Rampersand

Ecosystem Vibe Check: 2025 🚀 In this issue of Ramplify: 📈 The mood has shifted dramatically for the better: AI is providing much-needed tailwinds, with M&A and IPO windows beginning to open again 💪 Founder trajectories evolving: While early-stage companies are achieving unprecedented growth (Cursor racing to $100M+ in just 3 years!), we're challenging the stigma around M&A exits for later-stage founders - a $10M exit today might enable tomorrow's $1B startup 🔄 B2B SaaS transformation: We believe vertical software presents an enormous opportunity and enterprise AI deployment raises exciting questions 🔍 Plus: Updates on Manus AI, Stripe's insights on AI startups, Physical Intelligence's open-source robot model, and proud moments from our portfolio companies at Southstart GOTERRA ✨ Join the conversation! 💬 https://lnkd.in/eQPDhpgB

I'm slow in posting about my time at _SOUTHSTART 2025, but that's no indication of how fast I fell further in love with the startup community while I was there! It was a delight to represent Rampersand and MC the Day One panel on "Building a Powerful Community" with the incredible Mark Dombkins (Forever Projects), Paz Pisarski (The Community Collective) and Gav Parry (CAST - Centre for Arts, Sports and Technology). Thank you for all the incredible feedback on how engaging our chat was; adding a touch of ✨ pizazz ✨ and crowd work to keep your focus was fun! Like many conferences, a large part of the value of attending is networking and connecting with like-minded people. And golly, did I spend some social spoons making sure I made the most of it! 🫠 The delicious summer heat, the adjacency to the vibrancy of Adelaide Fringe and the supremely positive vibes made it easy to have a yarn and exchange thoughts over a cuppa or a wine (or three). 🍷 ☕ Connecting with loads of Rampersand portco folks like Lily Hoyle, Emma Kent and Ciarán Alstowe from Cuttable, Callum Davidson and Teala Stephens from Cake and Olympia Yarger from GOTERRA was a delight! Andrew Poesaste and I were remarking on how fantastic it is to see you all crushing it out there. There are too many people to tag, but I had some absolutely stellar chin wags with folks like Claire Bull, Jessica Dudley, 💼🧚♂️ Vinisha Rathod, Dickie Currer, Alan Jones, Claire Marriott, David Adams, Liz Ross, Sean Grealy 💰🪓, Julie Trell, 🍇Margot Kilgour, Rhys Moult, Dru Reschke, Simon Thomsen, Matt Allen on the most varied of topics, from fundraising woes to hot sauce scoville ratings. Lastly but not leastly (not a word), well done to DANIELLE SEYMOUR, Base Yates and the whole team for putting on a massive event that I'm excited to return to next year. I hope you get an enormous nap. 👏 NOTE: Congrats if you have read this far, but if you enjoyed my MC/Panel Moderating style, I'm available for events. I'm also developing a workshop to help people boost the 🪩 entertainment 🪩 factor in their public speaking opportunities. DMs are open, if sporadically checked. 📸 Images by Paz Pisarski and Jessica Dudley

Day 1 _SOUTHSTART highlights 🔥🔥 ☕️🥐 8am kicking off with 🏵 Standard Ledger x Frontcover x The Community Collective x FKS: Coffee & Croissants with 30+ legends - thanks Remco Marcelis Liz van Zyl Alan Crabbe 📸9:30am Miracles do happen as Martin brought me an American >> Australian adapter to charge my camera off the back of a LinkedIn post 🤯 🫶 10am Welcome to Country at the opening ceremony 🏵️ 11:30am Not being allowed to say “community” for our “From One To Many: Building A Powerful Community” panel with Chanie Hyde x CC’ians Gav Parry x Mark Dombkins - how many push ups do we need to do?! Plus tearing up on stage after hearing Resident CC’ian Sam Grigg’s comment 🥹🥲 🥪12:30pm Lunch chats x Interview Series filming featuring Dominic Pym x Josh Sharma 🎤1:30pm Startup Finance Unlocked featuring legends Remco Marcelis Jason Atkins 🤑 2:30pm The Sales Playbook with HELL YEAH SALES with CC’ian Sean Grealy 💰🪓 thanks for the shout out and LinkedIn audit deep dive 😆 🎥 3:30pm Making Headlines with 🚀Gemma Clancy x Dickie Currer x Caroline Shawyer 👏🏻 And now off to the Garden Party 🪴🌸💐🌻🌷💃 ___ Hey I’m Paz 👋🏻 If you’d like to gain support to build an impactful community, we built an entire 8-week program for you. Explore Cohort #6 today 👀 https://lnkd.in/gyZ_fn_U Let’s keep building this movement 🏵 💬 Tag someone who builds communities. ♻️ Repost to spread the word (𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘦!!!) ➕ Follow The Community Collective to never miss a beat.

The _SOUTHSTART 2025 speaker lineup keeps getting better and better... 💥 We are welcoming more incredible voices who will be sharing their insights, perspectives and expertise in just over two weeks... have you got your ticket? HERE 👉 https://lnkd.in/gSFrZpyT Chris Plummer | Martin K Haese | Skye Theodorou | Julie Trell | Nathalie TAQUET | Chanie Hyde | Muen Chen CA | Adam Koch, MAICD | Julia Miller | Dana Bell | Dominic Pym