🚀 Blast OIF | Edition III
The highlights reel across the OIF portfolio.
Welcome to Edition III of Blast OIF, a monthly(ish) roundup of what’s been happening across the OIF portfolio.
THE PORTFOLIO
It seems that each edition of Blast OIF gets bigger and bigger! It’s been an extremely exciting few weeks for our portfolio and we feel very proud to be working alongside such an incredible group of founders and teams. It’s also been wonderful to welcome new faces to the OIF tribe.
BIG NEWS 🎉
We couldn’t be prouder to announce not one, but two milestones for two of our portfolio companies, XM Cyber and Assignar. These milestones are also hugely significant for the OIF team, as they represent our first exits. To achieve such magnificent results alongside the exceptional founders and teams at XM Cyber and Assignar is a true privilege.
XM Cyber acquired for circa A$1 billion
We’re thrilled to announce the acquisition of XM Cyber, by Schwarz Group, the world’s fourth largest retailer and a growing provider of cyber security solutions. The value of the acquisition is approximately A$1 billion and represents a significant return of cash to our investors — we’ve now returned over 100% of the capital in Fund I to our investors.
We initially invested in XM Cyber’s Seed round in 2018, and we couldn’t be prouder of the entire team as they continue to execute on their mission to bring enhanced cyber security to organisations globally.
You can read more about this acquisition in the Australian Financial Review.
Assignar — Eye of the Tiger
We first backed Sean McCreanor, Marko Tomic and the Assignar team in 2017, and they recently announced that they secured a secondary financing round of US$16.5 million, welcoming some of the world’s top investors including Tiger Global Management.
We continue to feel privileged to be alongside the exceptional Assignar team as they realise their mission to streamline construction operations for contractors across the globe.
You can read more about this in the Australian Financial Review.
OUR PORTFOLIO IS GROWING 🚀
Inspace
We’re extremely excited to welcome Justin Liang and the Inspace team to the OIF portfolio, having recently led their pre-Series A round. We’re proud to be partnering with the team as they expand globally to realise their vision to host a ‘digital twin’ of every commercial building in the world.
Inspace is already used by 90% of the top commercial property landlords in Australia, and the platform recently enabled the A$538 million partial sale of iconic Sydney retail assets the Queen Victoria Building, The Strand Arcade and The Galeries.
We believe in Justin and the Inspace solution and at a perfect time to scale, this is only the beginning of an enduring and strong partnership between Inspace and OIF.
You can read more in our investment note and in the Australian Financial Review.
mod.io
We also welcomed Scott Reismanis, Patrick Sotiriou and the mod.io team, who have developed a cross-platform modification and user generated content technology engine giving power to the amazing players and creators in the massive (and fast-growing) gaming world globally.
There has been lots of talk about the metaverse, gaming and UGC and mod.io is at the forefront, bringing this to players with their cross-platform modding engine — with 450K daily users and a quarter of a billion downloads annually!
We joined the latest funding round alongside global investment leaders, Tencent, LEGO Ventures, Sequoia Capital and others. It’s just getting started and it’s onwards and upwards from here.
You can read more in our investment note and in the Australian Financial Review.
FOLLOWING ON 🌱
Atelier
After first backing Nick Benson, Nick Hudson and the Atelier team at the end of 2020, we recently continued our support, backing the team again, this time leading their Seed round.
Atelier is the future of manufacturing, through their B2B marketplace — enabling influencers to create and develop killer products, including beauty, health and wellness products at-scale and on demand. The two Nicks and the Atelier team are making significant waves behind the scenes in the hyper-growth creator economy and we can’t wait to see what they achieve in 2022 and beyond.
You can read more in our investment note and in the Australian Financial Review.
MAKING HEADLINES ⭐
- BARE, the funeral provider for the digital age, have been featured in the Australian Financial Review BOSS Most Innovative Companies List for professional services. The team have also been recognised as the best customer service organisation (small business category) of the year by the CSIA.
- Famtech Circle In has been recognised as a Victorian State Finalist for the 2022 Telstra Best of Business Awards in the Accelerating Women category.
- Open source as-a-service company, Instaclustr, has been recognised for the second year in a row as one of the fastest-growing companies in North America in the 2021 Deloitte Technology Fast 500.
- The founders of corporate learning and development marketplace and recent unicorn, Go1, have been recognised as winners of the Brisbane Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
- Construction tech company, Assignar, has been named as one of the Top Tech Firms of 2021 by Construction Executive.
