track and discover the best new deals, regardless of location or currency.
Gladly
Gladly helps Gen Z users better navigate the world of work. Co-founded by Chris Johnson and John Ferlito, it specifically deals in ‘micro side hustles’, providing a platform for workers to create a profile, select a range of side hustles tailored to their abilities and resources, and accept opportunities when they arise.
nVest
nVest’s mission is to democratise access to stock markets in the Asia Pacific region. It helps customers – from banks to startups – build investment features into their products. Founded by Sivan Atad, this “bank-grade embedded investment solution allows you to deliver accessible, simple and affordable investment experiences to Australian retail investors”.
Project Olea
Project Olea is developing new technologies to enable agricultural waste to be redirected into the global agrifood system. The team, led by co-founders Justine Cohen, Rebecca Screnci and Mark Cohen, is bringing advanced biotech and food science into the future of food production.
The winner: nVest!
“nVest had a great pitch and found a problem that is being explored in other markets but is unsolved locally,” said the judges in a shared statement on their decision.
Essentially, nVest works with client companies to help them embed investment products into their existing products like apps and web pages, to allow customers to trade on the stock market without doing so manually or on other platforms.
“It’s an interesting problem space,” the judges said. “There is a real need to reduce trading costs so it’s a good market fit.
“nVest also showcased good signals around partner engagement and understanding around broader market trends from businesses who want to buy versus build.”
Lessons on perfect pitching shared by the winning founder Sivan Atad came down to perseverance and practise, practise, practise. “I’ve pitched nVest countless times over the last 12 months and I think it has gradually gotten better every time.”
And he’s excited about what’s to come. “We are looking to keep expanding our team, we are also looking to do a raise so that we can bring them onboard at full-time capacity. This will enable us to better support our customers and enable larger partnerships and bigger business.”
“We’re keen to support the startup ecosystem,” said guest judge Bevan McLeod, “and this is a great example of getting new founders together on the night, getting a bit of support from the community, and putting it out there. We’re all for that!”
McLeod was particularly excited to see what the founders had to show on the night. “It comes down to the founder, first and foremost… you see the passion, and the ability to problem solve and change the way that they do things.
“We would typically back the founder and then start to understand the business and the problem that they’re solving.”
And there’ll be plenty of time for that, as nVest will now begin working with BlueRock consulting to help – part of its Pitch win prize.
BlueRock’s vision is to give business owners the support they need to run amazing businesses, and the freedom they desire to live great lives. BlueRock has created a full-service offering for entrepreneurs, providing a comprehensive suite of services and a strong community to grow their clients’ business and personal wealth. A technology-centric mindset fuels BlueRock’s approach, leading it to make substantial investments in cutting-edge platforms and honing its skill sets to prototype and develop solutions for clients.
