JUNE 17 2022

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Welcome to Edition IV of Blast OIF, a monthly(ish) roundup of what’s been happening across the OIF portfolio.

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THE PORTFOLIO

It’s been a while since our last edition, and we’ve had a huge start to the first half of 2022 – with new investments, follow-ons, opportunities and events to see our founders’ ambitions amplified! We’ve continued to work closely with our founders and partners and have also welcomed new faces to the OIF family.

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Big news

Instaclustr

We were excited to announce the acquisition of Instaclustr by NetApp, a $15 billion NASDAQ-listed technology giant specialising in hybrid cloud data services and data management solutions! The acquisition represents a significant return of cash to our investors – yielding a 20x ROI and returning over 200% of the total capital in Fund I (a ‘double dragon’) to our investors.  

It has been a privilege to be on the journey with Instaclustr from Series A to near unicorn exit to, NetApp. We have witnessed the Instaclustr team build the market-leading open-source as a service technology company that it is today powering customers like Atlassian, DoorDash and Sonos.

You can read more about the Instaclustr story in this article in the Australian Financial Review.  

We will also be hosting a webinar with Instaclustr co-founder and CEO, Peter Lilley, who will be interviewed by OIF Partner and Co-Founder, Jerry Stesel.

Join us to get insights on the Instaclustr journey. Hear all about what worked, what didn’t work and what CEO and Co-founder Peter Lilley would do differently.

This is an event not to be missed – register here.

Go1

Congratulations to the entire Go1 team on their $100M raise – bringing their valuation to $US2 billion.  

The professional training and development platform continues to grow, now servicing 5 million learners globally. Go1 hopes to use this new round of funding to facilitate their growth, extend the platform beyond corporate learning and bring more technological innovations to the platform such as VR-based learning.

We first backed Andrew Barnes, Vu Tran, Chris Eigeland, Chris Hood and the Go1 team in their Series A Round and it has been a privilege to be on the journey alongside them as they work to unlock positive potential in people through a love of learning.  

We are so proud of them and the entire Go1 team! Read more in the AFR.

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Our portfolio is growing

Bridgit

We’re thrilled to have welcomed Aaron Bassin, Nick Jacobs and the Bridgit team to the OIF portfolio, investing in their Series A round in January 2022. Bridgit is a provider of bridging loans for residential homebuyers and has seen immense traction despite being operational for less than 12 months.

Bridgit enables customers to receive funding for a new mortgage whilst an existing mortgage is refinanced. Customers can purchase property without the stress of selling their existing property or worrying that a bank lender will not issue their mortgage in time.

We believe Bridgit is uniquely placed to execute their ambitious roadmap and has a very bright future ahead. You can read more in our investment note and in the AFR.

D-ID

We also welcomed Gil Perry, Sella Blondheim, Eliran Kuta and the D-ID team, investing in their Series B round in April 2022. D-ID is an AI-driven platform that allows creators and developers to generate realistic personas easily and ethically.  

There’s been much hype surrounding AI/ML in facial recognition. D-ID’s technology puts it at the forefront of innovation by using input images and text to augment, re-enact and generate human faces, speech and motion in videos, with some amazing real world use cases such as helping to find missing persons.

We have the utmost confidence in the D-ID team and cannot wait to see what they do next. You can read more in our investment note.

Fortiro

With invoice scams and identity crime costing Australians close to $1 billion each year, there’s never a better time to welcome Sean Quagliani, David Weber, Amir Dastjerdi and the entire Fortiro team to the OIF portfolio - investing in their Seed round in January 2022. Fortiro is a SaaS product that automates document ingestion and detects fraud in payslips and bank statements in real time.

Application processes are tedious, time-consuming and labour-intensive. Fortiro’s software reduces document processing time whilst increasing fraud detection accuracy through template recognition, content analysis and digital analysis.    

We’re excited for our future with Fortiro and can’t wait to see what’s in store. You can read more in our investment note and in the AFR.

‍Linkby

We have also had the privilege of backing Chris Wirasinha, Andrew Chak, Adrian Fagerlund and the Linkby team, investing in their Seed round in November 2021. Linkby is an advertising platform  revolutionising the way brands and publishers partner with one another, allowing brands to gain more editorial coverage and pay via cost-per-click.

