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Guess Who's Back?! - Vol 6 Out Now!

Guess Who's Back?! - Vol 6 Out Now!

+ NEW DBSC Event Details, 'Pro Hemp' Deep Dive, Cap Chat + Funny Business Latest

Dream Big
June 07, 2024

Guess Who’s Back VOL 6!!

A newsletter to help Start-Up Founders, Operators + Investors DREAM BIG!

WHAT’S INSIDE:

💌 Letter from DBSC
☕ Impact Event - DBSC Coffee Club
🌱 A deep dive into Hemp - Get to know Pro Hemp
🔥 DBSC New Founder Programs for FY25
🧙‍♂️ Cap Chat - with Chris Wilson
✨ LACH LIKES ~ Dig into something new
🎙️ Latest Funny Business Guest Recaps

💌 A letter from DBSC

And just like that, the start of 2024 has flown by.

Dream Big Social Club (DBSC) is building on our incredible first year. We’re excited about our DBSC Coffee Club catch-ups at Coe and Coe in Cremorne. Our first themed event is just a few weeks away, bringing together people in the IMPACT space to share a coffee and network.

Earlier this year, we held a strategy offsite at founder Chris Wilson’s property in Redhill. We discussed all our data and insights, solidifying our focus on IMPACT businesses.

At DBSC, we support businesses that fit into two key areas:

🌍 Environmental - businesses operating or championing a better for the planet approach to industry.

🤝 Societal - changing the way people interact, behave or contribute to overall societal norms.

We’re launching two new programs for early-stage founders and startups:

🏃MOVE - Momentum starts here

A community program for founders seeking support, advisory access, network growth, and content to support their growth.

⚡AMPLIFY - Unleash the beast, take the next step

1-on-1 support for Founders looking to amplify their startups with hands-on advisory, brand awareness campaigns, and content. Ideal for Founders thinking about a capital raise.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us and believed in the social club. Making things happen in the startup world isn’t easy, and we respect everyone grinding through a challenging year.

We’re excited for more events and collaborations soon. Helping as many startups as possible is our goal. A big FY25 is incoming.

Rest up and catch you verrrrry soon.

BIG ❤️

☕ IMPACT COFFEE CLUB CATCH UP

The world needs more startups and businesses that are doing things for the greater good!!

That’s why our next coffee club catch up is all about IMPACT.

Impact is a word that get’s thrown around pretty loosely. How we look at it at DBSC is that you should be able to fit in a couple of different buckets.

🌍 Environmental - businesses operating or championing a better for the planet approach to industry.

🤝 Societal - changing the way people interact, behave or contribute to overall societal norms.

Get down to Coe & Coe in Cremorne at 8:30am on Wednesday June 19th to network and meet more legends who share the same values.

Our good friends at Shadowboxer are shouting the first 20 coffees!! So come in early and jag a free brew.

Special thanks to Subak Australia, The Natural Bank, Pro Hemp, mistEO + Seabin™ for getting behind this event.

Slide into the DM’s for an invite.

🌱 Introducing Pro Hemp

Pro Hemp Expands:
Upscaling Australian Hemp Production

Pro Hemp, a leader in sustainable hemp production, announces a significant expansion of its farming operations and processing facilities, set for September 2024, to bolster Australia's position in the global hemp market and enhance local supply chains.

The expansion includes the acquisition of additional fibre cleaning technologies and replication of patented processing technology, increasing production capacity and allowing the material to be available to the mass market.

Pro Hemp's latest expansion includes working with additional farmers and upgrading processing technology to increase the efficiency and output of their hemp production. This initiative is designed to meet the growing demand for the sustainable, locally produced raw commodity that hemp is.

By localising production, Pro Hemp aims to reduce international supply chain dependencies, aligning with its mission to support Australian jobs, accessible onshore manufacturing and heavily reduce transportation emissions.

