Alphatise is back, but this time the cockiness has been dialled down a few notches
CargoHound launches its platform into the growing freight technology space with $800,000 in seed funding
The platform was founded by industry veterans Kim Mauch, Pete Johnson, and Ian Smith and developed over three years in close consultation with the industry.
It works by connecting exporters and importers with 'community rated' freight providers. Buyers can compare quotes from multiple providers, and quickly identify the freight service that best suits their requirements and budget. Sellers - freight forwarders and carriers - are in turn able to reduce the time and cost of developing new business.
The cost of freight is a major pain point for Australian companies looking to trade overseas - a 2014 survey found that 63 percent of Australian exporters believed freight costs were affecting their competitiveness.
Co-founder Kim Mauch said that, as a long term buyer of international freight, she could see where the efficiency and transparency was lacking in the sector and knew exporters and importers were crying out for a better way.
“Teaming up with co-founders and industry veterans, we have been able to develop a user friendly website that we know the industry needs, not what we think they want,” she said.
With total merchandise trade totalling $525 billion in 2014 in Australia alone, and the number of importers and exporters growing to over 105,000, Ian Smith, co-founder and CEO of CargoHound, said that if the startup is able to capture just 0.75 percent of this market for air and sea freight, it will see revenues of over $100,000 per month within 12 months.
“If our recently completed BETA testing is any guide, the demand is definitely there. The response from our 40 importers/exporters and 10 freight forwarders was overwhelmingly positive, which bodes well for future growth,” he said.
Also boding well for future growth are the strategic partnerships CargoHound has already developed with the Export Council of Australia, Corporate Traveller, and OzForex.
It will be looking to get its name out into the market by sponsoring the national roadshow Managing Freight Costs, which is hosted by the Export Council of Australia.
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Banqer is integrating financial literacy into New Zealand classrooms
Most startup founders agree with the view that STEM (Science and Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects should have a greater focus within the Australian and New Zealand school system.
When it comes to mathematical education specifically, what's lacking is real-world mathematics being taught in schools. Real-world mathematics teaches kids about managing income, taxes, loans and all the other financial issues individuals face once they leave the safety of school and are no longer under the care of a guardian.
Wellington based startup Banqer is an online platform that facilitates the teaching of financial education in the classroom in a fun engaging way, creating a virtual 'classroom currency'. Children have their own bank accounts and get a rich understanding of what it means to be in charge of your own personal finances. In addition to this, teachers can enable 'modules' to allow students to transact with other students in the classroom. The platform also allows students to take out and pay back loans and pay tax. Banqer will be adding other modules in the future that will allow students to learn about insurance and real estate.The origin of Banqer dates back to when co-founder Kendall Flutey, who used to be an accountant and at the time was studying software development, went back home during in her mid-term break and was having a conversation with her 11-year-old brother. Typically conversations with him were around topics like sport, but during this particular weekend Flutey found that a lot of his questions were regarding starting a company, company structures and other business related topics.
Impressed by the level of conversation that she was having with her younger sibling, Flutey quizzed him on where all this terminology and line of questioning was coming from, and it turned out his teacher, Micah Hocquard was running a really cool financial program in his classroom. Flutey was only home in Christchurch for the weekend and so decided to contact her brother's teacher and meet him for coffee the next day and discuss what he was doing in more detail. With her coding knowledge Flutey saw an opportunity to merge what he was doing with technology, creating a scalable platform for the classroom.
Less than two weeks later, the pair took the idea to a Startup Weekend and Banqer was born. The team currently consists of four co-founders, with an extended team of advisors and a couple of ad hoc contractors.
Banquer's monetisation model is pretty simply: the company charges per student per classroom a subscription fee. There are currently 150 classrooms signed up to the service across New Zealand.
On the challenges of penetrating into the school system, Flutey confirms that early traction has been a challenge especially when dealing with schools and teachers who are so committed to a system that's been around for a long time.
"It has been challenging at times because in a sense we're competing against those entrenched subjects like traditional science, english, and maths. Then we come along and spurt that 'engaging financial education is the most important thing'," says Flutey.Flutey recognises that parents are going to be one of the biggest drivers in helping the company assist that penetration into the school system, particularly because the platform has been designed to work best replicating a 'greater economy', which is usually 15 or more students. With parental buy-in increasing, the schools have become much more receptive.
