{"id":44904,"date":"2023-10-20T15:39:29","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/follow-the-seeds-algorithm-plays-out-to-the-tune-of-50-million-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:39:29","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:39:29","slug":"follow-the-seeds-algorithm-plays-out-to-the-tune-of-50-million-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/follow-the-seeds-algorithm-plays-out-to-the-tune-of-50-million-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Follow [the] Seed\u2019s algorithm plays out to the tune of $50 million – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A new data-driven global fund wants to democratise the investment scene for Australian startups by utilising an algorithm to choose the most promising products.<\/p>\n

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The Follow [the] Seed<\/a> fund is offering $50 million in second-stage funding for Australian companies, and has people on the ground in the US, Israel and China as well.<\/p>\n

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Led by prominent investor Andrey Shirben, the fund will use an algorithm called RavingFans to select the best investment opportunities. This should help do away with unfair advantages and bias.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSome of these startups previously wouldn\u2019t have had good access to capital because they might not be located in the right place or don\u2019t know the right people,\u201d Shirben tells StartupSmart.<\/i><\/p>\n


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\u201cNow they can hop onto our website, download our algorithm, plug it in and within a few weeks it can rank the performance of this venture.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf it\u2019s interesting enough we\u2019ll contact them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Picking the viral trends<\/b><\/p>\n

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The fund will be targeting innovative online consumer startups, and the algorithm will work to identify which products can become daily habits for users and are likely to change behaviour.<\/p>\n

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It works by rapidly analysing the data that determines how early users interact with the product so it can pick out a viral app, game or service before it hits the masses.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat\u2019s the key differentiator between us and all the VCs worldwide. Only a handful relies on same data analysis, and none of them do it the way we do,\u201d Shirben says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s capable of screening and going over tens of thousands of potentials in any given year, and that\u2019s simply impossible to do any other way.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt doesn\u2019t try to predict the future. All it does is an assessment of the current state of the product, app or game and the way users engage with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Global reach<\/b><\/p>\n

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Across the four continents, Follow [the] Seed will invest $200 million in 30-35 startups over five years.<\/p>\n

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Shirben says this global focus and reach also sets it apart from other Australian venture funds.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe team we\u2019ve managed to put together is second to none, and it\u2019s spread across four continents in major markets,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cProviding a company with the funding is the trivial part, it\u2019s mostly about the on-the-ground support in all these markets.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Filling an investment ga<\/b>p<\/b><\/p>\n

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It\u2019ll be focusing on second-stage funding of between $500,000 and $2 million, the type of investment that \u201cfalls between the chairs\u201d in Australia, Shirben says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s too much for your typical angel investor and too little for proper VCs that are looking to deploy $5-7 million,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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The fund will also be employing a Reverse Problem Solving method, aiming to identify problems and issues that large enterprises face and then finding startups that solve them.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat\u2019ll enable us to look at startups who are pitching to us in a very different light,\u201d Shirben says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cInstead of investing in startups then trying to sell the solution to enterprise, we\u2019re looking to partner with startups which solve problems we are already aware of, ones where enterprises already have this problem and they\u2019re willing to buy the solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

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All this adds up to an investment fund with an edge, Shirben says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBacking products considered to be trendy or sexy isn\u2019t going to get you very far,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe can crack it and offer the startups the funds they\u2019re looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe obviously play a very different game.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Want to grow your business with Instagram?<\/i> StartupSmart School can help.<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new data-driven global fund wants to democratise the investment scene for Australian startups by utilising an algorithm to choose<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59022,"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\/44904"}],"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=44904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}