Australia’s leading equity crowdfunding platform, VentureCrowd, and pioneering venture studio Josephmark have entered into a joint-venture to help early stage Australian startups rapidly scale by connecting them to users, customers, talent and investors.
This is the first partnership of its kind that brings together an equity crowdfunding platform that has raised $170 million since its inception and a digital venture studio that has led startups to scale, such as Clipchamp (recently acquired by Microsoft), We are Hunted (acquired by Twitter), and Tammy Hembrow’s viral fitness app TammyFit.
The joint-venture will offer a complete set of growth services to early-stage startup founders from Josephmark’s brand, product, growth, and venture strategy and rollout services through to investment support and fundraising via the VentureCrowd platform.
It will also develop an innovative, new digital platform to foster connections and collaboration opportunities between VentureCrowd’s 63,000 qualified startup investors, and early-stage founders.
Interest in backing early-stage startups through crowdfunding is exploding in Australia – there’s been a 73 per cent year-on-year jump in investment volume through VentureCrowd in the last quarter – and membership is up 50 per cent in the past 12 months.
Steve Maarbani, CEO, VentureCrowd, commented: “Our goal is to create a frictionless path to funding for founders, while giving investors early access to the most exciting startup ideas. This partnership will truly harness the power of our ever-growing crowd and utilise it to its full potential.”
“Josephmark is a true venture partner to startup clients with a unique perspective and proven methodology to accelerate growth. They have access to a strong deal flow of early-stage ventures which will help us bring even more quality deals to the platform, while connecting members directly to like-minded investors and early-stage founders.”
The joint venture will have a strong emphasis on the digitisation of the investment process in a mobile first-environment. VentureCrowd currently allows its members to invest in vetted startup deals directly via its web and mobile platform.
The collaboration will expand this mobile offering by developing a new platform that will connect investors and founders through communities based on specific areas of interest, such as medtech, foodtech, and fintech.
Ben Johnston, group CEO, Josephmark said: “This partnership addresses major gaps in Australia’s startup ecosystem by providing startups with a roadmap from idea to IPO.”
“The venture studio model gives startup founders the ability to rapidly prototype and validate their product-market fit. By plugging this model directly into VentureCrowd,and bringing their 63,000 investors on the journey with these founders, we can supercharge the startup process. This really makes us the one-stop shop for promising ventures.”