Flutey says the best results are achieved when Banqer is used throughout the whole school day (replicating a real-world economy) as opposed to just being taught during the time when mathematics is being learnt.
While there is definitely global potential for the startup, the Banqer team is currently focusing on reaching a high saturation point within the New Zealand school system. Part of that process is working with the government and education sector to highlight the need for financial literacy in young students. After that, locations like Australia and the United States are definitely in the expansion plans.
The venture has been completely bootstrapped to date, and has won some prize money from local startup competitions. Flutey says that in order to grow the company, and have its product used in thousands of school classrooms, a seed funding round may be required, though who is attached to that money and the doors they can open will be more important than the money itself.
"For us it's not just the money, it's also who's attached to the money," says Flutey. " What is really important is to have a relationship with our investors and make sure they care as much as we do about the vision we have for Banqer and for financial education as a greater purpose."
Startup Daily is currently in Wellington touring the startup ecosystem as a guest of Positively Wellington.
An update on how Startup Daily is tracking and where it is heading
Has Wellington created the most feminist tech ecosystem in the world?
Awareness is key to change. It’s about visibility. The more women we see thriving in their careers, the less unusual a ‘women in technology’ becomes.The piece not only explored why sexism exists in the technology sector, but how things like language, even if unintentional, reinforce stereotypes in the startup ecosystem.
Language also plays a role in promoting subtle sexism ... women tend to be pigeon-holed into marketing and communications roles. There have been discussions around how men call it ‘growth hacking’ when they do it, but when women do it, it’s regarded as PR. When you’re male, you’re a ‘developer evangelist’. When you’re female, you’re a community manager.For a startup ecosystem to thrive and be globally competitive AND diverse, there are two things that are important. The first is role models and the second is congruency - that is, congruency across language, opportunity and recognition. Wellington and indeed New Zealand have worked hard to make sure both these things are present within its ecosystem. Based on my conversations last week with prominent women in the technology space like Kendall Flutey (Banqer), Anna Guenther (PledgeMe), Jessica Manins (StarNow), Kristen Lunman (Wipster), Zheng Li (Zing Design, Founders Exchange) Toni Moyes (8i) and Kat Lintott (STEM Creative), seeing women in prominent leadership positions throughout their formative years has played a pivotal role in their own success. In addition to having such strong political figures to look up to, they have also been witness to strong female tech founders building and selling tech companies like Victoria Ransom who has built and exited two companies; Access Trips in 2006, and more recently, Wildfire Interactive, which was acquired by Google in 2012. Ransom is currently Director of Product at Google in Mountain View. Then there is Claudia Batten, again with two exits under her belt, having sold her first company Massive to Microsoft in 2006, which was then followed by her next company, crowdsourcing advertising agency Victor and Spoils being acquired by French company Havas in 2012. Whether it has been deliberate or not, stories like the above have played a critical role in the female tech community in Wellington so much that an average "women in tech" meet up group like Female Founders Exchange can quite regularly see up to 300 members turn up for talks and drinks each month. In comparison to pure tech-focused female meet ups in places like Sydney and Melbourne, this number is quite frankly epic. A unique city layout As a city, Wellington has something unique about it that actually makes it the ideal breeding ground for a strong, cohesive tech-startup ecosystem. It has been deemed the "coolest little capital in the world", according to quality of living based surveys, with a population of just under 500,000. Interestingly and perhaps key to its feminist vibes, the female population is a good 10,000 people stronger than that of its fellow male citizens. The city centre is also only two kilometres in diameter, meaning that you can walk to every meeting that you have in 20 minutes or less - something I believe is critical for startups. I remember in the early days of starting my own venture that I would quite often delay meetings because taxi money was an issue getting across from one end of Sydney to the other within a certain time frame. Easy access to everywhere in the CBD provides founders with more opportunities to close deals, form partnerships and develop their businesses. Because the city is wedged between the mountains and the harbour, it is impossible for the CBD to expand any further. This has meant that the sense of community in the business precinct has a very