Alan Jones

As an angel investor, I’ve made over 50 early-stage investments across the UK, US, and beyond. Now, as a Partner at Antler in Australia, I’ve experienced firsthand the shifts between angel and VC investing - and these findings have transformed my approach to supporting founders. I share 5 surprising lessons I learned that about angel vs. VC funding that I wish every founder knew in the article below. From the unexpected empathy VCs have (yes, we pitch too!) to why VCs reserve capital for follow-on funding and how market size can make or break a venture-backed business. Thinking about joining our February '25 residency and/or raising your first round? This is an inside look at the mindsets and strategies VCs use when investing, offering takeaways to help you get funded. 👉 Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/g_jStAWS

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Balancing startup life and personal moments? Thoughtly co-founder Casey Mackrell took that to a whole new level. On his wedding day, a colleague needed urgent access to code, and Casey stepped away from the dance floor for a quick 30-second fix. A photo of him wrapping up the task amid wedding festivities, taken by co-founder Torrey Leonard, quickly went viral—sparking a mix of admiration and criticism. While some were inspired by Casey’s dedication, others saw it as a sign of unhealthy work-life balance. The post tapped into the ongoing debate around "founder mode" vs. "manager mode," a concept Paul Graham of Y Combinator often discusses. Founders in "founder mode" are hands-on with every detail, while "manager mode" is about delegation. Casey’s moment resonated with the startup community, with many founders seeing it as a testament to the non-stop hustle required to grow a company. However, outside of tech, the picture prompted concerns about boundaries and burnout. Regardless of where you stand, the viral post is a powerful reminder of the unique challenges founders face. How do you balance being all-in on your startup while also being present for life's biggest moments?

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What’s happening in Aussie healthtech? 💊🎉 🧬 Presagen’s Life Whisperer IVF embryo AI tech was acquired by Japan's Astec, to expand its use globally 🧫Cartherics Pty Ltd raised $15m to support a clinical trial for CTH-401, a cell therapy targeting ovarian cancer 🧠 Tessara Therapeutics, Psylo, & USyd snagged a $3m CRC-P grant 🤰 Kali Healthcare bagged a $2.65m CRC-P grant to advance its AI-enabled wearable for pregnancy monitoring 💉 Vaxxas, is raising $100m for clinical trials for its needle-free vaccine patch 🩺 ANDHealth+ invested $3.25m of MRFF grants into 5 startups as part of its digital & connected health accelerator program: Eugene, Atmo Biosciences, Immunosis, Metabolic Health Solutions, Humanetix 💊 Wesfarmers Health expects $6bn in revenue this year as it expands digital & pharmacy operations 📱 Medibank partnered with League to enhance customer experience with AI-driven personalisation across its services for 4.2M customers 🖥️ Bupa is offering eligible members 3 free telehealth consults/ year 🚀 Cortical Dynamics Limited, Microbio, & Resonait join the Biomedical AI Sprints Accelerator by ARM Hub & MTPConnect 🧠 Griffith University launched a clinical trial using olfactory nerve bridges from patients' cells to treat chronic spinal cord injuries 💼 SA’s Upper House voted 10-9 against a proposed law restricting abortions after 28 weeks 💡 > 400k Aussies downgraded from "gold" health insurance due to cost-of-living pressures Keen for the links & delicious deets?? 🍩🙌 Take a gander at last week's newsletter in the comments below👇😊 --- PS - if you liked this and are keen to join >8550 legends getting health tech and innovation news dropped direct to your inbox, subscribe to What the Health, linked in the comments below! 💜 📩

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The Creative Co-Operative* spotted in TechCrunch! Through our 2022 report led by Dr Sana Ashraf*, the State of the Startup Ecosystem for Bla(c)k and Women of Colour Founders in Australia, we released the continent's first intersectional datapoint around financial inequality experienced by early stage First Nations, Black and Women of Colour founders. The funding discrepancy was 0.03% (link to Executive Summary in comments below). Since then we’ve seen the ecosystem start taking steps to do something about it - its a start. We look forward to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency collecting and reporting on the intersectional pay gap. Making this start is long overdue but it’s better late than never. #intersectionalpaygap #blackwomen #womenofcolour #startups *PS The Creative Co-Operative has been referred to as a consulting services agency as I assume the journalist referenced our old website. Unfortunately it is out of date as of 2021! We only consult on very specific projects, our focus is on building Maya Cares and programs such as the Anyone Can Community Startup Program to create mental health and economic access, equity and justice for the communities we serve. ** Dr Sana and I are not related, we just happen to share the same surname 🙂

