An Australian-run New York angel fund has invested the equivalent of $900,000 in three start-ups using an innovative model that exchanges equity for services and mentorship, rather than cash.<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kayweb Angels has picked out Cafrino, Minute Lister and You Need My Guy from a field of more than 200 applicants, around 50 of them from Australia, for the investment.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As reported by StartupSmart in May<\/a>, Kayweb Angels was created to offer start-ups technical development help and mentorship as a co-founder, in return for equity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The three latest start-ups, all based in the US, have been added to Kayweb Angel\u2019s existing tech investments \u2013 whoisgreen.com, Burringo and Do It In Person.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Cafrino is a casino gaming provider, Minute Lister is a mobile app that makes eCommerce easier and You Need My Guy is a business networking tool.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The winners were chosen from a reduced field of about 30 who pitched to a panel of Kayweb investors in New York. The businesses have given up between 30 and 40% equity each in return for Kayweb\u2019s help.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Haig Kayserian, an Australian who is Kayweb\u2019s CEO, tells StartupSmart that he was impressed by the overall quality of the Australian applications.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I did get calls from a few Australian businesses about the criteria and they were asking all of the right questions,\u201d he says. \u201cThey were all decent businesses and they were on a par with those from elsewhere in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe problem with some of them was that they lacked market research. Some in the consumer space hadn\u2019t considered their strategy for the US. They\u2019d developed a site for Australia and had no idea how to expand it beyond that relatively small market.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNone of them declared a keenness to move to the US and none really made clear how they would staff their business in the US. That\u2019s where they fell down.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe start-ups that we chose had passion about their ideas and could back it up with market analysis and data. Their ideas were solving a problem and they\u2019d clearly identified and tested a market. They ticked those key elements.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kayserian adds that he\u2019s seen a noticeable uptick in Australia\u2019s tech start-up scene over the past year.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot more activity going on there compared to when I left Sydney seven or eight months ago,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s been the Accel Partners investments<\/a> and the Yahoo!7 investment in Spreets<\/a>. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI think that has started a trend where Australian businesses realise that there\u2019s something better out there for them. I\u2019ve noticed that there\u2019s an overall maturity in the market now.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The next round of Kayweb Angel investments will take place in November. Start-ups keen on applying to the scheme can click here. http:\/\/www.kaywebangels.com\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An Australian-run New York angel fund has invested the equivalent of $900,000 in three start-ups using an innovative model that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45450"}],"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=45450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}