distinct "village-like" vibe to it - perfect for fostering the launch and growth of startups. This makes it easier for female founders to not only find each other, but also to help support one another. Equality and inclusion seems to be something that is at the forefront on everyone's mind in Wellington, with every tech-hub from BizDojo to the Enspire Dev Academy specifically talking to me about their statistics around female founders and the importance they place on equality within their organisations. Forced to 'export' overseas Unlike in Australia, where founders are able to grow their digital businesses (to a certain point) by staying onshore and maintain a strong hold of the local market while making quite a comfortable living for themselves, startups in New Zealand don't quite have that luxury. Wellington is only 492,000 people strong and the entire addressable market for New Zealand as a country is only around 4 million people. This has meant that by default the real-world education that all founders of any venture in New Zealand receive is to think global from day one. Yes, the Australian startup ecosystem does promote that same focus, but the reality is a startup in a place like Wellington has to find a global market from day one, otherwise the chances of survival decrease much faster than that of an Australian-based startup. Therefore, it is in the city's interest and the national interest to support and promote everybody that is building a technology based business; and because the pool of talent is significantly smaller than that of a Sydney, Brisbane or Melbourne, female founders are front and centre with their male counterparts. I am not saying that the technology ecosystem isn't dominated more by males in Wellington, because it is, but female led startups are more visible there, which has given women an advantage that fellow women in other parts of the world struggle to attain. And let me assure you the opportunity is being grasped with both hands. As a city, Wellington has the most educated workforce in the country; 47 percent of the workforce work in what is known as 'knowledge intensive' industries like technology, creative and media, game development, financial services, science, health, education and professional services, as well as government. What this means is that it needs to have a successful 'digital' export strategy, and both men and women in the startup ecosystem play an equally critical role in the city and country reaching that goal. Although I wouldn't go as far as saying Wellington has gotten everything right in the diversity stakes - no city or country has - it should be acknowledged that city has created a culture that could indeed see it become one of the top performing cities for startups in the next 10 to 20 years. While that is an achievement in and of itself, one of New Zealand's standout features will be the environment it has created where female founders can excel alongside their male counterparts with equal visibility and without tokenism. Startup Daily was touring the Wellington startup ecosystem as a guest of Positively Wellington.
The only Uber of anything is Uber
PledgeMe is eating its own ‘dog food’, using its equity crowdfunding platform to raise capital
One of the regional leaders in the crowdfunding, specifically equity crowdfunding space, Wellington based company PledgeMe announced this week that it has raised more than NZ$360,000 to continue its growth, helping New Zealand-based creators run both project-based and equity campaigns on the platform. This is the company's second round of capital raised through its own platform. In November last year, within 23 hours, PledgeMe had raised $100,000.
In the latest round, PledgeMe set itself a minimum goal of $250,000 with a maximum cap of $750,000. There were 137 equity investors compared to the 50 that invested in the company's first round, and out of that there are nine shareholders with founder class shares.
The new funds will be used to support more project and equity campaigns, in addition to the company concentrating on further growth and development of the platform.
“We are extremely happy to be able to grow crowdfunding in New Zealand with the help of our crowd,” said PledgeMe Founder and CEO Anna Guenther.
“The extra $116,000 means we’re going to be able to hire in-house tech wranglers, investigate crowdlending in New Zealand, and start looking across the ditch and potentially put our thinking forward around their proposed legislation changes around equity crowdfunding."
While no plans are finite, the company has been exploring the opportunity of launching in Australia sooner rather than later, although there is still a lot of red-tape within legislation around equity crowdfunding in Australia in comparison to New Zealand, where the government seems to be quite innovative and forward-thinking in relation to this.
In the past year, PledgeMe has experienced rapid-growth. Prior to raising its first round of funding last year, the company had NZ$2.8 million in pledges processed through the platform. However in the months since,, over NZ$7 million has been pledged, securing the startup's place as the place Kiwis go to fund the things they care about.