- Cyber-security company, Kasada, has been named a finalist for the 2021 Tech Trailblazers Awards.
- SaaS-based international student recruitment marketplace, Adventus.io, has been recognised as a finalist in the 2021 Pause Awards and have reached 1 million searches conducted in just 18 months since launch.
- Both Go1 and Adventus.io have been featured in the HolonIQ 2021 Australia & New Zealand EdTech 50.
- Paperchain sat down with The Wall Street Journal to talk about closing their pre-Seed raise, Spotify and how DeFi means streaming money in real time for creators.
NEW PRODUCTS AND FEATURES 📢
- Adventus.io has launched their new tool, Adventus Drive, providing institutions with personalised and real-time data on the international student market, enabling them to target students who are the right fit.
- Adventus.io has also unveiled their Application Assistant mobile app enabling student recruiters to simplify international recruitment and stay connected with students right from their pockets.
- Fintech Bookipi has launched Bookipi Invoice on the Amazon Appstore. This is an invoice app for small businesses, enabling invoices to be sent to customers in under a minute.
NEW CUSTOMERS AND PARTNERSHIPS 🤝
- Go1 has launched an integration with Workplace from Meta (formerly Facebook), enabling employees to easily access and engage in online training, all without leaving their workspace.
- Amaka has once again been chosen as the official partner to launch the latest Square + Xero accounting integration.
- Assignar has partnered with Aktion Associates, Inc. to combine construction field operations, such as scheduling and real-time data collection, into Aktion’s ERP solutions.
OUR COMMUNITY
OIF founding partner, David Shein recently released his first book — The Dumbest Guy at the Table — How I Founded Australia’s First Unicorn. The book is filled with insights, tips, and lessons in both business and in life. David interweaves his life experiences, whilst exploring 21 tips for running a start-up and building a team. In memory of one of David’s good friends and work colleagues, 100% of the proceeds will be donated to the Black Dog Institute supporting research to create a mentally healthier world. It’s highly recommended reading, so do yourself a favour and grab a copy today!
WHERE WE’LL BE THIS MONTH 📅
- OIF partner Jerry Stesel will be a panellist at the Proptech NEXT Summit in Sydney on the 8th and 9th of December. Jerry will be speaking alongside over 60 local and international speakers from across the real estate eco-system about what VCs are doing to deliver maximum value to their investors, partners, and portfolio companies. You can register as a delegate for the summit here.
- Isabella Rich, OIF principal investor, will be presenting her 5 lessons for early cap raising on the 8th December to the Microsoft for Startups community. You can register for the free online event here.
TOP JOBS
There are some incredible opportunities available 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.
We’re also in soft launch stage of our new jobs board and our talent network. With over 250 jobs going across the portfolio, make sure you check it out! 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.
- Serenade, a music NFT marketplace for real artists and fans is offering AUD$10K to anyone who finds them a front end, back end or full stack developer.
- Enboarder has a number of positions available in the USA, Australia, the UK and India.
- Advanced Navigation is currently looking for roles in Customer Experience, Product, Finance, Research and Development, and Sales.
- Circle In has roles available in Marketing and Product.
- Go1 are looking for people in the Central Operations, P&E, Revenue and Strategy departments.
- Instaclustr has various positions going in Australia, Europe and the USA.
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 exceptional people building something we can all be proud of!
Thank you for reading the latest edition of Blast OIF — until next time …
OIF Ventures is a leading Australian venture capital firm that champions exceptional founders, driven by purpose, who add material value to their customers, markets, and communities. OIF Ventures invests in early-stage companies with innovative, high-growth and disruptive technologies with demonstrated market demand.
Founded in 2016 by a team of founders, entrepreneurs, and business-builders, OIF Ventures has raised two funds to date, managing over $300 million and closing its upsized Fund II in mid-2021 for over $115 million. OIF Ventures is exclusively backed by founders, business-builders, ASX executives, HNW and family offices. While focused on backing Australian founders, OIF Ventures seeks to partner with ambitious founders who have the opportunity to expand into global markets, in particular the US, where we can support this expansion through our extensive network of potential customers and investors.
The OIF Ventures team have backed some of Australia’s leading emerging technology companies including Go1, Instaclustr, Assignar, Enboarder, Kasada, Circle In, Adventus.io and more.