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If we can do it for ICE vehicles, we can do it for traditional meats. It will be 10x harder though to shift how ppl eat than how ppl move lots of interesting aus startups in this space but we need more big companies who feel like they need to embrace alt proteins before the needle really starts to move. As with EVs, Aus is being way too conservative for all the wrong reasons #altproteins

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I'm very proud to see Crimson Education, founded by Jamie Beaton, Fangzhou Jiang, and Sharndré Kushor, cement its place in New Zealand's small stable of tech Unicorns. It's exciting to see an ANZ edtech focused on K - 12 education excel on a global stage. It's a proof point that the region can produce successful tech businesses beyond B2B SaaS. Crimson's journey has intersected with mine in curious ways. I remember spending the summer break with Jamie and Richard when they were applying to US universities; I must have proofread dozens of iterations of personal statements. I was then one of Crimson's first tutors in 2013, and recruited several others from ANU to support Crimson's expansion into tutoring HSC subjects. I remember having pizza with the team in Fangzhou's Unilodge dorm room, in between the information sessions they hosted for highschool students. From these humble beginnings, it's incredible to see Crimson grow into a world leader in college admissions consulting and online high school education - while accelerating to over $100m USD in annual turnover. At various times, I've heard Crimson cop criticism for creating a 'hack' for getting into elite universities. Having worked closely with a number of Crimson students - I think what Crimson really does is expand students' horizons, help them to hone in on what they're great at, and raise their ambition. Ever since he was 17 years old, Jamie has believed that the world could be his oyster. His optimism and energy is infectious; spending time with Jamie always raises my ambition too. It's marvelous to see him scale his superpower via the business he's built in Crimson Education. More about the raise in this article by Paul Smith -

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Many Aussie/Kiwi founders eventually face the decision of: what market should I go to next? Often, the answer they land on is the US. The key decision points then become: 1) when should I enter the US? 2) how should I break in? I spent the last 2 weeks with US VCs in San Francisco and New York, exploring those two questions and understanding what they've seen work and what they've seen fail. If you're in the early stages of building a venture scale business, I wrote the below as a simplified guide for thinking through those two decision points: https://lnkd.in/gY2JzByV

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Decoding VC speak is often tough - many founders will hear a combo of “Come back to us when you have more revenue” or “Let me know once you have a lead investor” Much of this means “Tell me when it’s safe enough for me to make a decision because someone else has done the hard work” I talk about this and more in an article for our friends at Startup Daily https://lnkd.in/gnFvGFy8

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Venture-backed founders sign up for a binary outcome: Go Big or Go Home. Which is why it is so puzzling to see so many of these founders pivot away from growth to "sustainable" low-growth profitability, according to Tim Doyle, founder of Eucalyptus. Low-growth, sub-scale venture-backed companies have no future -- even if they are able to turn a small profit. Don't waste your life force building a zombie company! -- It was heaps of fun getting some of Tim's hot takes in today's BONUS episode of The Startup Podcast, with me and Chris Saad.

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A founder's perspective on Founder Mode: It's about craftsmanship and soul Last week Brian Chesky and Paul Graham ignited the tech startup world with a discussion around "founder mode", which Paul summarizes in this post - https://lnkd.in/gC7swj59 This comparison of founder mode vs. manager mode and stream of bad advice around it really resonates with me as a multi-time founder. I find there are two areas in particular that get systematically eliminated in the process of moving from product-market fit to "building the machine" and scaling up an organization. 🔮 🛠 Craftsmanship: Early days require a lot of craftsmanship - as if you're designing and building custom homes for a small set of early customers. You need to inspire them with your vision, co-create with them, and make constant decisions about how to iterate, where to influence, and how to listen - all shaped with a view to repeatable and scalable patterns you can leverage to scale. This requires a lot of top-down intuition and hands-on crafting to get right - it also benefits from strong and fast decision making from the founder(s). As companies grow, this founder craftsmanship is easy to see as an enemy of scale that needs to be removed in favour of proven process. While it is true that this is not easy to scale, it is possible and worth it to figure out. I saw Zuck do this at Facebook as we scaled, shaping high impact initiatives and role modelling his craftsmanship to high potential people in his "Zuck reviews" for important new products and key initiatives. Combine this with a clear set of values and entrepreneurial people and you can keep the founder's touch on key initiatives without giving in to manager mode. 💙 🙏 Soul: A founder-led business can be felt much easier than it can be described. There is a passion, a set of values, a purpose that gives the company indescribable depth when done right - that feels magical and gives the company soul. This is the part of founder mode that enables people in the company to embody the same values, act with the same standards, and channel the inner purpose and passion of the founder. It attracts people that are entrepreneurial and secure in their abilities. People who see a founder's touch as a secret ingredient to add, not a box to be checked or worse to be avoided. My former Meta (at that time Facebook) colleague Fidji Simo wrote a great perspective on founder mode for non-founders in the information today, which I also see as possible. Founder mentality is a mindset and combined with an ability to imprint a sense of craft and soul into a company. I think founder-led companies like Meta and Shopify have shown a pattern to study and replicate in scaling startups, they have also produced a talent pool to mine for leaders that can operate in founder mode as the company scales. What do you think? Curious to hear your thoughts on founder mode... it's been a fun one to think about over the weekend. 🤔 #foundermode #founders #yc

