Elaine Stead

✨ Breaking: Melt Ventures Announces New Fund.- Melt Ventures Melt Ventures, a partner of the WAVC initiative, focuses on early-stage investments in sectors aligned with Western Australia’s innovation priorities. https://melt.ventures/ Please share to let other #Founders know For the ❤️ of Startups #Fusion42 #Startups #Venturecapital

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What’s happening in healthtech? 💊🎉 🧬 exteRNA, a Melb biotech raised $11M to develop new treatments to selectively target and modulate RNA processing pathways to treat difficult cancers 🌟 Valion Health was acquired by We Lysn to enhance virtual mental health across Aus 💸 UQ’s UniQuest & Molecule to Medicine partnered to launch biotech startup Lucia Bio with $1M to develop advanced anti-inflammatory treatments 🏆  NanoCube Health secured a $3M grant to advance its AI-driven nanotech to detect, monitor and target pancreatic cancer 🏆 Updoc has hit 200% compounded annual growth with their offer of faster doctor access with a Netflix-style subscription model nabbing some awards 🏥 The ACCC approved the $8.8B merger of Chemist Warehouse & Sigma Healthcare, with conditions to attempt to protect competition & customer choice 💊 Chemist Warehouse’s retail media revenue declined by $150M >2 years as it grapples with a tougher ad market and rising competition from Woolies & Coles 📉 Aus life expectancy has lowered for the 2nd consecutive year, with a drop of 0.2 years for women & 0.1 years for men 📱 Aus is officially going to ban under-16s from social media - stirring a global debate  :us: The US has a new president-elect - but what will that mean for health? TBC, but Trump did “promise to shake up public health institutions, reshape federal health programs, and slash high costs across the system.” 💔 Forward Health, known for its AI-driven “doctor-in-a-box” CarePods, is shutting down and laying off its entire 200-person staff 🩻 Elon challenged everyone to submit medical images to Grok for analysis… another entrant in the radiology AI wars 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 >8700 legends getting health tech and innovation news dropped directly to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter, What the Health, linked in the comments below! 💜 📩 #healthtech  #health  #healthcare  #digitalhealth  #medtech  #biotech

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What’s happening in healthtech? 💊🎉 💰The Vic Gov will invest $7.5M to fund researchers to create 50 new startups  run by Breakthrough Victoria 💻 Safewill, bagged $17M to expand services like digital wills, power of attorney, & probate assistance 🧘‍♀️ Pronto Pilates snagged $1.6M in crowdfunding, to disrupt reformer pilates with affordable, trainer-free classes 💼 Hostplus committed $125M to VC, backing startups through IP Group plc Innovation Fund 📜 Private companies will now have to upload health data to My Health Record thanks to the Health Legislation Amendment Bill 2024 🧪 Aussie women will soon have access to at-home chlamydia & gonorrhoea tests 🤖 Baymatob won ‘AI Innovator - Healthcare’ at the Aus AI Awards for its maternal health tech providing early warnings for complications 🧬 The Fed Gov launched Genomics Australia, a national body to lead & coordinate genomic research, with a $30M commitment over 4 years 💼 Aus's $15B National Reconstruction Fund begins investing in deep tech, allocating $300M to boost quantum, robotics, & clean energy innovation ~~~🌎 US & Beyond the Borders 🌎~~~ 💍 ŌURA raised $75M, reaching a US$5B+ valuation, partnering with Dexcom to integrate glucose monitoring data into its platform 🧠 Headspace laid off 13% of its staff & is transitioning all therapists from employed roles 📈 WHOOP adds psychedelics tracking to its Journal feature, letting users log ketamine, LSD, & psilocybin use ⚽ David Beckham codeveloped longevity supplement brand IM8 Health with biotech company Prenetics, launching a longevity drink 💻 Eli Lilly & Company, the global pharma, invests S$42M in Singapore to launch a Digital Health Innovation Hub 🛠️ Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers trained a surgical robot using imitation learning from surgery videos 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 >8700 legends getting health tech and innovation news dropped direct to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter, What the Health, linked in the comments below! 💜 📩 #healthtech  #health  #healthcare  #digitalhealth  #medtech  #biotech

