A warm welcome back to TEN13’s Runway Newsletter - it’s been an eventful year to date to say the least!
In spite of a challenging macro environment continuing to emerge, our phenomenally supportive syndicate flew past 500 investors, our Maverick program continues to grow, we further bolstered our TEN13 crew with 4 new team members, and we made some exciting new and follow-on investments.
Surpassing 500 investors
- TEN13’s model is predicated on “network based investing” - we are therefore incredibly proud to have surpassed a major milestone of 500 investors that help us fuel more founders with early-stage capital.
- But quantity is by no means prioritised over quality - we continue to have an incredibly supportive investor community made up of founders, operators, executives and family offices. To ensure our portfolio company Founders can leverage this community effectively, we’ve launched “Radar”, our dual opt in program where our Syndicate members opt to be available at specific times to offer advice and support based on their own extensive experience, network and expertise to portfolio companies.
- We also welcomed a number of our own portfolio company founders and operators to our investor syndicate, a great example of the ANZ entrepreneurial flywheel and constantly maturing ecosystem.
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).
At TEN13, we continue our ambitious plans of fuelling more founders and building out the most vibrant and active early-stage investor community. It has been wonderful to welcome 4 new crew to the TEN13 team over the last few weeks.
Seamus Crawford (Investment Principal) has joined the team after an extensive career on both sides of the table. Previously, an Investment Principal at VU Venture Partners based in Hong Kong, and previously in strategy and finance roles at Pupil (UK scale-up). Famous for SaddleSandSea, yes he rowed across the Atlantic and did 6 marathons in 6 days across the Sahara. Seamus is launching our TEN13 Sydney office, reach out to him at seamus@ten13.vc or on Linkedin.
Alexandra "Griggsie" Grigg (Investment Associate) has joined the team after in-depth VC experience at fellow syndicate Flying Fox ventures and Artesian / SAVC. Griggsie has been recognised as a 2020 Young Leader of the Year at the Women in Finance Awards and a Forbes 30 under 30 Asia in 2021 for Finance and Venture Capital. Alex is based in Adelaide, reach out to her at alex.grigg@ten13.vc or on Linkedin.
Alexander Barrat (Investment Analyst and Content) has joined the team after 5 years at trading scale-up Stake, leading some of their content team for their analysis and circulation to 400k userbase. Previously an investor at Harvest Lane Asset Management and ZeroCap. Alex is based in Brisbane, reach out to him at alex.barrat@ten13.vc or on Linkedin.
Elise Cannell (Investor Relations Associate) has joined the team after working in a startup called Step One, and shifting across to fuelling founders after actually being an aircraft captain for Virgin! Elise is based in Brisbane, reach out to her at elise@ten13.vc or on Linkedin.
Welcoming new investments
Layer, connecting brands with the metaverse
We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Layer as one of the newest arrivals to TEN13’s portfolio via our Brendan Hill (Maverick program) - an incredibly talented team building the bridges to connect brands and games globally.
Awesome to co-invest with our friends at Carthona, Flying Fox, Black Sheep, Aura Ventures and more.
Read more about Layer and their Seed round here.
Layer raises $3.88m Seed - Read here
Treinta raises one of LATAMs largest Series A
As TEN13 continues to expand its global footprint, we are delighted to invest in Treinta via our Brendan Hill (Maverick program), a financial ‘superapp’ based in Colombia aimed at small businesses across Latin America. You can read more about Treinta and their Series A round here and here.
Treinta raises $46m Series A - Read here
Smart Weights are the future of gym
We are equally pumped for existing TEN13 portfolio company, Vitruvian, their US$15m Series A used to support Jon and Benjamin in their journey to revolutionise the fitness industry with their ‘smart weights’ and ‘connected strength training’ ecosystem.
Vitruvian raises US$15m Series A - Read here
What's going on in our Portfolio?
Mr Yum takes its first bite - acquires MyGuestList
The phenomenal Mr Yum family continues to execute globally, rolling out their Split & Pay feature, while making a significant strategic acquisition of fellow Melbourne tech firm MyGuestlist, a customer relationship management platform.
Attention as a Currency - AdTech trends
Karen Nelson-Field, founder and CEO of TEN13 portfolio company Amplified Intelligence, recently wrote a fantastic piece on ‘Attention as a currency’ - you can read it here.