Overall on the site, equity-based campaigns are starting to gain some significant traction, especially in terms of the money being raised by the process. PledgeMe has held 14 equity campaigns on its platform, with 9 of them being successful and 4 of those hitting their maximum goals. A craft brewery company called Yeastie Boys actually raised half a million dollars in half an hour through the platform.
In terms of expansion, PledgeMe are currently looking at a number of initiatives. The first is to keep on developing the product in New Zealand. The second is figuring out how the platform can work within the Australian licensing framework, and the third is centred around looking into the "next phase of crowdfunding", which is known as debt crowdfunding - something that is beginning to take place in a few European countries right now.Considering the startup's penchant for being one of the first in the region to try and make different types of crowdfunding available - traditional, equity, and soon debt - educating the current and potential PledgeMe audience is a critical factor in what the startup does via tips, content creation and, of course, face-to-face style workshops around New Zealand.
"There's three of us on the team that go out and do education stuff regularly, so we're probably doing between three and five talks a week," said Guenther.
"When it comes to specific workshops, we actually run something called Pitch Kitchens with companies, where two or three of them pitch their campaign and then they get feedback from a crowd of people they don't know on what resonates and what's confusing in what they're saying. However our focus is on giving feedback like friends, not 'dragons'. [It is important they feel like] we're not trying to remake their business model, we're just giving them feedback on their proposed campaign and where they could fix elements in order for it to be more successful."
PledgeMe's business model is a simple one: the company takes a 5 percent success fee for campaigns that hit their goals by the deadlines they have set. Deadlines typically run anywhere between two days and three months.
The debt crowdfunding or crowdlending exploration by PledgeMe is particularly interesting. This type of crowdfunding campaign typically works a little differently to a typical equity campaign. Instead of issuing shares, companies can issue bonds, meaning they would repay the backer the money lent plus interest as opposed issuing an ownership stake in the business. Guenther told Startup Daily that this type of crowdfunding model could be used in a number of interesting ways.
"It might not just be companies that would use crowdlending," said Guenther. "It could be organisations. For example if a school wanted to put solar panels on the roof, they could issue bonds that repay over time, and repay it with interest but still save money on their energy use."
Overseas, other examples include some more out-of-the-box campaigns like the one run by Mexican food chain Chilango in the UK, where they issued backers "burrito bonds" in which those participating in the campaign got their money back and then their interest paid back in burritos. The campaign did really well, raising millions of pounds.
"Given that, this type of crowdfunding model would easily make a nice extension to our existing platform," said Guenther.
Startup Daily was touring the Wellington startup ecosystem last week as a guest of Positively Wellington.
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Accelerating the government: Why Creative HQ is more than just another incubator space
Last week, while touring the Wellington startup ecosystem, the one thing that became glaringly obvious was the forward thinking of the government over there - particularly, the local government. It's not that New Zealand governments don't experience the same slow moving bureaucratic processes that other governments around the world experience; it is just that they have a willingness to experiment with changing those stoic processes that many other governments around the world don't.
Creative HQ is a startup incubator and accelerator space/program based out of Wellington, New Zealand. It was launched back in 2003, which could perhaps be described as the formative years of incubation for the region. Ironically, the space was originally set up by a local politician who thought it would be a great way to stimulate the local early-stage startup ecosystem.
Throughout the years, the space and accelerator program has matured and there are many New Zealand success stories that have been born out of the space like StarNow which has over 3 million users worldwide; SilverStripe, a global content measuring system; and Optimal Usability, which was acquired by PwC.
Stefan Korn heads up Creative HQ and has been with the organisation for around two years. He told Startup Daily that there were some issues early on when they were trying to figure out the 'model' that Creative HQ should work off.
"We realised that incubation is a lot harder than it looks and that it requires a lot of effort. This initial idea of trying to make money out of the incubator didn't quite pan out because there are long timelines involved," says Korn. "We all know there's also a lot of fast fails, so spending a lot of money and time on a company that falls over can take its toll on the business model."
"As a commercial proposition for Wellington council to (sort of) make money with an incubator the government realised that startups are effectively a part of infrastructure that we have to invest in just like school and universities. So then they decided to move Creative HQ into the local economic development agency."