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NOTWICS in continuing our work with Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade) to promote the UK’s strengths as a nation to move to and scale, were on a great call with 22 excellent Australian Medtech and HealthTech founders yesterday arranged by the awesome Alon Gold. All of these businesses are considering scaling their business in the new “rule Britannia”.. where we appear to moving back in turbo tech mode post Wednesdays non ghoulish Halloween government roadshow. In our calls and events with Austrade on scaling into the UK .. Australian and international founders often ask us about the funding landscape and post Brexit more and more are showing interest in moving to Blighty and potentially converting into UK Topco’s — which is great. On that note .. we often discuss the various EIS / SEIS and VCT funding opportunities for Australian founders at NOTWICS and we wanted to flag this excellent piece today from Fred Ursell @ Pembroke VCT in Maddyness UK which explains .. “warts and all” the financial opportunities and shape of things with VCTs for UK top co businesses. Great Job Fred and Great Britain 🇬🇧 Alon Gold Annika Barton Cordelia Royds David Johnson Cordelia Meacher Tim Davis Neil Shah Elizabeth Lazell Yasmina Jebai Isabella Black Richard Jenkins Philip Shelley Anthony Lyall Christopher Hill Startup Catalyst #scaleups #startup #vc

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10% chance of rain. 100% chance of petrichor and genuine connection for today's #Brooklyn WELLNESS #TechWalk led by Clara Fletcher (CareerStar). FYI - petrichor is the actual smell of rain. "The term was coined in 1964 by Australian scientists Isabel Joy Bear and Richard Grenfell Thomas, who published their research in the journal Nature. They discovered that a yellow oil trapped in rocks and soil was responsible for the smell of rain. The oil is a combination of oils from plants and chemicals from soil bacteria." So grab some waterproof boots and an umbrella to join today's special WELLNESS #TechWalk featuring an impressive lineup of Co-Hosts which includes: 🌳 Ricardo Soares - Co-Founder and Soulworker SOULSARA - an organization the provides workplace wellness solutions 🌳 Michael Zaytsev - Academic Director: Business of Cannabis, LIM College, Best-selling Author, "The Cannabis Business Book", Founder, High NY 🌳 Collin Palmer - CEO of VesselLifeScience a company at the intersection of tech, design, art , wellness, regenerative agriculture, with a 20-year award-winning history of developing some of the most recognized products in the #cannabis market. Ricardo Soares and SOULSARA will be gifting three attendees of our 9/26 walk two (1) hour wellness coaching sessions. Over 30 days, coaching recipients will explore topics like: #stressmanagement, sustainable performance levels, creativity,#purposefulliving, and personalized wellness subjects. Each session will include training exercises to practice until the next meeting. Follow-up check-ins via phone or text to support the recipient's progress. Take a deep inhale and see you there! Useful links in the comments.

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💸 New Funds looking to give you cash This week, over $2 billion in venture capital funding has been announced across 32 new and ongoing funds targeting early-stage innovation in AI, healthcare, climate tech, and deep tech. The funds span globally, with highlights in Western Australia, Israel, Japan, and the Baltics, focusing on seed to growth-stage startups and niche strategies like secondary investments. ⭐️ Key Highlights: ➡️ Global Reach: Investments target startups across the US, Europe, the GCC, and emerging regions. ➡️ Tech-Driven: Heavy focus on AI, sustainability, cybersecurity, and biotech. ➡️ Growth Focus: Early-stage investments dominate, with notable support for regional innovation hubs. This week shows strong global momentum in funding technologies solving real-world problems, while driving local growth and global impact. For all the details signup to the Fusion42 community. The startup community the founders, framers and funders who what get **it done. for the ❤️ of startups __________________________________ Connect or Follow DeReK WaTSoN ___________________________________ #fusion42 #startups #founders #cofounders #venturecapital #angelinvestors

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The cap on international students means fewer startup founders and less employee talent for early stage startups in Australia. The risk appetite it takes to uproot your life and move to another country to study is exactly the mindset that drives people to take the risk to start (or join) a new company. I talked about this in a recent podcast with Will Richards where we discussed the impact of the controversial cap on international students and what it could mean for Australia’s startup ecosystem, universities, and economy. Full conversation from the ~24 minute mark here: https://lnkd.in/gNsH46VN UNSW Founders #entrepreneurship

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🚀 Exciting News for New Zealand Startups! 🚀 The New Zealand government is taking significant steps to support early-stage companies, especially in the tech sector. The new Taxation Bill proposes increasing the tax-exempt thresholds for employee share schemes, adjusting for inflation and providing a buffer against future inflation. Certainly a good start. https://lnkd.in/gKHSTq_5 **Key Highlights** Increased Share Value: Maximum value of shares offered to employees will rise from $5,000 to $7,500 per year. Higher Discounts: Maximum discount on market value of shares will increase from $2,000 to $3,000. These changes aim to boost recruitment and help startups succeed, contributing to the growth of New Zealand’s tech sector, which added $22.56 billion to GDP in 2023. 🌟 #Innovation #Startups #TechSector #NewZealand #EmployeeBenefits #EconomicGrowth

