{"id":35956,"date":"2023-10-20T14:41:20","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/booodl-thinks-big-to-get-2-85-million-from-westfield-owner-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:41:20","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:41:20","slug":"booodl-thinks-big-to-get-2-85-million-from-westfield-owner-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/booodl-thinks-big-to-get-2-85-million-from-westfield-owner-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Booodl thinks big to get $2.85 million from Westfield owner &#8211; StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"441\" height=\"352\" itemprop=\"image\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/l_gf.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"l_gf\"\/><\/div>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Startup founders need to look for investments from large corporates instead of trying to disrupt them, Booodl co-founder George Freney says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The local shopping app has just closed a $2.85 million strategic investment led by Scentre Group, the owner and operator of Westfield in Australia and New Zealand, opening up a whole new world of customer and retail opportunities for the startup.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>More entrepreneurs need to be willing to work with bigger, more established businesses to achieve deals like this, Freney tells <i>StartupSmart.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i> <\/i><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis shows how big business and entrepreneurs can work together,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf a big business can provide distribution and exposure to help grow your business then it can make good sense as an investor and partner.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>To do this, startups need to gain market traction and then pinpoint the appropriate businesses to partner with, he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMake sure you\u2019ve got a great product and a market that\u2019s responding to it,\u201d Freney says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen identify the corporations that are playing in the marketplace that you are, and speak with them \u2013 a lot more people will say yes than you think.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><b>Validation for the pivot<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b><br \/><\/b><\/p>\n<p><b> <\/b><\/p>\n<p>Booodl recently <a href=\"growth\/business-advice-and-education\/how-this-startup-knew-it-was-time-to-pivot\/2015120116044.html\">pivoted from a social media-based app to a service<\/a> helping users find nearby physical stores that are selling products on their wish list. With $5 million in funding from the likes of James Packer and Square Peg Capital invested in the first venture, the Scentre Group investment is the first capital to go directly towards the new direction.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s very good to have this validation,\u201d Freney says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><b>Heading into Christmas<\/b><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The startup now has 15,000 users signed up to its platform with more than 1 million products listed, and the cash injection will be used to accelerate this growth.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ll be using the funds to continue to grow in Australia and push hard to get a good market penetration in most major Australian cities,\u201d Freney says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>While many other startups are winding down in the lead-up to the holiday period, Booodl is doing the opposite.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are fantastic opportunities leading into Christmas,\u201d Freney says. \u201cRetailers can get onto the platform and start getting their products more exposure for shoppers.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re winding up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><i>Do you know more on this story or have a tip of your own? Raising capital or launching a startup? Let us know. Follow StartupSmart on <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/StartUpSmart\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i>Facebook<\/i><\/a><i>, <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/startupsmartnow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i>Twitter<\/i><\/a><i>, and <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/startupsmart\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i>LinkedIn<\/i><\/a><i>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Startup founders need to look for investments from large corporates instead of trying to disrupt them, Booodl co-founder George<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35956"}],"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=35956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}