Hi all!
As we reflect on the whirlwind that was 2023, we're excited to share our highlights.
We're thrilled to fuel more founders via 9 new investments in 2023, we've enjoyed helping our existing founders to thrive through the trials of 2023, and spending time connecting with our network of founders, investors, and startup supporters in what's been a roller-coaster year for everyone across the startup ecosystem.
It's exciting to witness the year-end momentum and watch the industry's collective hard work come to fruition.
A reminder about who we are:
We're building out Australia & New Zealand's largest syndicated venture capital platform, with 500+ investors made up of early employees, executives, and founders of some of the world's most exciting companies.
If you are excited about investing in global startup companies alongside us and our investors then you can sign up here (AUS/NZ Sophisticated investors only).
New to the TEN13 Portfolio ⚡️
We're excited to have added 9 new companies to our portfolio in 2023 (see below), plus supported 7 existing portfolio companies with follow-on funding.
Everlab 🏥
Everlab is building the world’s most comprehensive health platform that helps people live longer and healthier lives.
Everlab analyses an individual's medical, lifestyle, and family history to understand their unique risk profile and provides a comprehensive health assessment. It tests over 100 biological markers annually, including blood, urine, genetics, and functional performance. Everlab consolidates and tracks all health data in one place, giving users a live in-depth picture of their health and helps them identify risks and insights in real-time.
Honoured to be supporting Marc Hermann, Sam Kothari, Anshul Jain, and Dr Stephen Lu.
Arintra 🩻
Led by a team of technical founders with PhDs in machine learning and computer vision who are building Arintra, an autonomous medical coding platform; a former Y Combinator company.
On top of incredible academic accolades, founders Nitesh Shroff and Preeti Bhargavahave a long history of working in successful deep-tech start-ups in the US including Light (acquired by John Deere), and Zoox (acquired by Amazon).
Arintra leverages the latest advancements in AI to solve a more than $100 billion problem tied to revenue claiming for US hospital systems. Read the Arintra Investment Notes here.
Rockfish Data 🤖
Founded by Girish Muckai and a team of world-class researchers and PhDs from Carnegie Mellon. Rockfish has developed a state-of-the-art generative AI software solution to assist enterprises in generating "synthetic data".
It is projected that in the near future, 60% of the data used for AI and analytics projects will be synthetically generated. The ability to seamlessly produce synthetic data will be critical for every enterprise looking to benefit from the advances in Artificial Intelligence; augmenting and truly leveraging their own unique data sets. Rockfish is helping teams to do just this. Read the Rockfish Investment Notes here
Streamkap 🔄
In a world where the demand for instant information is becoming non-negotiable for companies and their customers, core to this ability is access to consistently lower latency (fast) and lower cost data. Streamkap solves just this with a real-time ‘streaming’ data SaaS platform.
In just a few hours, Streamkap customers can set up their data streaming pipeline (converting raw data from diverse sources into a comprehensible format so that it can be stored, analysed, and utilised). Early customers have shared that Streamkap allows access to data at a ~30x faster rate and are 5-10x cheaper than current batch options.
Founders Paul Dudley and Ricky Thomas are seasoned software operators, building and existing businesses in the data space in the past.
StartADAM 📲
Led by Australian-born, LA-basedAdam Stone, StartADAM is building a “Chat Operating System” to bring internal and external teams together by creating cross-platform communication between tools.
With StartADAM, you can send messages from Slack or Teams and have your customers or community receive your communication in WhatsApp, Teams, SMS, Discord, and dozens of other combinations of apps. The next version is an AI-enabled sales assistant for your communications and CRM.
For more on our portfolio 🛫
For a more accessible view of our investments to date, check out our new portfolio page which covers most of the 40+ investments we have made. View the Full Portfolio
What happening in the portfolio 🛫
Mr Yum merges with Me&U
One of TEN13's earlier investments, the company formerly known as Mr Yum, has merged with Me&U. Under the adopted Me&U brand, Kim Teo will remain as CEO. The combined company now services over 6,000 restaurants across AU, NZ, UK and the US and is well-prepared to continue to push deeper into foreign markets together. Find out more in the AFR.
Pictured below are Mr Yum founder Kim Teo and Me&U founder Stevan Premutico.
Chipper Cash partners with Visa, joins the ARK Portfolio
ARK Invest, led by Cathie Wood, recently added Chipper Cash to their portfolio. With that, Chipper’s Director of Engineering caught up with the ARK team to chat about Chipper’s approach to Fintech in Africa; with a particular focus on the intricacies of running FinTech in Africa. Worth a listen.
Chipper also formalised a new enhanced strategic partnership with Visa! Chipper first started working with Visa in 2021 on their card product. Now, 1 million cards later, they are taking the relationship to the next level with collaboration across regulatory and marketing functions.
The initial relationship has helped hundreds of thousands of people enter the financial ecosystem. Tefiro Serunjogi, Head of Consumer Products, remarked “for 21% of customers, getting a Chipper Card is their first time accessing a payment card”.
Smileyscope gains FDA approval!
Smileyscope’s VR headset, designed to ease anxiety and discomfort in children during medical procedures, has received the green light from the FDA. This landmark clearance marks Smileyscope as the first-ever VR tool to be classified as a Class II medical device for acute pain management in pediatric patients.
Clinical trials have shown Smileyscope to be remarkably effective, reducing pain by up to 60% and anxiety by up to 40% in young patients. The immersive VR experience not only distracts children from the often stressful medical setting but also actively engages their minds, promoting a sense of calm and control.
