beta phase<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The service will allow business owners to create their own start-up communities and groups to attract investors or mentors.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Markus Lampinen, chief operating officer of the US-based Grow VC, tells StartupSmart that the platform is looking to gain greater traction in Australia.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Australian start-up market is exciting, because there are many real problems to be solved not just in Australia, but also in the surrounding region, for example in South East Asia,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralia has a great ecosystem to be able to cater for these challenges and come up with real innovations that are lucrative, but more importantly that have a real impact on people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralia is also an interesting ecosystem from an investor\u2019s point of view. However it requires some market education for people to get buzzing about start-up companies and start realising the importance of them for the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Grow VC\u2019s platform is open to businesses looking for less than $2 million in funding, with Grow VC taking a 2.5% cut on raised funds.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lampinen says that \u201chundreds\u201d of Australian start-ups have already signed up, pointing to the success of an Australian business, CINTEP, which raised $100,000 through the platform last year. CINTEP produces a shower that recycles both water and energy.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWith entrepreneurs being a driving force of start-ups, they do require the support of investors and also other parts of the ecosystem,\u201d Lampinen says.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s developing and we’ve seen a lot of positive evidence in Australia for development in the more entrepreneurial direction, both through our own users from Australia as well as our partners there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Grow VC, the start-up funding platform that calls itself a \u201cvirtual Silicon Valley\u201d, is looking to ramp up its presence<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34012"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}