Stone & Chalk’s Ben Colley on Adelaide’s emerging start-up scene

The new head of Stone & Chalk says new SA-focused venture capital funds will help the state’s start-up scene compete with the world’s best innovation hubs.

Stone & Chalk SA general manager Ben Colley. Picture: Ben Clark

The state’s emerging start-up scene has all the ingredients to compete with the world’s very best entrepreneurial centres, according to the new head of the Stone & Chalk innovation hub at Lot Fourteen, who says the rapid success of companies like payments firm MyVenue proves founders can take on the world from Adelaide.

Ben Colley took over as Stone & Chalk SA general manager in April after 12 years working in early stage start-ups in Melbourne and Adelaide, including at location detection platform Bluedot and AI-backed employee engagement platform Teamgage.

Born and raised in Adelaide, he returned to the city with his family during the early stages of Covid.

He said the calibre of early stage companies taking up residency at Stone & Chalk was consistently improving, and that was helping to generate interest from investors, both domestically and from abroad.

“There’s a reality that our eco-system is not as mature as Sydney or Melbourne, and certainly some way behind somewhere like San Francisco, but we have all the ingredients - it’s just a by-product of time,” he said.

MyVenue founder Tim Stollznow with developer Angus Juers. Picture: Russell Millard

“The investments that have been made in Stone & Chalk, Lot Fourteen and in our broader ecosystem, they’re starting to really bear fruit - we just need to keep doing it.

“MyVenue is an incredible story ... they started in here five years ago, maybe one employee. They now have 60 to 70 next door, as well as all of their North American-based employees.

“They are a perfect case study of what can be built from South Australia and we’re deeply proud of the role that Stone & Chalk played in helping them along that journey.”

MyVenue’s point of sale platform is used in close to 200 of the world’s biggest and most iconic sports and entertainment venues. Last month the company secured a multi-million dollar investment from US-based investment firm Greater Sum Ventures (GSV), which has taken over a majority stake in the company.

It’s become a poster child for Stone & Chalk, which invites early stage start-ups into its hub with the aim of one day seeing them grow and move into other space within the broader Lot Fourteen precinct, and then ultimately progress to their own commercial office space.

There are currently 56 resident start-ups operating at the hub.

Conceding the current investment landscape is a challenge for founders looking to raise funds, Mr Colley said capital continued to flow to “good founders with good ideas trying to do good work”.

“Of course it is always better when there is more access to capital, and it is a difficult macroeconomic climate, but there is still capital flowing and we see that in teams and companies in our residency,” he said.

“A classic example is a new team called SuperIT – they raised capital only a month or two ago out of Antler and they’re using that capital to get started.”

Mr Colley welcomed the $50m commitment in this month’s state budget for a new early-stage venture capital fund as an important step to supporting local entrepreneurs, alongside the recent launch of Eastend Ventures – a new Adelaide-based fund set up by Josh Garratt and JD Sheard from Southern Angels.

As Adelaide’s first early stage venture capital fund, it has already raised more than $13m for its first $50m fund, backing companies across South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland, which it describes as “untapped markets” often overlooked by investors.

Originally published as Stone & Chalk’s Ben Colley on Adelaide’s emerging start-up scene