EntryLevel & Tixel are Top 100 Innovators
The Australian released the third edition of their annual Top 100 Innovators list; “celebrating and highlighting Australia’s best next-generation leaders” which included two of our portfolio founders.
Ajay Prakash and EntryLevelare making waves by re-skilling thousands of people globally for the jobs of the future, while Jason Webb and Tixel have been revolutionising the way people buy and sell tickets for events. Their platform guarantees 100% authenticity and safety, ensuring a seamless experience for consumers.
Go1 - Scaleup of the Year
Startup Daily, one of Australia’s leading media advocates of tech and startups, honoured Go1 with the Scaleup of the Year in their Best in Tech Awards.
The Logan-born, Brisbane-based Unicorn is one of the largest online learning providers in the world. As Startup Daily put it; “More than eight million people have taken their courses for workplace learning and development in what Go1 dubs ‘the world’s most comprehensive online library of learning resources’.” Plus Go1 acquired globally recognised book summary brand Blinkist this year.
Bookipi building the business platform for SMBs
Tim Lee, Founder and CEO of Bookipi Group (owns Bookipi, Payroller, and InvoiceBee), started his entrepreneurial journey in 2009 with Goodman Tiling, a small construction company in Sydney. While facing setbacks with previous ventures, Tim's determination led to the creation of the Bookipi Invoice App in 2018, a comprehensive tool for small business owners to manage invoices efficiently.
Today, the Bookipi platform boasts over 800,000 users across 179 countries, processing over $9.3 billion in invoices annually. Tim's journey, marked by resilience, calculated risks, and unwavering positivity, serves as an inspiration to aspiring entrepreneurs worldwide. Read more on Tim's founding story here.
TEN13 across the Globe 🌏
In October, Stew Glynn and Alex Barrat headed to Singapore and Hong Kong for a week with boots on the ground, getting closer to the SE Asian startup scene.
Over a few days, the crew managed to meet with over 20 VCs, founders and investors including GGV, January Capital, Peak XV and Jungle Ventures.
With investments across Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and India, building connections with the SE Asian ecosystem as we support our existing portfolio, as well as look for new opportunities in the region.
Seamus Crawford also stopped by San Francisco in September, with the same purpose to deepen relationships with founders and investors in the region. Pictured below is Seamus with Nitesh Shroff and Pushpak Kedia from Arintra.
Closer to home, we hosted our All Access event during Sydney’s SXSW festival alongside our friends at OIF and Archangel Ventures. Another great night connecting with our nearest and dearest founders, investors and supporters.
Runway Conference & Touchdown Party
Finishing 2023 with a bang, we also hosted our Runway Conference and Touchdown Party for the 4th time.
The premier event on TEN13’s calendar, and a highlight for the Brisbane startup ecosystem, it is always an honour to host hundreds of founders, investors, builders and supporters in Fortitude Valley to learn from a stacked lineup of speakers, and then dance the year away into the evening.
This year we were privileged to hear from Rae Dower - Technical Director of Women's Football in Australia (go Matildas), Joel Pobar - Infrastructure at AI company Anthropic, Simon Beard - Founder of Culture Kings, and Alex Harper - co-founder of Swyftx, along with other founders and ecosystem members.
We then dimmed the lights, turned the music up and partied into the night to see off 2023. With hundreds in attendance, Runway showed just how strong the Queensland startup ecosystem is.
Founders Forum
In what is becoming an annual affair, we pulled together as many TEN13 founders as we could with the mission to forge powerful connections, share insights, and draw inspiration from some of the most dynamic experts/speakers and founders within our community.
More than 30 founders came together to learn from experts at the peak of their fields in AI, high-performance, sales / growth, and more, but more importantly, get a chance to connect and break-bread together.
A special thank you to Joel Pobar, Rae Dower, Shane Preston, Alex Ghiculescu, Aaron Birkby, Lindsay Rogers for their knowledge and generosity.
TEN13 Investor Spotlight Series
The TEN13 investor network is full of entrepreneurs, operators, builders and world-class investors - our Co-Pilots. In this new series, we spend time with our Co-Pilots, understanding their background and approach to angel investing. Check out our interviews with…
- Carl Hartmann
- Carl has been on the founder journey a few times, firstly with logistics software startup Temando which he co-founded in 2008 and rode through to a successful exit in 2015; and more recently with both Compono and Lyre’s. He now invests anywhere from synthetic biology to jet boards, with a particular focus at the moment on health/wellness and AI.
- Daniel Johnson
- Daniel is well known in the Sydney startup ecosystem as an avid supporter, active angel investor and “super-connector.” Alongside the 71 investments Daniel has made into early-stage startups, he is Chairman at Tensis, a company he and some close associates recently bought a controlling stake in
Stay tuned on LinkedIn as we share more from our Co-Pilots.
What we’re consuming
- Identifying Your Durable Advantage in Fintech by a16z
- What problem is mobile money solving in Sub-Saharan Africa? by 11:FS
- Why a Vertical Approach is Key to Building Enduring AI Applications by Greylock
- Three SaaS CFOs share financial leadership advice for tough market environments by Bessemer
Hiring across the portfolio
🚗 AutoGrab is hiring a Solutions Engineer in Melbourne.
🔧 Partly is on the lookout for candidates across Data, Engineering and Sales, both in NZ and globally.
📣 Cartelux is hiring Customer Success roles.
🎵 Audience Republic is looking for Engineering Managers, Product Managers and Account Execs.
📖 Bookipi is hiring acrossProduct, Engineering and Marketing
💸 Instant is looking for new hires in the Business & Growth, and Engineering functions.