Recap: Co-Founders, breaking capital rules and valuations (Brooke Roberts, Sharesies)

Sharesies is an investment platform that democratises financial investment by giving anyone with $5 the same financial investment opportunity as someone with $5 million.

Recap: How to build your investor network (Jessica Christiansen-Franks, Neighbourlytics)

We’re sharing some of the highlights from our favourite conversations with startup Founders in 2022.

Today, are some of the highlights from my chat with Jessica Christiansen-Franks, Co-Founder of Neighbourlytics, a platform that provides data and insights into the urban life of neighbourhoods.

Recap: How to structure your capital raise (James Behzadi, Kintell)

We’re sharing some of the highlights from our favourite conversations with startup Founders in 2022.

James Behzadi, the CEO and Co-Founder of Kintell. Kintell is a digital platform that connects subject matter experts with learners across any topic for a video learning session.

Episode 18: Part 2 - What female startup Founders can do to raise capital successfully (Noga Edelstein, Tractor Ventures)

This is the second instalment of our chat with Noga Edelstein, advisor & investor at Tractor Ventures, a fund that helps unlock possibilities for startup founders through non-dilutive capital and hands-on advisory services.

If you missed the first instalment, catch up here; in that episode, Noga shared how to scale your startup by knowing who your target customers are (which is trickier than you think), how to prepare an investor pitch that actually gets heard, and how to approach building an investor network that gets you efficient access to capital.

In this Part 2, Noga shares how to raise capital in these challenging economic times; the art of valuing a startup and how to vet and secure the right investor for your startup.

Episode 17: Part 1 - What female startup Founders can do to raise capital successfully (Noga Edelstein, Tractor Ventures)

Noga Edelstein is co-Founder of Urban You, one of the most successful home service booking platforms in Australia, which she successfully exited in 2018 and which was bought out by OneFlare and ultimately by AirTasker in 2022. Today she sits on the other side of the table as an advisor and investor at Tractor Ventures, a fund that helps unlock possibilities for startup founders through non-dilutive capital and hands-on advisory services.

With this 360 experience, Noga is uniquely positioned to help Founders looking to raise capital and scale their startups.

In the first of this 2 part interview, you’ll hear how Noga’s early acting career helped build her resilience for capital raising; how she beat her competitors by understanding who her customers actually are and what female founders can do to help them raise capital successfully.

Episode 16: How a high school student built viral apps and raised US$3M for AI startup (Daniel Vassilev, Relevance AI)

Daniel Vassilev is the Co-Founder of Relevance AI, a tech startup that gives businesses artificial intelligence super powers using a no-code AI platform and focussing on unstructured data (e.g. text, pictures, video, audio).

When he was in high school, Daniel built an app in 1 week that allowed users to listen to YouTube music in the background. The app had 1 million users in just over two years. When PokemonGo was at its peak popularity, Daniel built an app that located Pokemons. That hit 4 million users in just two months.

In this episode, you’ll hear Daniel’s guiding principle for validating ideas; how a conversation with a friend at a high school party led to a long-lasting co-Founder relationship and how he managed to successfully raise $3M, without it taking him away from the day-to-day business of Relevance AI.

Episode 15: How to build relationships with investors before raising capital (Mel Fyfe Blakthumb)

Mel is the Co-Founder of Blakthumb. Blakthumb is a tech company that provides an intuitive end-to-end operating system for cultivators and producers of cannabis and food. They are driven by their mission to build resilient communities with better food security through the power of decentralised production.

Mel spent almost 20 years in senior positions in government and local government before she decided to use her knowledge to change cannibas and food production systems.

In this episode, you'll hear Mel share why decentralised food production (think growing crops in office buildings) is the way of the future; how she managed financial insecurity when she started working in Blakthumb full time and how she nurtured relationships with prospective investors years before Blakthumb started raising capital.

Episode 14: How to minimise dilution of Founder shares (Brooke Roberts Sharesies)

Brooke Roberts is the Co-CEO & Co-Founder of Sharesies. Sharesies is an investment platform that is democratising financial investment by giving someone with $5 the same financial investment opportunity as someone who has $5 million. Sharesies won the 2021 Finder Investment Awards as the top share trading platform for beginners. Brooke and her Co-Founder, Sonya Williams won the NZ Women of Influence 2020.

In this episode, you’ll hear Brooke smash some of the common myths that Founders are told about capital raising; how she and her 5 co-Founders created the vision and values that still drives Sharesies today as a $500m business and how she and her co-Founders managed the almost impossible: keep all shareholders on the same class of shares so that her early backers would not be diluted further.

