Niki Scevak

After six years of bootstrapping - I’m excited to share that Slice has raised a $17.5 million equity and debt round led by Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA) and Roadnight Capital. Our journey began over a decade ago - when I met my co-founder Yannick D. while working in a big bank's Collections and Hardship department. We spoke to numerous customers who had used credit cards to pay for a trip overseas - often for a family reunion or a cultural event. These customers wanted to be financially responsible, but because they had used a product with such a high interest rate, they were falling behind and feeling powerless. We wanted to create a product that would allow customers to book their flights, and then repay in manageable instalments before their trip. Our vision was to help customers access travel - while also helping them to budget sensibly and avoid financial hardship. In 2018, we launched our first product - PayLater Travel. In the beginning, we spoke to every customer on the phone - we manually made bookings, and paid upfront with our own credit cards (the irony!). Despite the janky product, our customers loved being able to lock in flight prices and having the ability to pay it off before they travel. We knew we were onto something! But behind the scenes, there have been plenty of unglamorous moments. When the pandemic hit in 2020, we lost 95% of our revenue overnight. We were terrified - but we were also too busy to feel sorry for ourselves. We hunkered down, made hundreds of calls to airlines, and ensured maximum refunds and credits for our customers. To survive COVID, we had to dig deep. Limping along wasn’t an option - unless we did something decisive, we’d slowly run out of cash.  With our backs against the wall, we decided to launch in the US. I had to sell my car and Yannick refinanced his home. In other words - we bet the farm. What happened next is… too long for a LinkedIN post! I’ve shared an expanded version of the story in our blog, Instalments by Slice (link in comments). Fast forward to 2024 - I feel deeply fortunate to have secured an additional $10 million debt facility from Roadnight Capital alongside a Seed investment led by Peak XV Partners. What's more - I feel blessed with a wonderful team, supportive friends, and to have helped 70,000 customers go on wonderful trips and create core memories. The best part - we’re only getting started! There are still millions of customers worldwide, falling into unsustainable debt and we’re here to do our part to change that! To read more about Slice and our first round of external funding, check out this article in The Australian Financial Review - #venturecapital #startup #fintech #funding #slice

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[HIRING] Help me out here LinkedIn - looking for a legend who will help hundreds of founders ❤️ 💥 FOUNDERS ASSOCIATE #1 Find the most ambitious early-stage founders to invest in ANZ #2 Your tools: run Launch Club and Buildmate to help hundreds of founders start and grow their startups every year >> which feeds back into #1 Link in the comments! Give this a like or tag a legend 🔥

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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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[Exlusive AFR] 9 out of 10 times VC loses money. But when it works, it really works - how $35k turns into $2.1m: 👉 AFR article in the comments At Startmate, we raise and invest $6m every year. Currently, backing 30 out of 1,200 companies that apply (Top 2%). 13 years later, the funds have world-class returns: 🔥 4 are in the Top 5%. 🔥 9 are in the Top 25% How? We believe in our founders all the way in the beginning and forever after. Bugcrowd is a great example. The initial $35k investment turned into $2.1m. (Note: now we invest $120k) But we love Bugcrowd. So we 👉 only sold off 60% of our position for the 2013 fund to return 6x cash on cash DPI for our investors. 👉 as well as bought new shares through our Continuity Fund. Early investors get an incredible return, with a remaining massive upside. New investors get to tap into great Startmate Alumni. 💰 We raise a new fund every 6 months, if you want more info - hit me up!

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💡 SaaStock Reflections: 5 Fundraising Insights for Early-Stage Founders. Last week at SaaStock, I found myself bouncing between two extremes—presenting to early-stage founders navigating their first fundraise on Monday and tee-d up to discuss the high-stakes challenges of CEOs with >£1bn valuations on Wednesday. The contrast reminded me of one thing: the learning curve never stops, whether you're just getting started or leading a unicorn. For founders getting started, the world of fundraising can be one of the biggest learning curves. So, I’ve pulled together the top takeaways from Monday’s session to help demystify the process for those thinking about raising for the first time. Here’s what I’ll break down this week: ❓What’s happening in VC fundraising? ❓The ‘Power Law’ and why VC isn’t right for 99% of businesses. ❓Alternatives to VC and when they make more sense. ❓How to choose the right VC for you. ❓How much to raise and when is the best time to do it. 1️⃣ So, what’s happening in VC fundraising?? 😕 Still stress in the system. It is hard to speak with conviction (markets hot, markets not, valuations back up, valuations down, down rounds over…a lot of pain still to come etc). The reality is 2020/21 were anomalies (unfair yardsticks to measure against) BUT covid, gov stimulus, inflation, monetary policy, political uncertainty and war have and still massively impact fundraising. 🪟 IPO window closed and M&A activity weak. Public SaaS multiples are way down relative to a couple years ago - 80% of SaaS companies that went public in 2020/1 are trading below their issue price. The IPO window has been closed and M&A activity weak. ⌛Liquidity for VCs has stretched to longer time horizons. According to Carta only 9% of 2021 funds have seen any return vs 25% for the 2017 vintage at the same checkpoint. 3 years in is early for a fund, but it is an important mark as it is when GPs start looking to raise their next funds. 🫰So, LPs are more selective. Whilst returns are stretching out to longer time horizons, the NASDAQ is on a rip and interest rates are high, so alternatives to VC have become relatively more attractive to LPs. So, LP capital is being more selective. Less money is going to fewer VCs compared to a couple of years ago (“flight to quality” for LPs). ✈️ What does this mean for founders? It is relatively harder to raise now than a few years ago. Seed to A conversion had dropped to 15% from 30%+. Ultimately, VCs have refocussed on finding companies best suited to “traditional VC return profiles” (“flight to quality” for VCs, too). Founders raising VC are held to an incredibly high bar. Tomorrow I will cover the mathematical reality of the ‘Power Law’ and why VC isn’t right for 99% of businesses. #VC #fundraising #saastock #albionVC