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Montu, Montu is an Australian success story. Do you invest in start-ups? In tech ideas? Promising new frontiers? Like cannabis medicine? Cannabis medicine platforms? Do you, as aspiring new angel investor, use crowd sourced funding platforms to do it? Here is a good one where the regulator has done a good job in protecting your rights: https://lnkd.in/gYrNQpSJ Many lessons to learn from that one. The board is what makes a difference, in you realising real value or undervalued. Montu is a success story by any measure. It is probably, and in my opinion definitely, Australia’s newest member of the Unicorn Club. Montu went from negligible equity in 2020/21 to over $30M (yes, $30,000,000+), according to their filings and what you’d est…and almost no revenue to what you might expect to be hundreds of millions of dollars a year already! Now that is what you call success and explosion in value and corresponding EBITDA! As a startup, angel, seed investor, this is the ONE you’re looking and hoping for. [This is where it really counts, for you and the startup; without your risk capital finally lands the BIG ONE! Theory being you now partner with the very appreciative entrepreneurs of your Unicorn and together reap the rewards. Unfortunately, the Montu story was not following that script. You’d see from the Takeovers Panel media release, here they tried/trying a selective share buyback approach which does not in fact allow investors, who put their risk capital up, to realise full value as in the case of an IPO or proper trade buyout.] The Takeovers Panel in this instant found that the shareholders were not provided with the adequate disclosures and information regarding the company’s performance when they were offered a share buy-back; even though the offer was a good liquidity to (crowd sourced funding) shareholders, simply put, the real value could only be gauged from adequate disclosures, which (a lot of) shareholders believe might be 10X what is being put on the table…meaning, not enough. Big lesson here also, if you are considering investing through Crowd Sourced Funding (platforms), be very vigilant and try to understand what’s on offer and ask questions about value and profits and maybe be more curious during the funding process and enquire about the board and the governing rules (the constitution) of the board. As a crowd sourced funding investor, you risk your money based on trust and limited time to spare to investigate. The story is not over, as you’d read from the Takeovers Panel media release, very good reading even if you are not involved, and informative about how to assess boards and their disclosures and the crowd sourced funding process and governing regulations. So maybe keep an eye on it and watch this space. Lucky for the shareholders of Montu, ASIC was also interested, and you’d guess, mainly to protect the crowd sourced funding segment / sector in the innovative start-ups space.

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An excellent article on the increasingly complex role of directors and three key takeaways for directors to take into account new year. #boards #directors #governance

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ALS is the most common form of Motor Neuron Disease (MND) and causes the progressive loss of motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord, resulting in the loss of muscle control and eventual death. Currently, there is no cure to reverse damage to motor neurons or to cure the disease.  Our team at Uniseed is incredibly excited to work with Celosia Therapeutics, a biotech spinout from our partner university (Macquarie), to make a difference in the lives of ALS patients and their families.

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What’s happening in healthtech? 💊🎉 💰Brandon Capital announced a $270m first close of its new life sciences fund 🚀ARM Hub (Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing) and MTPConnect launched a new Biomedical AI Sprints Accelerator (BASA) to elevate Aus's Biomedical Sector 🚑 updoc snagged $20m from ASX-listed Bailador Technology Investments (ASX:BTI) to expand 🧊 Southern Cryonics cryopreserved Aus's first-person 💉 GPN Vaccines raised $18m to advance a vaccine targeting Streptococcus pneumoniae 💊Telstra Health is acquiring the remaining 50% of Fred IT 🦠 Translational Research Institute Australia researchers bagged $4m from US Department of Defence for Parkinson’s treatments targeting the gut microbiome 🚨MediSecure, the e-script provider, entered administration following its cyber attack 🌏 The NHS is losing 1 in 5 departing UK doctors to Aus 🏛️ Medical Costs Finder, a $24m gov initiative for healthcare cost transparency, has seen only 20 doctors nationwide opting to list their fees 🌍 Aus is leading the way in tobacco control, with its anti-vaping measures recommended by the World Health Organization 🍄 AbbVie inked a US$2bn deal with Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals aimed at developing next-gen therapies and novel neuroplastogens for psychiatric disorders 🌍 Google for Startups selected 24 startups across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa for its 'Growth Academy: AI for Health program'. 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 >7900 legends getting health tech and innovation news dropped direct to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter, What the Health! 💜 📩 #healthtech  #health  #healthcare  #digitalhealth  #medtech  #biotech

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Board Meetings for Seed / A companies should be open discussions on ideas and strategy 🗣️ All investors should have read the Board Pack in advance (and it should be sent 48 hours+ in advance). Specific governance / finance questions can be asked in an email chain or WA group beforehand. When the Board starts, nail any votes required in first 5 mins. Core focus of Board should = 2-3 key things that the Founders want to have a deep dialogue on, where the other members can be the sounding board. "This is our idea around our new marketing campaign. These are our channels." "We've narrowed down these three candidates for x role." "Here is prototype for our new product feature launching next month." "Here's the template for our Sales playbook for moving up market." "We a/b tested these two acquisition channels and have some preliminary data." No need to spend half the Board meeting talking about financials, the Board Pack will show if you've overspent, the reasons why and can be discussed async beforehand.