Linkby’s platform is used by brands such as Koala, Bed Threads, Modibodi and Brosa, and by publishers such as Refinery29, Condé Nast, Vice and Marie Claire. It is looking to build its newest product that automatically creates ‘listicles’ for publishers to resurface branded content.

We are excited to be a part of Linkby’s journey as it looks to expand globally. You can read more in the AFR.

‍Mastt

We continue to partner with exceptional founders, welcoming Doug Vincent, Raman Nambiar, Jamie Cerexhe and the Mastt team to the OIF portfolio, investing in their Series A round in January 2022. Mastt is a cloud-based SaaS platform that streamlines the project management and administration functions within the capital works facilities and infrastructure industry.

Across the construction space, there is a lack of integrated control at the project and portfolio level, resulting in 89% of projects being delivered over time and over budget. Mastt’s product provides a multi-level view of projects and visual reporting on their financial risk and progress status within a structured and automated platform, saving clients time and money across their portfolios.

Mastt already boasts many big clients (e.g. WSP, GHD, Aecom, Jacobs, DFAT), and global population growth and ongoing urbanisation will undoubtedly drive further demand for their product. We can’t wait to see what the team achieves in 2022 and beyond. You can read more in our investment note and in the AFR.

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Following on

Neara

After first backing Daniel Danilatos, Karamvir Singh, Jack Curtis and the Neara team in 2021, we recently continued our support, backing the team again in their Series B round. Neara is an enterprise software platform that builds interactive, engineering-grade 3D models of critical infrastructure at network-scale, empowering the world to navigate towards a clean energy future.  

Neara is future-proofing our society’s critical infrastructure and currently counts every distributor in NSW and Victoria as customers, servicing over half the total length of electric utilities in the Australian market.

With Neara aiming to become a must have digitisation partner for infrastructure asset owners across the globe, we are looking forward to continuing the journey with the Neara team. You can read more in our investment note and the AFR.

Vouch

In October 2021, we continued our support for Gary Zurnamer and David Stirk, follow-on investing into Vouch’s Seed round. Vouch is a web-based platform that allows customers to remotely collect, curate and share authentic video testimonials from their customers.

Vouch helps sales, customer success and marketing teams generate and share short-form video testimonials in a simple, quick, cheap and scalable way. As Vouch is a purpose-built platform designed to be scalable from day one, Vouch customers can ask their customers to share content wherever they are and whenever it suits them – at scale.

We’re excited to continue to be a part of Vouch’s journey, and strongly believe that they will reimagine how we share feedback and testimonials between customers. You can read more in our investment note and the AFR.

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Continuing to kick goals

Clear Dynamics

After backing Daniel Beaty and the Clear Dynamics team in 2020, they have continued to deliver strong outcomes, and have recently announced their Series B round. Clear Dynamics is a software development platform that allows mid-market and enterprise users the ability to design and implement custom software applications across nearly all business departments using a design interface with minimal coding.

The rise of cloud computing has fuelled software-enabled digital transformation, and organisations across industries are leveraging software to automate and optimise, enhance customer experiences and drive competitive differentiation. Clear Dynamics saves organisations from hiring expensive developers and spending millions on platforms, using reusable modules of code to deliver effective solutions on Day 1.

We’re excited to continue partnering with Clear Dynamics. You can read more in our investment note and the AFR.

Kasada

Since backing Sam Crowther and the Kasada team in 2018, they have continued to achieve exceptional outcomes on every step of the journey, most recently in completing their Series C round. Kasada is a cloud-based cyber security platform that detects and mitigates bot attacks on websites, web APIs and mobile apps.

Kasada prevents denial of service attacks, account takeovers and website content theft (scraping) and provides stronger security, improved user experience, greater visibility of true web traffic, infrastructure cost savings and reduced business and operational risk.

We are beyond excited to partner with Kasada as it continues fight bot-related crime in new markets such as NFTs and crypto. You can read more in the AFR.  

