
Meet the team: 2 mins with Elliott Gaspar
He’s a family man with big plans. Meet our UK Finance Director, Elliott Gaspar.
As founders ourselves, and with our growing client community of startups and scale ups, we’ve been wanting to launch this for a while.
But then came the topsy turvy COVID years and the need to focus on our own business. Finally, here we are in August 2022, fresh from our first Founders and Funders Dinner!
The opposite actually – it was a deliberately intimate evening with some of our founder clients and funders from our network.
No one takes IRL get-togethers for granted anymore, so we were stoked to bring the group together for a fun dinner with a stunning Sydney view, good food and plenty of food for thought.
Thanks to Cheryl Mack from Aussie Angels, Ada Yin from AirTree and Chris Quirk from Rampersand for sharing their insights on funding, the state of the market and how to approach it.
And to share it further, here’s a wrap up of the night. With all the news of tech layoffs and economic uncertainty, we reckon it’s especially worthwhile reading right now.
Thanks to Cut Through Venture’s latest Australian Startup Funding stats for the first calendar half of 2022 (1H 2022), here’s some context to the funding discussions we had on the night:
The stats are one thing but what are investors in the thick of it seeing?
Here are the topline takeaways from the night (further commentary in the next section).
Since early stage companies still have the same funding needs to get their businesses going, deal sizes at that level remain largely unchanged
Not surprisingly in a room full of optimistic tech-loving funders and founders, we’re all expecting the market to come good in the longer term (it’s just a matter of when), reflecting the position that tech companies hold in the public markets.
While we acknowledged that immediately applying the public market downturn to early stage investments doesn’t necessarily make sense for future exits, there’s no denying the psychology it creates with founders taking haircuts on valuations and good buying opportunities for savvy cashed-up investors. This has attracted more overseas investors who are taking a good look at Australian deals, which are already cheaper from their perspective. This could be a good opportunity for Aussie founders to make international investor connections.
At the series A/B level, startups that were previously relying on investment to keep growing should no longer count on that as a strategy. As in previous downturns, business fundamentals – cash above all and also path-to-profit – matter more for follow-on round investors.
VCs are working harder with their portfolio companies to make sure they have 18 month cash runways.
Taking all this into account, our tips for founders in the current climate are:
We’re looking forward to hosting more Founders and Funders Dinners. With our own business to run (and clients to look after), it’s not something we’ll be doing every month but we’re definitely planning to make it a regular event in the calendar to help connect our community of founder clients with one another, and with the investment community.
If you’re keen to get involved or have an idea to contribute, please get in touch.
Until the next one,
Remco, Mike and Marta
Your complete guide to startup funding, including real life founder stories and pro tips from funding experts.
He’s a family man with big plans. Meet our UK Finance Director, Elliott Gaspar.
All directors in Australia now need a Director Identification Number or penalties can apply. Find out what you need to know here.
So many ATO lodgement dates, so little time to get your head around them all! We’ve got you covered in this wrap up.