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Pivot Labs is our free online startup incubator supporting first-time founders Our focus is ‘dual use’ - building a commercial product that might also have a defence / security application My Co-founder Mark Adams and I have supported a bunch of founders with: ▶ Getting started / developing ideas ▶ Finding early customers / customer discovery / product ▶ Finding and evaluating potential co-founders or hires ▶ Fundraising / pitching / decks ▶ Identifying and hiring fractional advice (legal, financial etc) ▶ Spinning out (corp, uni or gov) ▶ Reviving ideas / dealing with difficult situations ▶ And just general emotional support We’ve been experimenting with formats for helping founders including: ▶ Online 30 minute focussed calls with founders booked via Calendly, as and when they want contact ▶ Pairing entrepreneurial-curious innovators (with a bit of free time, and the need for something on the CV) with busy founders who welcome the extra hands ▶ A slack community for the founders we support alongside government innovators, investors, experienced founders and operators If any of this sounds interesting do please get in touch, we particularly welcome: ▶ Founders ▶ Future founders ▶ Those who’d like to help the above

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We just announced the second wave of speakers + sessions for Sunrise Aotearoa '24 (Wellington, November 26 - link in comments 👀👇) I'm excited for ALL OF THEM, but wanted to share a bit more about why and how we're putting the agenda together — inviting each of these very special people 🤩 — "Hackers and Painters — what Founders and Artists can teach us about Talent, Mindset, and Ambition", ft. Rowan Simpson and Joel Little. Joel is a legendary producer and songwriter .. he's worked with Taylor Swift, Lorde, Broods, Sam Smith, Ellie Goulding, Khalid, Imagine Dragons .. the list goes on. Today, he's building BIG FAN — a not-for-profit, purpose-built space in Auckland for "people to create, write, record, produce and perform in high-end recording studios, and a live music venue, all under one roof." He's one of NZ's most sought after producers, supporting musicians from the very early days. Rowan is a legendary tech operator and angel investor .. he's been founding/early team of, and/or an investor in many of NZ's biggest tech successes like Trademe, Xero, Vend, Timely, and more. Today, he's one of NZ's most sought after angel investors, investing in and supporting founders from the very early days. What do startup founders and artists/musicians have in common, you ask? Actually — a whole lot... and I can't think of two better minds to meld over what it takes to break in, learn the skills, discover your passion, carve out your niche, build a following, then head offshore and "make it" in the big leagues. How do Joel and Rowan each identify "breakout hits" before anyone else? What can each learn from the other? Link in comments, come along and learn more: Nov 26th — see you in Wellington!!

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Aussie Angels are running a monthly New Angel AMA, starting next Tuesday, to get angels comfortable with investing and have their queries answered Bridging that gap between joining a syndicate to writing those first cheques can span months / if not longer. And Cheryl Mack will help take some of the fear out of it by having these regular sessions. Open for all to join.  Cheryl will cover all your burning questions: - How do you gain conviction? - Is that a good valuation? - What are the latest updates on wholesale investor thresholds, and how will they impact you? - What qualifies as a small cheque in angel investing, and when is small too small? - And many more insights from the front lines of angel investing! 😇 https://lu.ma/pd22dpfx TORUS Jason Atkins Alexandra Lewis 🌊 Vinko Grgić #startups #angelinvesting #founders #capitalraising #venturecapital