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🚨 Fundraising Alert 🚨 Top tier companies raising Pre-Seed to Series A in the next 6 months should apply to Focal where they can pitch almost all their prospective investors at once. Demo day is on May 16th. ✅ Applying takes 7 mins ✅ Previous applicants raised from funds like Sequoia, Balderton, Episode 1, Lightspeed and GV. ✅ Even if you find fundraising easy, this is a way to build added momentum. You can apply here: https://lnkd.in/eTdTtSw7

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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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📢 Want a crash course in angel investing and venture capital? If you're interested in learning more about angel investing and the world of venture capital, we're hosting an intro series on this topic across multiple sessions, kicking off today! Sign up details below 👇

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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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Great heat map for startups and investors!! Important to note: 1) Not all "seed" companies are created equal. Given the term "seed" means a lot of things, we at K Street Capital try to find seed companies that have already crossed the chasm (strong revenue, high QoQ growth, good unit economics) to have a better chance at getting to Series A quicker. & 2) Probably stating the obvious but: The recent lag in time from seed to series A is probably driven by the unsuccessful companies not being able to raise capital in the current environment (which is good, and should have been happening all along...) in combination with some great companies blowing it out of the park and not needing to raise a series A at all... #venturecapital #founders #startups #angelinvesting #fundperformance #seed #seriesA

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Insightful breakdown from my great Partner Omri Amirav-Drory on the simple factors that really separate the top 1% of investors from the rest, and how more operators should become investors! https://lnkd.in/gEiZdT2h

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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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Warwick D. raises an old chestnut in his post below we hear all too often often. But is it fair? I have now personally met with over 200 founders in the past year and spent considerable time with each of them. 195 of them fall short in some or all of the following typical areas: 1) validated market opportunity. Is it a problem paying customers actually want fixed and what compelling evidence do you have to support this. 2) either poorly constructed, untested or non existent Commercialisation strategy. That is, the GTM strategy, pricing, product roadmap that supported the GTM. Most are generic unfocused strategies. 3) they have built what should be correctly called a POC and not an MVP. 4) and worse in my view, few can articulate what core metrics will drive accelerated growth for their business and why. I could go on, but the fact that so many are weak in these areas doesn’t help with their prospects for raising capital from investors. While I can’t speak for other VC’s, we build conviction by weighing in on those opportunities we like and where we think we can help in these key areas. It’s also a chance to see how well we might work with a founder prior to any possible investment. My own experience is that all too often little value is provided in meetings by investors to founders. We seek to be different by trying to impart value in each meeting, including asking the hard questions or pointing out our view of the likely challenges that lay ahead that their strategy should address. Being a founder is tough and being challenged isn’t always welcomed. But as I have been saying for decades to my teams, we can’t do anything with praise but we can with negative or challenging feedback. This is all to often where the pots of gold can be found! What do you think? #founders #capitalraising #venturecapital