“Promoting exports and national supply over importing such sustainable, versatile and carbon negative materials is a vital step in promoting Australian jobs and bringing back national manufacturing, onshore innovation and local supply chains.”

For further details on Pro Hemp's expansion and its impact on the Australian hemp industry, visit their website at prohemp.com.au

About Pro Hemp:

Pro Hemp produces high-quality hemp materials in Australia, committed to the mass market application of hemp to create nature-positive products. Our operations aim to enhance natural systems, innovating our Australian supply chain to support environmental regeneration while meeting modern needs.

Contact:

Eliza Holliday, Commercial Manager,
Email: [email protected], Phone: +61 423 669 400

🔥 DREAM BIG FOUNDER PROGRAMS

Being a FOUNDER can be a tough gig. We have designed our programs with a founder first mentality. So if you are currently running an early stage company and are craving the support to push you towards your dreams. We’re pumped to be opening our new programs for the upcoming FY25.

🏃MOVE - Momentum starts here

A community program for founders seeking support, advisory access, network growth, and content to support their growth.

⚡AMPLIFY - Unleash the beast, take the next step.

1-on-1 support for Founders looking to amplify their startups with hands-on advisory, brand awareness campaigns, and content. Ideal for Founders thinking about a capital raise.

➡️ Register your interest for more detail on Dream Big Founder Programs.

🧙🏻‍♂️ CAP CHAT - with DBSC Director Chris Wilson

Well, FY24 is almost over. WOW. Time definitely feels like it is speeding up these days…

And as another financial year closes, I thought I would reflect on where I see the venture and capital markets right now.

Slow and (slightly) broken.

I can’t say I have all the answers as to why this is the case, but I’ll share my thoughts.

Underperforming funds: a lot of the funds you might hear and read about are not actually doing that great, from a (re)valuation perspective and on gross IRR. Actually, by many metrics, you won’t find a high percentage of funds outperforming their peers right now. Add to this the fact that many funds are coming to the end of their life, and many LPs (the actual investors) are not all that happy. This has two key knock on effects … (1) new and existing VCs trying to raise further funds will struggle, and (2) VCs will be looking for ‘magic’ high multiple investments to add to their portfolio in the hope these will raise the bar for the whole fund … good luck with that.
Courage is lacking: we read all the time that the market is tight etc, but the reality is, the market is tight because the Australian market has become very risk averse, and you can see this by the amount of funds waiting for someone else to lead a round. But everyone can’t wait for someone else to lead … it’s pretty simple maths. Now point 1 does not help this problem, in fact, it is additive to the situation where investing “first” is seen as too risky if that investment doesn’t end up fixing the funds investment return problems. Accountability anyone?
The rise of the syndicate: I personally love the democratisation of alternative asset investing. But the explosion of syndicates and platforms doesn’t help with the larger later stage raises, and creates a real dilemma for Founders looking to raise money. The choices are many but only for small amounts. So Founders will spend more time looking at syndicates for smaller checks when they need to be engaging the larger investors to get the long term funding and support they need. Syndicates have their place … and we will launch ours soon … but they need to be very targeted and strategic. And try to actually help Founders raise the larger amounts they are looking for.

Now I do actually feel positive and bullish going forward but there are some macro economic factors which will need to be favourable to support investment. Inflation and interest rates are key. And the government also needs to step up to the plate a lot more with incentives and the like. I guess we’ll have to wait and see on that front because the last budget was very light on with the funding for early stage companies across the board.

Having said that, looking forward into FY25, it does feels like we are about to tip over the other side into better times for capital raising and funding amazing founders. Just keep your fingers crossed.

Onwards and upwards,

Chris 🧙🏻‍♂️

✨ LACH LIKES ~ dig into something new

🎥 ^_Video:^{_{Golf Sidekick}}
^{_{⭕️ Socials:}}^{_{Caricature Party}}
^{_{🎧 Music:}}^_Hovvdy

🎙️ Latest Funny Business Guests:

It’s been another red hot start to the year for the Funny Business Podcast.