{"id":38188,"date":"2023-10-20T14:54:45","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/melbourne-startup-xplor-raises-6-million-without-even-having-to-approach-investors-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:54:45","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:54:45","slug":"melbourne-startup-xplor-raises-6-million-without-even-having-to-approach-investors-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/melbourne-startup-xplor-raises-6-million-without-even-having-to-approach-investors-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Melbourne startup Xplor raises $6 million without even having to approach investors – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Melbourne-based edutech startup Xplor has closed a $6 million Series A round to fund its global expansion plans, and its founder didn’t even need to prepare a pitch deck to secure the funding.<\/p>\n

The funding round in the end-to-end tech solution for schools and childcare centres was led by Airtree Ventures.<\/p>\n

The Xplor platform allows families to connect in real-time with their children\u2019s education through photos, videos and activities, and provides a tech solution for school and childcare administration.<\/p>\n

No need for a pitch deck<\/h3>\n

Xplor founder Mark Woodland says the funding round was completed without ever needing to approach investors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were always going to fund it ourselves and let the business fund itself,\u201d Woodland tells StartupSmart<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make sure the business is profitable and working. We went into it with that in mind and weren\u2019t looking to approach VCs.\u201d<\/p>\n

But when Airtree Ventures co-founder Daniel Petre called the founder right before Christmas last year and quickly flew to Melbourne to meet with the team, a strong working relationship was formed, eventually leading to this round of funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe stopped cooking Christmas dinner for his family and came down to see us \u2013 that\u2019s the relationship they\u2019ve built with our team,\u201d Woodland says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the relationship we continue to have each day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never had to prepare a pitch deck – we\u2019re just running the business. Building a global business comes down to having the best people around you to provide support and experience \u2013 people that can bring something to the table that I can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t looking for money, we were looking for experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Building a sustainable business<\/h3>\n

Woodland says that for too many Australian startups, a large funding round is the end goal rather than a means to the end.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people start startups for the sake of it instead of solving a problem and not thinking about the money,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoney is nice but it\u2019s not the reason you do this. I\u2019m trying to build something that lasts, not something that\u2019s here this week and then gone the next.\u201d<\/p>\n

The capital injection will be primarily used to \u201crapidly and madly\u201d grow the Xplor team to handle the demand, with the platform now facilitating 4.4 million \u201cconnections\u201d in their existing childcare centres and preparing to roll out 1000 new centres in Australia, the US, Malaysia and Singapore.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemand isn\u2019t our concern \u2013 we have endless demand and endless funding,\u201d Woodland says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a great problem to have. Our biggest challenge at the moment is building our team.\u201d<\/p>\n

From personal experience<\/h3>\n

The entrepreneur came up with the idea from Xplor from his first-hand experience of working in a childcare centre with his mother.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe quickly found out that she was spending 90% of her time doing administration,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer time was spent in the office, not doing what she was passionate about.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got into the education space with a very, very fresh pair of eyes and I quickly saw that a lot of the tasks I was doing could be done by technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woodland eventually build Xplor to handle these admin tasks like attendance, roles, communication with parents and the documentation of learning, while also providing families with updates about their children\u2019s\u2019 progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe driver is making childcare better for families,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole industry has forgotten what that actually means.\u201d<\/p>\n

In August last year Woodland launched the Xplor platform and began working full time on the startup,<\/p>\n

\u201cInitially we thought, \u2018what have we done? There\u2019s no-one on the platform\u2019,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut then a small group of eight centres signed up, then more after that and more after that. Then the floodgates opened.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt turned out that our unique problem I was facing in a small childcare centre was the same problem everyone was facing around the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe quickly changed Xplor from a small platform solving one person\u2019s problems to a very large platform solving a very large amount of peoples\u2019 problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ignoring the distractions<\/h3>\n

Woodland says that entrepreneurs need to focus more on the core, simple problem they are trying to solve rather than the outside distractions.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of startups need to go back to the start and forget the titles \u2013 just get out there, stop pretending and actually go do it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cStop creating problems to try to force solutions. Simple ideas are what it\u2019s about.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoney is hard, but true entrepreneurs don\u2019t need to worry about money. It all comes down to passion and perseverance.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Melbourne-based edutech startup Xplor has closed a $6 million Series A round to fund its global expansion plans, and its<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61771,"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\/38188"}],"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=38188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}