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Making headlines

• Go1 has acquired Coorpacademy, an innovative corporate learning platform and content library with a multinational customer base! With offices in France and Switzerland, Coorrpacademy will expand Go1’s vast offerings of digital learning and education resources in the European corporate learning market.
• Advanced Navigation has acquired Vai Photonics, a Canberra based AI robotics company! The companies will combine their advanced sensor technology to aid the navigation of spacecraft in orbit and on-Earth autonomous vehicles.
• Atelier founder Nick Benson gets his own GQ feature! Nick was recently featured in GQ’s Cultured column, sharing insightful tips on how to succeed as a digital creator.
• Bridgit and Futurerent have both been listed as finalists in the 2022 Fintech Australia Finnies Awards! Bridgit has been nominated for ‘Emerging Fintech Organisation of the Year’ and CEO Aaron Bassin has been nominated for ‘Emerging Fintech Leader of the Year’. Futurerent has been selected as a finalist in ‘Excellence in Consumer Lending’.

• Jodi, Kate and the Circle In team have been named a 2022 Telstra Business Awards winner in the Accelerating Women category, after receiving 24,000 nominations! OIF are extremely proud to work with such inspiring leaders and role models.
• Adventus.io have been recognised at the 2022 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards for Most Innovative Tech Startup of the Year! This is amongst 900 nominations across 2022 countries, an amazing achievement!
• D-ID has been ranked by Fast Company as one of the Most Innovative EMEA Companies of 2022! Their AI-powered live-portrait technology leverages deep learning algorithms to bring a photo to life, no matter how old.  
• Mastt has been named in AFR’s ‘Best Places to Work’ in ANZ 2022! This is an outstanding achievement and affirms our belief in working with exceptional founders.
• mod.io’s game-changing modding technology have earned them a spot on the Australian Trade and Investment Commission success stories page!  

• Advanced Navigation has been named as a finalist for both Innovator of the Year and Business of the Year in the 2022 Australian Space Awards!

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New product and features alert

• Advanced Navigation has launched Hydrus, a fully autonomous underwater drone! Hydrus is a fully autonomous submersible drone which can survey and record data underwater without access to internet or GPS by using sound. This will be revolutionary to undersea exploration and conservation.
• Bridgit have just launched their first brand campaign! Rolling out across TV, online and digital, keep an eye out for them!

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New customers and partnerships

• Amaka have recently announced partnerships with leading electronic signature platform Docusign and leading online accounting platform MYOB! This is in addition to partnerships with Square and Shopify.
• Go1 have partnered with Pluralsight, an online learning platform that offers training and development video courses for tech-based professions! This unique partnership will help tackle the growing tech skills shortage worldwide.

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TOP JOBS

Here's some incredible opportunities going across the OIF portfolio, so if you know of someone exceptional who would be a good fit, encourage them to apply or reach out to our team to learn more.

Be sure to check out our new jobs board and our talent network with over 250 jobs going across the portfolio! If you’re thinking of a new career in 2022, sign up to our talent network to keep up to date with the latest opportunities.

• Enboarder is looking for a number of roles across Australia, India, the US and UK.
• Arcade is looking for roles as Head of Technology, Sales Development Rep and Strategic Growth Manager.

• Matrak has openings for People + Culture Lead, Chief of Staff and Implementation Specialist.
• Assignar has a number of positions available across Australia and the US.
• Atomi has available roles across Sales, Content, Marketing, Product and People & Talent.
• Bare is looking for a number of roles across Australia and the UK.
• Go1 has open roles across Customer Success, Engineering, Organisational Development, Chief of Staff, Marketing, Sales Development, Product and UX.

• Kasada has open positions across Australia and the US.
• Aventus.io has job openings across Australia, India, Singapore, Nepal, USA and Canada.
• Bridgit has a number of positions available including Credit Analyst, Customer Service Specialist and Full Stack Developer.

We're seeing and investing in some exceptional founders of early-stage technology companies. So please reach out if you're creating something iconic, we love to partner with great people building something we can all be proud of!

Thank you for reading the latest edition of Blast OIF.

Until next time ...
The OIF Ventures team