?? Blast OIF | Edition VII

Welcome to edition VII of Blast OIF, a monthly(ish) roundup of what’s been happening across the OIF portfolio

We are very proud of the strides that our portfolio companies are making, especially in the context of a more challenging environment for technology companies. From impressive new partnerships, exciting new product launches, funding rounds to accelerate their growth and notable awards. Keep reading for an inside view into the remarkable achievements and milestones accomplished by our portfolio companies and an update as to where the OIF team has been.?

Big News ??

Announced just last month, we launched the OIF Ventures Opportunity Fund, to continue to invest in exceptional founders building generational teams and businesses. With strong support from existing and new investors – it is great to see so much support for this vision.?

The Fund will stand adjacent to our three existing early-stage funds and will patiently and selectively focus on investing in outstanding later stage opportunities. We’ve been backed exclusively by some of Australia’s leading founders, entrepreneurs, business builders and family offices and we’re especially proud that founders we have previously backed have now invested in us.?

This is an exciting milestone for us, a big responsibility and we are very excited by the opportunity ahead. Read more in the Australian Financial Review - here ?

Welcome to the OIF Portfolio ???

DataMasque??

Already helping organisations across the globe including Best Western Hotel Group and Resolution Life to protect their sensitive data, achieve compliance and minimise data exposure, our latest investment DataMasque is an exciting one. DataMasque is a data masking tool that gives businesses a simple and effective way to replace sensitive data from their production environment with realistic alternatives. This helps to enhance testing, development and decision making without compromising on security, customer privacy, and accuracy.???

We’re thrilled to be backing the DataMasque team, leading their NZ$2.7 million funding round to support the early growth of the company. Not only have they built an exceptional product, but from our first interaction we have been extremely impressed by the founding team. Aimme , Grant and Greg have deep industry experience and knowledge, having worked in both software and technology companies and successfully scaled cyber related start-ups.?

Visory?

One of our newest investments Visory , is on a mission to supercharge the back office of SMEs, and we’re excited to be participating in their Series A round to support this vision.?

Visory is a managed marketplace that has developed an online workflow and collaboration platform to deliver quality assured, scalable back-office services to businesses across Australia and New Zealand. Providing services such as bookkeeping and payroll, Visory simplifies the complex web of business administration and software into a streamlined and integrated solution, connecting business to the best expert talent via their marketplace, regardless of location.?

At OIF, we always aim to back the best founders and teams, and the Visory team is no exception. Co-founders Thomas and Jordan both possess deep domain expertise and have an exceptional track record in both building and scaling technology businesses.?

Backing the Best ???

Go1?

Go1 recently announced the acquisition of Blinkist , a mobile-first microlearning app that turns books and podcasts into Blinks – short 15-minute explainers. The acquisition involved Blinkist’s largest investor Insight Partners taking an additional $30 million in equity in Go1 at an “upround”.?

With a common goal of fostering a lifelong love of learning, this acquisition will help the learning platform reach their goal of a billion workers quicker.?

Inspace?

Justin and the entire Inspace team have seen tremendous growth since we first backed them in 2021 and we’re proud to be continuing our support, backing the team again in their latest funding round.?

Corporate Real Estate owners and managers are under pressure to increase weighted average lease expiry and occupancy rates, achieve strong transaction outcomes and increase and defend funds under management. Inspace's leading visualisation platform and new IR product is helping customers achieve this.?

Read more in the Australian Financial Review – here ?

Circle In?

First backing Jodie , Kate and the entire Circle In team in 2019, we’re proud to be continuing our support, backing the team again as they achieve an incredible milestone closing their $2M funding round.

Circle In’s employee benefit platform provides on-demand support for parents, caregivers and their managers for any stage of life - from expecting a child, taking leave or losing a family member.

The unique online platform serves globally leading customers including Medibank , Coca Cola Amatil , Atlassian and EY . We invested early and are excited to continue backing these exceptional founders and opportunity as they work to expand the platform globally.?

Read more in The Australian - here ?

Our portfolio companies continue to soar to new heights and we're extremely proud of their achievements. We can’t squeeze them all in, so to highlight just a few …?

Making Headlines ???

• Atomi have been recognised as a 5-star provider in The Educator’s 2023 awards ?
• Advanced Navigation was awarded a $5.2 million Moon to Mars Initiative : Demonstrator Mission Grant by the Australian Space Agency, to support NASA’s endeavour to explore the Moon and beyond to Mars?

• Amaka is now the highest-rated app on the Xero App with 930+ reviews??
• Biza.io won a 2023 Fintech Award in the Excellence in Regtech category and were nominated as a finalist in the Excellence in Open Data category and for Outstanding Fintech leader of the year (Stuart Low )?
• Bridgit took home the award for Best Innovation in Lending and Best Fintech Growth Story at the 8th Annual FinTech Awards 2023 and made it into the 2023 Australian Broker 5-Star Mortgage Innovators report ?
• Circle In was nominated as a finalist in the 2023 Technology Scale-up awards in the ‘One to Watch’ category?
• Enboarder was recognised for Best Estimated ROI (Enterprise) for the third quarter in a row by G2 in the onboarding software category and placed 3rd in Inspiring Workplaces list of top 10 workplaces in Australasia ?