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Mark "Z" Zmarzly 🦄 substack brings all the startups to his yard. And the startups are like, it's better than yours. And Mark's like "Damn right it's better than yours ... I can teach you, but I have to charge." Good thing he's got access to plenty Amazon Web Services (AWS) credits. See you in Melbourne at Intersekt next Wednesday and the AWS Financial Services Symposium in Sydney on Thursday. #AWSStartups #CloudInnovation #StartupEcosystem #AWSActivate #ScalableSolutions #TechForStartups #CloudForStartups #AWSGrowth #BuildOnAWS #StartupSuccess #AWSPartners #CloudFirst #FounderSupport #StartupJourney #TechInnovation #AWSCloud #ScaleWithAWS #StartupResources #AWSFunding #EntrepreneurSupport #AWSStartupsAccelerator

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Over the next two weeks I'll be interviewing many of Australia's top Investors such as... 🦄 Airtree 🦄Rampersand 🦄Scale Investors Pty Ltd 🦄Tribe Global Ventures and a handful more :) 💯 Off the back of that, I'll be running a virtual workshop about using the benchmarks we find with those Investors to reverse engineer your milestones and set yourself up for successful future fundraising. If you want to come along here's the link (Ideal for early-stage startups thinking of a future raise)!: https://lnkd.in/g7bucad8 🧠 What you'll learn: Discover how to set and achieve key milestones to position yourself for future funding. 📊 Learn to use milestone updates to build gradual, meaningful connections with investors, rather than a high-pressure pitch. 🤝

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What do VCs really want to see from HealthTech Founders? We all know the magic ingredients to building a successful HealthTech start up are unique and require a certain 'order' that can make building look quite different in this space. And it certainly works to different time scales. Yesterday Luke B. and I headed to the HealthTech Roundtable hosted by London Venture Capital Network to get some insights from VCs and ex-Founders about what REALLY matters when you're building 🔨 Thought I'd share the top 4 discussion points I found useful, in case they're helpful to others building in this space. 🚀 Scaling in the fragmented UK Market Each NHS trust operates independently, making it hard to scale with NHS contracts alone. The most successful build initial traction within the NHS, then rapidly expand into private markets (e.g., insurers) or take on international markets like the US or Europe - often sooner than expected. The lesson? Think big from the beginning and prepare for growth beyond the NHS - plan for multiple revenue streams from day 1. 📈 What VCs want to see from you Investors want regulatory rigour and proprietary data that sets companies apart. VCs particularly look for ventures embedded into clinical workflows; a clear marker of clinician TRUST, which is a major hurdle but also a major green flag for VCs. The advice for founders? Think beyond flashy concepts. Focus on gathering real-world evidence, establishing regulatory approval (FDA, MHRA or otherwise), and building solid, clinician-endorsed user bases. 🗺 Evidence is a journey, not a destination There was discussion around conceptualising evidence as a 'journey' rather than a destination, which I rather liked. Emphasising the ability to think creatively and collect a whole range of evidence types at every single step of the way, to build a compelling, rich case of clinician trust, real world impact, and product-market fit. Squeeze evidence out of every single customer conversation, demo, trial. Every drop counts. 💡 Hindsight from Experienced HealthTech Founders It was great to here experienced ex-Founders in the space talk about what they'd do differently next time. I think what I found most interesting was the discussion around the importance of execution, and more importantly, demonstrating pace of execution within a 'slow burn' market. It made me reflect on what hard decisions we need to make around prioritisation, to make sure we're delivering real value as fast as possible. Its so easy to feel the pressure to do everything at once; collecting proprietary data, evidence generation, clinical integration/acceptance, revenue generation. But is it better to move fast on one? We're trying to be super strict on ourselves here at Ogma. But it's hard, and we slip up sometimes. It was a beautiful Autumn day in a beautiful location, here's a pic 📸

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I'm super fascinated as an investor in all things AI - and Agentic Voice AI is one of the spaces that delivers on a vision that's at least 15+ years in the making (remember Cooltown Sridhar Solur Andrew Bolwell Peter Vesterbacka?). This latest piece from Bessemer Venture Partners is absolutely worth a read if you're interested in this space. The most interesting part for me is their thesis and the metrics they use to get to conviction: 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗩𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗔𝗜 Voice AI applications are most valuable when they are deeply embedded in industry-specific workflows. This approach enables them to use tailored language and interact with the unique conversations of each sector, allowing for seamless integration with third-party systems. Applications combining voice with other interaction modes (e.g., text or visual) also stand out for handling complex, multi-step processes, thus enhancing reliability and defensibility in real-world settings. 𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗦𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 For high-quality voice AI, metrics are crucial in balancing growth, retention, and product quality. Key performance indicators include: - 𝗖𝗵𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝗥𝗮𝘁𝗲: Tracks the percentage of customers lost over time, especially important where agents may fail to deliver reliable service. - 𝗦𝗲𝗹𝗳-𝗦𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Measures how often the voice agent can fully resolve an issue without human intervention. - 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗦𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗳𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗲: Reflects user sentiment regarding their experience with the agent. - 𝗖𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗧𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗥𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀: Higher rates can signal unresolved issues, impacting user trust. - 𝗖𝗼𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗖𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗩𝗼𝗹𝘂𝗺𝗲 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻: Shows if customers are increasing their usage, a strong signal of value and engagement. https://lnkd.in/eqqZsYx9

