{"id":41537,"date":"2023-10-20T15:14:40","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:14:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/big-pitch-or-big-stitch-it-remains-to-be-seen-tomorrow-night-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:14:40","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:14:40","slug":"big-pitch-or-big-stitch-it-remains-to-be-seen-tomorrow-night-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/big-pitch-or-big-stitch-it-remains-to-be-seen-tomorrow-night-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Pitch or big stitch? It remains to be seen tomorrow night &#8211; StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"445\" height=\"352\" itemprop=\"image\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/l_dr-evil-445.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"l_dr-evil-445\"><\/div>\n<p>It\u2019s been billed as one of the startup events of the year, but on Tuesday night it will become apparent whether or not Oxygen Ventures\u2019 $5 million Big Pitch event is as lucrative as advertised, or a funding equivalent of vaporware.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Online shopping app Bluesky was announced as <a href=\"growth\/blue-skies-ahead-for-mobile-retail-app-with-10-million-in-sales-heres-how-they-did-it\/2014060612465.html\">a finalist over a week ago,<\/a> while the four other finalists were unveiled on the Big Pitch\u2019s website on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>They are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>eCal: A platform which offers a solution to marketing emails being discarded by time-poor but affluent customers.<\/li>\n<li>WeTeachMe: A community marketplace where users can list, discover and book in-person courses.<\/li>\n<li>Etaskr: A digital solution that provides visibility over a company\u2019s entire workforce, optimising the work-rate of employees and increasing productivity.<\/li>\n<li>KartSim: A kart racing game developed for Macs and PC, to be distributed via Steam, and consoles.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><i><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>StartupSmart<\/i> understands not everyone was informed they were a finalist on the same day as BlueSky. Whether or not that\u2019s an advantage for Bluesky remains to be seen.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Oxygen Ventures\u2019 investment director and The Big Pitch judge, Ilya Frolov, says Bluesky was one of the earliest applicants and that\u2019s why they were publicly announced as a finalist before the other four startups.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As for the prize, $5 million in funding and resources, Frolov says it\u2019s possible that the five finalists could share in the prize.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>He says the amount of money they receive will be determined by how much they ask for in their pitches, and none are asking for the full $5 million.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo give you some insight, if you add up all the five they add up to around five million,\u201d Frolov says.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Following the event, the winner or winners will finalise a term sheet which will then trigger the next phase of Oxygen Ventures\u2019 investment cycle \u2018a full due diligence and closing agreement to be prepared\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Frolov couldn\u2019t elaborate on the amount of equity Oxygen Ventures might be after in exchange for offering funding and resources, saying that will be a matter for negotiation on a case by case basis with the winner.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll of the finalists have a valuation, so it will be a matter of that valuation,\u2019\u2019 he says.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The five finalists were selected from over 300 applicants across a variety of industries, most online and some offline.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Frolov was impressed with the quality, adding the judges have selected five \u201coutstanding\u201d finalists that they believe all have the potential to secure investment.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The event is being held at Deakin Edge, Fed Square on Tuesday night, and as of Monday morning it was close to selling out.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Oxygen Ventures was founded Larry Kestelman, who made his fortune as founder of internet service provider Dodo.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Kestelman sold Dodo and another company he part owns, Eftel, to M2 Telecommunications for $250 million&nbsp;last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s been billed as one of the startup events of the year, but on Tuesday night it will become apparent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60837,"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\/41537"}],"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=41537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}