Episode 13: The key elements of a pitch deck to raise capital successfully & quickly: Jade Ong (Elevate Money)

Jade Ong is the co-founder of Elevate Money. A business that started out as 2 distinct businesses: AtlasTrend and Elevate Super. AtlasTrend allows users to access global stock markets and to easily invest in emerging trends such as big data, clean disruption and online shopping. Elevate Super allows Australians to invest their superannuation funds into companies that support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Both businesses are providing returns that are exceeding the market. Jade spent over a decade in some of the world's leading investment banks before turning her hand to building something that would make a real impact.

In this episode, you'll hear Jade share how she met her co-Founders; she breaks down the elements in their pitch deck that helped them close their capital raise in record time and her thought process that helped her finally leave a well paying corporate job to start this impactful business.

Episode 12: Claudia King of Firmsy on helping 1 million lawyers, pivoting, investor networking, sexist investor questions, investor rug pulls, and pitch decks

Claudia King is the CEO & Founder of Firmsy. Firmsy helps entrepreneurial law firms scale their businesses online through automation software and world class strategy coaching and support. A former tax lawyer, Claudia created New Zealand's first online legal service, Legal Beagle, before selling it for 7 figures.

In this episode, you'll hear Claudia share how a eulogy that she gave at her dad’s funeral led her to the first investors for Firmsy; how she answers sexist questions from prospective investors, and tips on how to deal with prospective investors pulling the rug at the last minute in a raise.

Episode 11: How to build an awesome target investor list for your start-up capital raise

Ben Burton is the CEO and Co-Founder of prop-tech start-up Rental Heroes, an AI chat-bot revolutionising the communication between tenants and property managers to get tenancy issues dealt with quickly and effectively. Ben's years of experience in the corporate world, and passion for inventing, have been driving forces in the creation and growth of Rental Heroes.

Ben shares how they built out their list of potential investors; the successes he had cold calling potential investors and how bringing on a lead investor dramatically changed the course of Rental Heroes’ capital raise.

Episode 10: “Holding the power”: How to take control of investor meetings

Jessica Christiansen-Franks is the CEO and Co-founder of Neighbourlytics, a platform that provides data on the urban life of neighbourhoods. The platform analyses social data and turns it into valuable neighbourhood insights, answering questions such as “Which cafes are most popular?” or “Where are the hubs of activity on the weekend?”

In this episode, you'll hear how Jessica convinced her idol to become her Co-founder; how Neighbourlytics leveraged its accelerator programme to broaden its potential investor pool; and how to “hold the power” in investor meetings.

Today on The Raise, we’re back with our intrepid entrepreneur Josh Rogers, Founder and CEO of Minterest, the DeFi lending protocol that is shaking up decentralised finance. In the previous 2 instalments, Josh shared how he built his team, how he found the right investors, plus he gave us a sprinkling of heartfelt insights into what it personally takes to be a successful founder of a start-up.

In this third and final instalment, Josh shares the next part of his journey. It’s an extraordinary backstage pass into a unique fundraising methodology where, in a rapidly falling market, he was still able to deliver an incredibly successful result for his startup and it’s half a billion-dollar valuation.

Episode 8: Part 2 - A Masterclass on how to turn your start-up into a $500M business pre-launch

This is the second instalment of a chat with Josh Rogers, the CEO and Founder of Minterest, one of the most innovative and exciting fintechs in crypto’s booming DeFi sector.

Last time, we heard a remarkable account of how, after a personal legal dispute, Josh had to start again from scratch, building out Minterest. In this second instalment, Josh shares his views on getting the right investors and having them powerfully support his start-up, how understanding the “network effects” playbook is critical for any start-up to be successful, plus some heartfelt insight into what it personally takes to be a successful founder of a start-up.

Episode 7: Part 1 - A Masterclass on how to turn your start-up into a $500M business pre-launch

Josh Rogers is the CEO and Co-founder of Minterest, a blockchain-enabled, DeFi lending and borrowing protocol with the user at its core. In just 18 months it achieved in a bear market a valuation of half a billion US dollars, and it hasn’t even launched yet!

In the first of this special three part episode, you'll hear how Josh went from the depths of a legal stoush that abruptly killed his last start-up to raising $6.5M US dollars in 5 days for Minterest; how he built a team of industry heavyweights specifically to raise capital for Minterest; and why he moved to Estonia to do this.