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How do investors price pre-seed rounds?  This is perhaps one of the most misunderstood aspects of fundraising.  Oftentimes, founders want some framework to better understand what market value is when raising capital into their business.  Public equities and later stage privates have a well defined matrix of revenue/margin profiles that dictate valuation, surely there must be some framework for arriving at a pre-seed valuation. So how do investors price startups that are pre-revenue, or have maybe one of two early customers? In reality, pricing is more a byproduct of a VC fund’s portfolio construction model than any metric of the underlying business.  VCs model out portfolios to include a certain number of companies with an ownership target in each startup.  There are variations to portfolio construction, and the chosen strategy will have a direct impact on the types of rounds a fund will participate in. For example, an early stage fund might raise a $60M fund to lead investments in 30 companies and target 12.5% ownership.   After management fees, there is ~$48M in investable capital.  Assuming a fund holds back ~30% for reserves(this number varies across funds) that leaves ~$30M to invest in initial checks.   In this case a fund must average $1M checks at $8M valuations to reach their intended ownership target of 12.5%.   When you are in diligence with a fund, they are first and foremost trying to get to a yes on the investment opportunity.  When arriving at a valuation though, the math outlined above is the determining factor, more so than any multiple of revenue on the business, or the stated desires of where a founder wants to raise capital.  At the end of the day, a VC is trying to arrive at a valuation that works within their portfolio strategy. This means they are very unlikely to price a deal at $15M cap given the aforementioned portfolio construction, as they would either not own enough($1M = 6.67% ownership) or have to cut too large a check( $1.875M = 12.5%). The thing that is most likely to move an investor off their target valuation is another investor in the picture that is driving the price higher, but even then there are upward bound limits of how high an investor is willing to price a deal. I always advise our port cos to ask an investor early in conversations what their ideal check size/valuation is to make sure there is alignment with the founder's objectives.    

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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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The ANZ Startup Capital Raise Retro Powered by Overnight Success. $58.3M deployed across ANZ. The full digest below includes discounts on community events and more. 👇 Veyor Digital raises $2.75M Series A to expand its logistics scheduling software into the U.S. market. NextWork (NZ 🥝) secures $2.3 Pre-Seed to build a learning platform to get more people into tech jobs. Check them out for a free AWS certification. Foremind finds a $400K follow-on investment for its mobile-friendly worker wellbeing platform. RayGen shines with $51M Series D to scale photovoltaic solar module system Kindling. raises $500K pre-seed to empower niche content creators to monetise CoraMetix secures $500K at $2.25M valuation to create durable 3D printed heart valve Outread raises $750K to revolutionise academic research using A.I. Deeligence lands $1M pre-seed to help legal firms streamline work with A.I.

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How much equity should your company carve out for your people? Equity benchmarking data is notoriously difficult to get, especially for Australian startups, but we take a lot of influence from our US cousins. Carta has showed up with the goods and shared two key pieces of insight on startup equity. 1️⃣ ESOP pool size by stage of company 2️⃣ Pool size change over the last 2 years What are they seeing in 2024? 🌱 Seed companies • 21.8% (75th %ile) • 14.2% (50th %ile) • 10.1% (25th %ile) 🪴 Series A companies • 20.6% (75th %ile) • 15.3% (50th %ile) • 11.1% (25th %ile) 🌿 Series B companies • 21.2% (75th %ile) • 16.8% (50th %ile) • 13.0% (25th %ile) 🌲 Series C companies • 21.8% (75th %ile) • 17.7% (50th %ile) • 14.7% (25th %ile) How has this changed since 2022? Not a lot really. The median has stayed fairly stagnant, with a 1-1.5% variance, meaning total cap table has stayed largely unchanged for the average company. Top quartile Seed startups got way more generous in 2024, jumping from 19.8% of total cap table in 2022 to 21.8% in 2024 📈 Are early/riskier startups having work harder (issue more equity) to lure away talent from secure seeming companies? This trend reverses for more mature companies and the top quartile at Series C dropped from 22.9% of total cap table in 2021 to 21.8% 📉 Maybe this suggests they can get away with outlaying less equity because talent isn't going anywhere. Fascinating stuff. What is your take? — If you like this content, repost this to your network and follow me Matt McFarlane for more.

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These firms are ready to write checks, with new funds recently closed. 🔴 San Francisco based Infinity Ventures raised its second $184M fund to support founders building across B2B fintech and commerce enablement. 🔴 Vancouver based Top Down Ventures closed its first $25M Founders Fund to back early-stage SaaS companies within the Managed Service Provider (MSP) sector. 🔴 Mumbai based Avaana Capital launched its $135M Avaana Climate and Sustainability Fund to invest in early-stage companies using technology for climate adaptation and mitigation. 🔴 Paris based 360 Capital closed its first €30M fund to focus on early stage startups that are active in digital transition in Italy. 🔴 San Francisco based General Catalyst raised $8B for its Fund XII to back AI, Defense & Intelligence, Climate & Energy, Industrials, Healthcare and Fintech startups. 🔴 Atlanta based Socium Ventures raised its second $300M fund to focus on enterprise and vertical software, advanced computer tools, public sector software, healthcare, fintech, B2B marketplaces and sustainability startups. 🔴 Menlo Park based HRZ Han River launched its $100M fund to focus on the AI and consumer sectors within the Korea Graph.

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