Up to 10 Australian startups will share in a new $1 million seed capital fund developed to give entrepreneurs a leg-up.
The funds have been raised by a new venture called Rimon Investments, a capital-raising arm of Sydney-based firm Rimon Advisory which already assists entrepreneurs grow their ideas through expert advice and assistance with accessing government grants.
Entrepreneurs are eligible for cash grants of between $30,000 and $200,000 through the fund over the next two years.
Lior Stein, Director of Rimon Advisory and Rimon Investments, said most businesses will be identified through Rimon Advisory, although others may be sourced externally, but all must have a firm grip on the technology involved, a clear vision of future market share capability and “integrity factor”.
“We look to work with people that are honest and true to their word,” he told The Huffington Post Australia.
Stein said the money, raised through a group of significant investors in Australia, South Africa and Israel, was dedicated to allow startups with scaleable tech to grow and not be pressured to hit the market too early.
“Quite often we have seen that entrepreneurs will try to raise money too soon,” he said.
“We’d rather you spend another two months hitting those goals, getting those users, getting your minimum viable product right to the point where we know investors will be much more interested and willing to pay more for what you’re doing.
“It’s very rare to see someone do this completely on their own.”
One Aussie startup, logistics software firm Premonition, has already received funding from Rimon Investments.
Premonition is a reincorporated version of Foodbank Local, a social business that partnered with several major supermarket and charity groups to improve logistics in the foodbank sector to redistribute excess foods and feed the needy.
Co-founder Brad Lorge said his firm wants to use the Foodbank tech to improve logistics in the vastly expanding area of online retail, and this funding -- and involvement with Rimon Advisory’s services -- have been hugely important.
“We’re using the same technology that we conceived for trying to solve a charitable problem and we’re really looking at reshaping the way that people are able to interact with online shopping businesses,” he said.
“What we realised is that for this very heavy R&D project to move forward we needed to find a more sustainable model that worked in concert with industry to be able to deliver the long term results that we wanted,” he said.
“At that point Rimon came into the picture and their advisory was critical in helping us to identify some key opportunities for the commercialisation of the system.”
Premonition is currently working on a project that allows consumers to redirect the delivery of a parcel at any time via an app if they aren’t going to be home.
“Rimon is a phenomenal fund,” he said.
“We’re looking to have Premonition as an Australian business that’s able to keep being an Australian business while having a global reach. The fact that Rimon is an international fund based out of Australia is a phenomenal opportunity and unheard of in seed capital.”
Lior said Rimon Investments has another four tech startups in the pipeline for funding, and that all funds could be available within a week of a business being approved.
“We understand entrepreneurs -- at their core they have a believe that success is attainable and achievable otherwise they wouldn’t need to take the jump that they all need to take,” he said.
“And that success is really achieved through their courage to innovate. Rimon is really based around these principles.”
Beyond the initial seed capital, the entrepreneurs have access to further capital raising, such as Series A. Lorge said Premonition will most likely receive most of its Series A funding from Rimon’s advisory committee.
Among the investors are Brad Shofer, MYOB co-founder and Ingogo board member; Gary Burg, resident director and co-founder at Global Capital Holdings; Neil Hessen, international capital markets expert; Michael Kadoury, serial angel investor and tech startup adviser; and Sam Leon, non-executive director of Investec Australia Property Fund.