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Recently I was asked for some input on running a startup accelerator. Since I don't live in NZ, and I now work in growth capital not VC, that freed me up to be pretty candid. Here's what I wrote: Aus and NZ are innovative nations by nature, yet the incubator and accelerator model has been a copy&paste of American/Cambridge and Israeli models that have done nothing to stem the 80% fail rate. Rather than address this systemic failure, we have normalised failure by saying “well startups are just inherently high risk” That’s partially true, they are like high performance motorcycles : deadly in the hands of a rider who does not know how to ride it. But there's a big caveat: that's only true if you don't train the rider (founder) VCs meanwhile simply go unicorn hunting and stack more companies in their portfolio so that the binomial equation has more chance of yielding a return rather than address systemic failure. And so the façade continues: 80% fail. Of the 20% who “succeed”: 80% scrape themselves over the finish line saying “never again”. The 20% of the 20% then get rockstar-entrepreneur gigs lecturing to novice entrepreneur about how to succeed by copying their “sacrifice everything” model, no knowledge is actually passed on, because they are not skilled in knowledge transfer, and not able to abstract out what caused them to succeed vs what causes other entrepreneurs in a different context to succeed. Compare that to what happens in sports: ex-players value the art of learning to pass on knowledge, going through a long apprenticeship before they emerge, sometimes a decade later, as a successful coach of others. By contrast, in the world of tech startups, we have no ecosystem-wide emphasis on skill development of the founder, or helping them cultivate the mindset and habits they will need to run a company, grow a company, pitch, sell, lead, and scale the next generation of leadership so that they don’t become the bottleneck to growth. In short, we have a culture of complete neglect of growing the most important assets: the founders, even though Bill Campbell transparently demonstrated in his coaching of Steve jobs, Jeff Bezos and Eric Schmidt that treating founders like high performance athletes and giving them real coaching, not light touch mentoring that you’d be chastised for giving a 5th grade soccer team, was the recipe for scaleable success. So if your accelerator simply seeks to answer the question “how would I treat my founders if they were high performance athletes I wanted to win on the global stage” it will be better than 99.5% of the world’s incubators and accelerators.

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Antler has been selected for not one but THREE sessions at SXSW Sydney which are open for public voting for one more day. 🎉 And I need your help to vote! 1️⃣ “Decoding Founder DNA: A Blueprint for Startup Success” Startup category: https://lnkd.in/g9spjYJZ This panel session will feature myself alongside Square Peg’s Casey Flint, Sprint Ventures’ Georgia Barkell and Polipo Ventures’ Richard Cooney. It will be an energetic and open discussion on what Founder DNA is, what makes it sought after by VCs like Antler, how Australia’s leading VCs navigate the complexities of identifying the next generation of changemakers, and how the Founder DNA concept evolves in tangent with the world. 2️⃣ “Day Zero Investing , WTF is that?” Startup category: https://lnkd.in/guDny9rw This meet-up style session will feature Antler’s scouting team, Rani Heraputeri and Nina Leong, and myself as we discuss early-stage investing, how it compares to other fundraising stages, and what local VCs in this space have to say about it to get you ahead. 3️⃣ “The next industrial revolution is coming!” Future of Work category: https://lnkd.in/gXVsawgJ This talk will be presented by Antler’s CCO, Bede Moore, and will explore how the convergence of two major global shifts - the steep rise in economic challenges faced by Millennials alongside the innovation of cloud computing - is creating the next industrial revolution that is set to transform our lives and how future generations work. We believe these conversations are crucial to understanding and navigating the complexities of the startup ecosystem in 2024 and beyond. Your vote can make a difference! 👉 Vote by signing up here https://lnkd.in/gRfmjDTc and searching for each session. Thanks in advance!

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