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🌟 Australian Startups 2023: A Year of Strategic Shifts and Emerging Opportunities 🚀 In 2023, the Australian startup landscape navigated a cautious investment climate, recording a total of 413 deals with an overall investment value of $3.5 billion. Despite a significant drop in deal value from previous years, there was a notable shift towards robust activity in the early stages of investment. Angel and Pre-Seed rounds not only resisted the broader downturn but actually increased, highlighting a vibrant seed funding environment that underpins a dynamic market for emerging technologies. This heightened competition at the entry-level indicates a strategic pivot within our ecosystem, investing in the foundational potential of new ventures. Such insights are crucial as we steer towards nurturing a resilient and innovative startup community ready to tackle future challenges. Dive deeper into the full analysis and explore how these shifts are shaping the future of Australian innovation. https://lnkd.in/gc4gNtGc #AustralianStartups #VentureCapital #StartupEcosystem #Innovation

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Chairing the Strategic Examination of Research & Development independent expert panel I’m honoured to be leading such an amazing panel for the R&D Strategic Examination with Emeritus Professor Ian Chubb AC, Professor Fiona Wood AO and Dr Kate Cornick. This is a critical piece of work for Australia’s future which makes it an exciting opportunity and a significant responsibility. A heartfelt thanks to all who have reached out with congratulations, encouragement and offers of support. I’m looking forward to hearing more from the broad group of stakeholders that make up our ecosystem through this process. The frank and evidence-based insight from our ecosystem will be critical to an impactful review. As @Ed Husic MP has pointed out, there has been an alarming slide in R&D spending over the last decade. Research at the Tech Council shows that Australia is now a full percentage point behind the OECD average, in terms of R&D investment as a share of GDP. I know this is also a key concern for policymakers across the Parliament and I look forward to a healthy competition of ideas when examining how we can tackle this urgent national challenge.

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This is nuts! Putting a barrier to exit through M&A will have profound downstream implications on startup funding, especially in AgriTech. The Australian Government are proposing that acquisitions by companies with turnover of $200 Million + will require regulatory approval. This policy will put Australia at a disadvantage, as it is yet another reason for the best companies and technologies to seek capital and exits overseas. This approach cuts the capital cycle for new innovation and has the opposite effect on promoting competition, as it creates a barrier for new solutions to access the full life cycle of funding and liquidity. I would argue that the acquisition of technology through M&A is actually what we need to incentivise, to make larger Australian companies more globally competitive.

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For those interested, in what 4DS Memory Limited and Elsight - UAV & UAS Connection Confidence are all about. and some other very interesting stories.

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Federal budget 2024 💰 At Sprint Ventures our investment thematics are based on our mission to build a better future with a global macroeconomic focus, so annual budgets are fundamental in understanding growth industries bolstered with government funding. Sprint invests in HealthTech, Aged Care, Infrastructure and ClimateTech as well as AI and productivity. While the budget this year wasn’t revolutionary there are a few relevant initiatives: ▪️The Care economy was a key theme with focus on the Aged Care Royal Commission, NDIS and higher pay for workers. Mentions of digitisation is encouraging in strengthening these health industries. ▪️Focus on the Energy Transition particularly in critical minerals, hydrogen and renewables, which requires significant capital investment. It’s great to see the government stepping in with the capital to support the energy transition. As my friend Simon Thomsen correctly reported there’s not much for startups unfortunately. Some small business tax concessions but that’s it. Thanks to PwC for the invitation to your budget lunch, Richard Yetsenga for a great keynote and Oriel Morrison for her excellent interview of Richard. #federalbudget2024 #venturecapital #macroeconomicinvesting #buildabetterfuture

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Did you know that Australia is the home of 2.3% of the world's tech unicorns ($1b plus valuation companies). Deep tech is clear strength of Australia and it is why Japanese corporates are looking at Australia. The Australian Japan Business Cooperation Committee (AJBCC) is lifting the lid on what is driving Japanese businesses and Australian startups. If you are interested, then this webinar could be for you. Richard Andrews, Cristina Merino Ishizuka, Jonathan Raju, Annie Jiang, Emily Doran, Takero Izuhara, Tim Mclennan, Ken Jefferd, Invest Victoria

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