Chance encounters that led to business ideas with bright futures

Two women who met by chance at a fitness retreat, and two university friends who bonded while backpacking in Europe are among the best seed fundings in a tight market.

Mash co-founders Natasha Menon and Sarah Chruchlow.

Two women who met at a fitness retreat in Phuket, Thailand and later became flatmates, and two university friends who bonded over travelling Europe on little money are among four Australian start-ups who have raised millions in capital this week.

All four capital raisings – which range between $1m to $2m – have arrived in a tighter market then previous years. Investors have become risk averse and are beginning to demand more on the path to profitability from those they back.

Beamible, which was founded by two women who met about 25 years ago at Melbourne University and later became friends while travelling on a shoestring budget through Europe, raised $1.85m in a seed round led by Storytime Capital.

Co-founders Victoria Stuart and Stephanie Reuss describe their business as a workplace design platform which allows employees from the top down to manage projects and assign values to different tasks.

Ms Stuart said the platform was similar to Trello in many ways but could show organisations what tasks would not be filled when a team member left a company, and could provide insights into which specific tasks could be replaced by technology.

“You can identify right down to the activity level which work activities could specifically be automated and you can also identify activities that could be augmented,” Ms Stuart said.

Beamible co-founders Stephanie Reuss and Victoria Stuart.

Mash, which is quickly becoming an exclusive referral-only marketing club that has worked on campaigns for companies from Netflix and Citibank, to Indeed and Accor, has raised $2m from Melbourne-based J Bell Family office.

The start-up onboards marketers who have to pass strict criteria – typically with 12 to 14 years of experience – and uses artificial intelligence to select teams of people for certain campaigns. Staff then come in over the top to check that their experience and values align.

The business, which now operates in 28 countries, was founded by former flatmates Natasha Menon and Sarah Chruchlow. The pair met at a fitness retreated in Phuket in 2018 while Ms Menon was working remote and Ms Chruchlow was passing through.

Ms Menon said being able to curate bespoke teams for companies was proving successful for the business, especially in Asia where about 60 per cent of Mash’s revenue came from.

Sustainable film start-up Earthodic has raised $1.85m in a pre-seed round co-led by Investible and Tenacious Ventures. US-based Closed Loop Ventures also joined the round.

Founded by Albert Tietz, Fiona Donaghey, Anthony Musumeci and Melissa Mail, Earthodic is making ground with a product it calls PaperbarcTM – a coating similar to plastic that is completely recyclable and is used to coat paper and packaging.

The new capital would be used to continue the start-up’s expansion in the US where Earthodic recently receive d100 per cent USDA Biobased Product Label certification.

Co-founder Anthony Musumeci said: “We are excited about the early success we’ve achieved, and cannot wait to explore future opportunities to scale up our technology and continue creating a positive impact.”

Brisbane-based security and compliance Citadel.run which helps build and merge business applications into the AWS ecosystem was another local start-up to raise funds this week.

The business, which has five staff and was launched in June last year, closed a $1m seed round led by Flying Fox Ventures, with participation from Archangel, 1 in 100 Ventures and Plerion Angels.

The start-up’s growth manager, Mark Ghiasy, said the business would use the new funding to expand into the US and hire more staff.

“Right now our unit of economics look good and while we’re not close to break even, we believe we can get there in a year,” he said.

Flying Fox partner Bree Kirkham said she saw a massive opportunity in the start-up’s ability to scale.

“Citadel is going after a huge and growing market. 94 per cent of all companies worldwide have more than ⅓ of their tech infrastructure in the cloud, representing a $US482bn market size in 2022,” she said.

“The market opportunity for Citadel was $US32.8bn in 2022, and is projected to hit $US129bn by 2032 with a CAGR of 15 per cent.”