{"id":40767,"date":"2023-10-20T15:09:54","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/brisbane-startup-outfit-secures-1-million-from-microequities-venture-capital-fund-after-bootstrapping-its-canva-for-enterprise-platform-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:09:54","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:09:54","slug":"brisbane-startup-outfit-secures-1-million-from-microequities-venture-capital-fund-after-bootstrapping-its-canva-for-enterprise-platform-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/brisbane-startup-outfit-secures-1-million-from-microequities-venture-capital-fund-after-bootstrapping-its-canva-for-enterprise-platform-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Brisbane startup Outfit secures $1 million from Microequities Venture Capital Fund after bootstrapping its “Canva for enterprise\u201d platform – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bruce<\/div>\n

A Brisbane startup developing a Canva-style solution for enterprise companies has secured $1 million from Sydney-based Microequities Venture Capital Fund after a strong run in bootstrapping.<\/p>\n

Outfit, developed by NetEngine founder Bruce Stronge, hit $750,000 in turnover in its first year after launching in 2014, and the team is aiming to generate $10 million in turnover by 2020.<\/p>\n

Read more: How bootstrapped Brisbane startup Outfit made more than $750,000 in its first year<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to bootstrap until we knew what the formula was,\u201d Stronge tells StartupSmart.<\/em><\/p>\n

As soon as\u00a0the team figured this out, had enough enterprise customers and an understanding of what Outfit needs in order to scale, Stronge says he decided to bring in external investment to help amp up the team and break into the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re clear now that we\u2019re not a design tool,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all about brand governance [and] we\u2019ve got very clear that we\u2019re a brand platform.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike Canva, which enables individual users to create elegant designs, Stronge says Outfit\u2019s focus is on allowing brand departments in big companies to produce and share branded marketing materials across the whole organisation.<\/p>\n

The $1 million investment will be used to accelerate Outfit’s growth and expansion into the US, says Stronge.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be hiring more sales people and more account mangers, more marketing people [and] following on from that more developers,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost important for us is getting more sales done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meeting investors and raising capital<\/h3>\n

Stronge describes the fundraising process as “relatively straightforward”, but says it did take months to finalise after initial introductions to Microequities\u2019 fund managers Justin Lipman and Howard Leibman.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were actually the first VCs I\u2019ve ever spoken to in my life. I\u2019ve never borrowed a dollar from anyone,\u201d says Stronge.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was relatively straightforward for us \u2026 I was lucky raising from the first people I spoke to [but] it still took four months to get the cash in the bank from my first discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stronge says he met Lipman and Leibman through an introduction by a guest speaker at a River City Labs talk. After Stronge thanked the speaker for sharing helpful legal insights, he says, the speaker asked him about his startup, which sparked the connection to Microequities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI only met a handful of [investors] after them,\u201d Stronge says.<\/p>\n

\u201cHoward and Justin from Microequities really got what we\u2019re doing, they\u2019ve got a portfolio of similar startups.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey get that we have to create a community around what we\u2019re doing [and] they really value the fact that we started solving an enterprise\u2019s problem \u2014\u00a0an expensive one.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a hard thing to do, to learn how to sell to an enterprise [and] they could see we had done the hard yards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stronge adds that while he was able to project figures around company size and revenue, he connected with his chosen investors over the understanding that it’s not yet possible to predict what Outfit\u2019s customer base will look like in the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe met some VCs who asked me to describe exactly what our customer segmentation will look like in five years\u2019 time and exactly where I thought things would be and the truth is: absolutely no idea,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt also meant that [Lipman and Leibman] were really backing the team and the sort of audacity of what we set out to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked to reflect on the tough questions put forward by investors, Stronge recalls being asked:\u00a0\u201cWhat makes us think we can take on the US market?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cQuestions like that are designed to challenge you on the spot and see you\u2019re confident and that you\u2019ve got some kind of plans,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em>\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0and iTunes<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Brisbane startup developing a Canva-style solution for enterprise companies has secured $1 million from Sydney-based Microequities Venture Capital Fund<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40767"}],"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=40767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}