• Futurerent was nominated as a finalist in the “Ownership, Affordability & Finance” category at the 2023 PropTech awards ?
• Kasada was named Security Innovation Partner of the Year by Amazon Web Services and won the 2023 Fortress, Cyber Security Award for Application Security ??
• Mastt was selected as a finalist for the 2023 Urban Developer Awards for Industry Excellence and are listed among the 2023 Top Project Software list by BuiltWorlds??
• Neara was recognised as one of The Australian Financial Review’s Sustainability Leaders for 2023 - named as winners in two of this year's categories; Overall Winner for Innovation and Winner in the Resources, Energy & Utilities category??

?New product and features alert ???

• Vouch launched three new features to help users streamline video workflows, namely their AI-powered question generator, AI-powered video scripts and AI-powered search?
• Kasada launched their rebrand to reflect their bold approach to stopping automated threats and their unmatched understanding of the human minds behind them?
• Atomi launched Atomi Education for years 7 – 8 to support the needs of their junior school students and empower teachers with best-practice pedagogy?
• Zitcha launched Brand Stores, enabling brands to create their own dedicated storefronts on their retailer's website to showcase their brand and products. The team also introduced Pinterest Ads through their Unified Retail Media Platform?

New customers and partnerships ???

• Kasada announced their partnership with Signifyd to stop online bots and combat eCommerce fraud???
• MYOB has partnered with Amaka to enhance its users Inventory Management solutions?
• Nullify has officially become an AWS Partner ?
• Zitcha announced the acquisition of three new customers – Peavey Mart Canada , tyresales.com.au and Village Cinemas to help them accelerate their media capabilities?

Our community ??

Over the past few months, the OIF Ventures team have participated in and organised some great events.?

• We’ve been very active behind the scenes, hosting a small intimate pub drinks every couple of weeks, bringing together a group of people from across the startup ecosystem – founders, venture partners and a few of the OIF team, as a chance to meet other tech founders, operators, and share experiences?
• In April, we were lucky to have Jason Todd , Head of Wealth Management Investment Strategy, Macquarie’s Banking and Financial Services group join us and our founders to discuss some of the current macroeconomic trends and future insights impacting the Australian startup ecosystem. Drawing on Jason’s insights, our very own Oliver Darwin then talked through earlier stage valuation for technology companies in the context of the current macroeconomic environment.?

• Isabella Rich joined some of the best brains in tech at the Startup Daily #AskMeAnything event, featuring on The Good, The Bad and The Runway panel - before speaking at the Venture & Capital Sydney 2023 premier investment conference earlier this month?
• Jerry Stesel sat down with leading investors and advisors from KPMG Australia , ALIUM Capital and ikaros in a live Q&A to discuss what growth plus profitability actually means, and how founders can practically get there?? Watch the recording here ?

• David Shein sat down with Siimon Reynolds on The Business Lounge to discuss his career journey, key insights and learnings?? Listen to the full podcast here ??

• Kevin Wilson sat down with Simon Thomsen from ausbiz , on the Startup Daily series to discuss the launch of the OIF Ventures Opportunity Fund?? Watch the recording here ?

• We hosted the Tech Council roundtable lunch with the Assistant Minister for Manufacturing and Trade, Senator the Hon Tim Ayres and TCA Chair, Robyn Denholm . It was also great to see some of our founders in the room.?

We’re growing ???

We are very excited to announce that Peter Lilley , serial successful founder and CEO, including of recently exited portfolio company Instaclustr , has joined OIF as an independent Investment Committee member.?

We have worked closely with Peter since we first invested in Instaclustr in its Series A round, in November 2016, through to its sale to Nasdaq-listed company NetApp in April of last year.?

Peter has more than 25 years of experience in information technology services and has taken two companies as CEO and founder from inception as a startup through growth and onto successful exits. Peter is a big supporter of OIF and has been hugely hands-on and helpful to the OIF team over the years. He brings huge incremental value to the OIF Investment Committee, and we are honoured to have him on the team.?

Top Jobs ?????

A dream is just a dream without a team! There are some incredible opportunities going across the OIF portfolio. So, if you know of someone exceptional who would be a good fit, encourage them to apply [HERE ] or reach out to our team to learn more.?

• The Linkby team are on the lookout for a Partnerships Success Executive to join their expanding UK team?

• Visory are looking for a Payroll Lead ?
• Atomi are hiring a Customer Success Team Lead ?
• Neara are looking to hire a Graduate Software Engineer?

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We're seeing and investing in some exceptional founders of early-stage technology companies. So please reach out [HERE] if you're creating something iconic, we love to partner with great people building something we can all be proud of!??

Thank you for reading the latest edition of Blast OIF.???

Don’t forget to subscribe ????

Until next time ...???

The OIF Ventures team?

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