Building an intentional company culture
We also loved reading these valuable insights from Holly Cardew, Founder and CEO of TEN13 portfolio company Carted, focused on “building an intentional company culture”
How tech is helping manage the flood emergency
Most of us in Australia have suffered a pretty wet start to the year, with life-threatening floods across many parts - we were super proud to see Transition Level Investments’ portfolio company, Floodmapp, leverage its data and models to support and inform critical decisions about evacuations and rescues, helping thousands of people across the country.
Read more about the story here, plus about Floodmapp's $8.5m Seed round led by USV.
Unicorn alert: Linktree's latest round
Further to raising a $110M Series C round led by Index Ventures and Coatue Management, Transition Level Investments portfolio company, Linktree, reached unicorn status, now valued at $1.3B - it’s been incredible to watch this rocket ship continue to climb, led by Alex, Anthony and Nick.
Our Maverick program throttles forward
Side Stage Ventures launch
Our team of Mavericks continues to grow - we launched our TEN13 Maverick Program in late 2021, aimed at supporting emerging fund managers and 'solo-capitalists' to scale their offering by partnering with us, providing them with the infrastructure to lead investments on TEN13’s platform.
Continuing with our goal to have more great founders funded by the best in the business, we are super exited to partner with and welcome Side Stage Ventures as the most recent joiner to the program, in addition to Brendan Hill as one of our Maverick OGs. You can read more about the Side Stage team’s launch here.
Events are BACK!
It was so good to be back on the road, with some of the TEN13 team jetting off to Melbourne to catch up with our portfolio companies, Mr Yum & Delegate Connect, listen to pitches from exciting founders, and host a mixer event with the wider community.
You can watch some highlights of our “day in the life of a venture investor” here.
VIDEO: A day in the life of a VC
Jetstream22
At TEN13, we've set out to build the most active and valuable community of early-stage technology investors starting with Australia and New Zealand.
Hence why we've loved kicking off our trip with 20+ of our valued investors to San Francisco meeting with some of the best in the business of founders, VC funds, Web3 gurus, super-angels, and more.
One week embedded in the action of all things technology, learning from Meta, Softbank Vision Fund, Accel, Sequoia, Bullpen, BTV, and many more
Dinner with the Chipper founders
An and Sophie managed to catch up in SF with portfolio founders Ham Serunjogi (CEO) and Maijid Moujaled (CTO), after a whirlwind few years building 🦄 Chipper Cash to one of the fastest growing fintechs in Africa.
Founder AMA with Kim & Holly
- We had a superb chat with Kim (Co-Founder & CEO of Mr Yum) and Holly (Founder and CEO of Carted) about all things fundraising, international expansion, rapid scaling, hiring top-talent, and company culture as a moat.
- You can catch the whole discussion again here in case you didn’t manage to catch it live.
What we’re reading
- A helpful framework and mental model from A16Z - Navigating down markets
- An oldie but a goodie from Bill Gurley, in particular as we move into a more tricky macro environment - The Keys to the 10x club
- Incredibly interesting reading - Bessemer’s State of the Cloud 2022
- Great thread from Frank Rotman, Founder and CIO of fintech VC fund, QED Investors - Are you a “Chip and a Chair” Founder?
What we’re watching / listening to
- VC Sunday School - mega episode with Jason Calacanis and Jason Lemkin
- Macro Masterclass from Raoul Pal - the first episode in a journey of learning and discovery for Global Recession: Is Everyone Wrong
- Also an oldie but a goodie from Sequoia’s Don Valentine - Target Big Markets
- From an episode from the end of 2021, but includes lessons for the ages from Benchmark - one of our favourites ‘What could go right, rather than what could go wrong?’
Hiring across the portfolio
🛒 Instant is hiring for a Strategy & Operations lead, and a Growth Marketer / Hacker
📖 Officely is hiring for a Software Engineer
🎥 Delegate Connect is hiring for a Chief Technology Officer, a Head of Partnerships, a Senior Product Manager, Senior Product Designer and Product Owner, as well as a People & Culture Co-Ordinator
👕 Carted is hiring for a Senior Devops Engineer, Senior Quality Assurance Engineer and a Senior Golang Engineer
💪 Vitruvian is hiring for a Backend Software Engineer and an IOS Software Engineer
💸 Chipper Cash is hiring for >50 job openings
🍔 Mr Yum is hiring for >40 job openings
Start investing with TEN13
We are always looking for new investors to join us at TEN13, if you're interested you can begin the signup process and receive our info pack by signing up on our website. Sophisticated Investors only.
At this point, we can currently only accept Sophisticated Investors (that are Australian & New Zealand residents).
Start investing here.