Every founder I meet these days, looking for PR, begins with the same line: “We’ve built something great.” Yet the question that matters most is often overlooked: will that “something” become a story worth telling? This is especially true in tech, where AI is reshaping the landscape so quickly that nearly every startup is launching… Read more »
Fishburners is addressing the women founder funding gap with a free program to help them succeed. The pioneering startup coworking space has collaborated with more than 30 organisations, from venture funds to corporates, to launch The Ascent Project, a free, on-demand program to support, inspire and inform women, and tackle structural gaps in clarity and… Read more »
It’s not every day you get to pitch for US$1 million in investment. But then again, the Startup World Cup in San Francisco is not your everyday startup pitch comp. Three Australian startups – Adiona, Deeligence and GravityFit – were among 98 finalists from 100 regional competitions across 60+ countries to fly to San Francisco… Read more »
The Founder Institute and Ben Chong, partner at Right Click Capital, take you through how to nail your startup pitch. tl;dr Pitch Deck Templates Don’t have time to read the guide? You can access our Pitch Templates quickly below. One‑Sentence Pitch Template | Elevator Pitch Template | One‑Minute Pitch Template | Long Angel/VC Template Introduction… Read more »
How do you land a brand deal with global music superstar Robbie Williams? Easy – send him a song via voice note. At Startmate’s recent Alumni Demo Day in Sydney, Andy Miller from non-alcoholic beer startup Heaps Normal (Startmate class of winter 2020) recalled how he heard from the singer’s team that Robbie was a… Read more »
Episode 28 of Startup 360 is a little different, with cohost Simon away at a company offsite and Majella busy with the Sydney Startup Hub closure. So we’ve picked out two of our favourite interviews of the last six months to shine a light on them once again. Irish-Australian teenager Liam Fuller starred on Startup… Read more »
South West Sydney’s brightest innovators were given a chance to tell their stories at Pitch Night South West at the Liverpool Powerhouse. The initiative was led by UNSW Founders and featured eight finalists who pitched their business and social change ideas tackling key societal challenges. They ranged from harnessing the benefits of AI and giving… Read more »
There’s still time to get your pitch applications in for the ‘startup Olympics’: the Startup World Cup 2025. Startup World Cup Australia is looking for local startups and scaleups to pitch at their Sydney and Melbourne events, which will give winners a chance to compete for a hefty US$1 million investment prize at the Startup… Read more »
Every founder thinks their pitch deck is good, until the silence hits. Priya, a second-time founder out of Melbourne, sent her polished Canva deck to 20 VCs. Not a single reply. Not even a “No thanks.” Why this matters Most Aussie founders are terrible at pitch decks. And that’s okay, you’re meant to build companies,… Read more »
The following section is an excerpt from The Fundraising Blueprint by Abhishek Maran, focused on crafting your narrative and structuring your pitch deck. Fundraising is an emotional process, especially at the early stage. You need investors to feel a certain level of affinity towards you and your startup to stand a chance. Some people are natural… Read more »
The truth is, a lot of the startups undertaking a capital raise don’t meet the minimum investor expectations for their chosen funding pathway. Rather than reflecting on their readiness or taking responsibility for this, many founders blame investors instead (I wrote an article on it here). But here’s the reality: raising capital is a process,… Read more »
Imagine presenting in a pitch meeting and your audience is stifling yawns, checking their devices as you talk, and finally they walk out of the meeting with deafening silence. It is in these meetings that the power of storytelling has often been overlooked. I speak from experience having been in the audience of these presentations.… Read more »
This time last year, Chaz and I were in the closing stages of our $7m Seed round. From the outside, raising capital may seem… exciting and sexy? That’s the Instagram version, you know it well. The reality is it’s an all-consuming and exhausting grind with zero margin for failure and the potential of changing an… Read more »
Imagine walking into a room of investors feeling confident, calm and certain that you’ll put your best pitch forward. When the stakes are high – and one meeting could make or break what happens to your business next – it can be challenging to feel this way. The key to feeling confident is preparation, and… Read more »
I coach founders every week on how to hold more effective investor meetings, and there’s one recurring problem: founders wasting time chasing investors who don’t fit. Sound familiar? Success isn’t pitching your startup. The path to fundraising success starts with making sure the investor is right for you. You have the right – and responsibility… Read more »
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