Because of the cultural differences between government departments and startups, it was realised about four years ago that Creative HQ needed to be its own entity to be successful, so it separated from the government again and moved into an economic development agency called Grow Wellington. Creative HQ still receives about a third of its funding from Grow Wellington and the rest comes from the Callaghan Innovation and revenue generated by Creative HQ itself.
Creative HQ is also the only holder in New Zealand of the Techstars Acceleration License, meaning that it is also part of its global acceleration network. The acceleration program that it runs is called Lightning Lab and it runs these in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch. Recently, it also announced a new Lightning Lab program in Wellington that would be focusing on manufacturing and the IoT space.
The program works within a similar format to most other accelerators around the world from an investment perspective. Successful applicants give up between six and eight percent of their companies. The funding for the teams is paid for by the investors involved in the program and is traditionally NZ$20,000.
So far, Creative HQ has had 27 teams complete its program with another two programs about to kick-off in the coming weeks, a total of 18 more teams between them, bringing that total to 45.
One of the most interesting initiatives that Creative HQ has been involved in though recently would have to be the accelerator program that it ran for employees of the government.
This is actually one of the first times globally that the government has put departmental projects through a traditional 'startup accelerator' format. The program ended up being extremely successful because the incumbents realised they achieved a whole lot more in three months than they usually would in a year on similar projects.
While that is great from an internal efficiency perspective for the government, what also came out of the program was that the solutions created by these government departments ended up being a lot more customer centric, had more buy-in from taxpayers and clients, and the people involved in the program were completely infused in the process.
"People didn't just see it as doing their day job" says Korn. "They became immersed in what was a hugely transformative and infectious culture, it was a lot of fun and very eye opening accelerating the government".
The solution that was created is a tool that will be trialled by three councils. During the period of the accelerator, the stakeholders in the project worked out what the actual problem was, worked closely with all the councils, came up with a solution and built and tested that solution. Even by effective government standards, that is something to boast about within that particular timeframe.
Imagine if all levels of local, state and federal government in the region put some of the projects on their plates through a similar program. Not only would they be more effective in their output, they would gain a real-time insight into how startups work and an understanding of the infrastructure required to grow a successful technology ecosystem.
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UK startup truRating chooses Australia as its next launch location as it begins to expand globally
Australia will serve as the Asia-Pacific base for truRating; and by the time operations go live here, Nelson estimates that there will be 10 people hired for various roles so the startup can hit the ground running.
truRating has currently raised £4.2 million to date and Nelson has revealed to Startup Daily that the startup is in the process of closing off another round the amount of £6 million.
This physical space for creatives has birthed a soon-to-launch collaboration platform
It was while she was travelling around Europe that Mariya Kupriyenko met her cofounder Zoe Platt-Young, a fellow design creative. The pair were both freelancers, and visited and worked from many coworking spaces across Europe as they travelled. At the time, neither had any finite plans to return to Wellington, New Zealand, but eventually both did and were inspired by their experiences freelancing around the world.
Kupriyenko and Platt-Young thought that the startup culture they had experienced in places like Berlin would start to be replicated in New Zealand. The pair also wanted their own place to continue freelancing from, and so together they decided to launch their own coworking space called In Good Company. As the initial focus was on creating a flexible coworking environment, people didn't have assigned work stations. In fact, everything was quite fluid, enabling people to hot desk for as little as an hour. Then the space introduced 'residents' who had more of a permanent set up in the space.
Initially, the space attracted a lot of creative and artistic types. This is what has created today's culture within the space: there is a certain boho chic-type essence that you get when you enter the building, different to that of a space that was perhaps housing primarily tech-startups. The space is financed by a membership model which is paid by residents on a monthly basis. There is also a 'timecard' system for people that want to be super mobile in their work and only need to use the space for a couple of hours here and there, which allows them to pay for a number hours in advance.
The space launched a year and a half ago. Since then, Platt-Young has moved away and currently works for a Melbourne startup called Clouding Around. Kupriyenko now leads the company, though Platt-Young is still involved as a cofounder.
The independence of In Good Company and the way it has naturally attracted the creative community has seen it become somewhat of a platform as opposed to a stock-standard coworking space. In fact, Kupriyenko told Startup Daily that she now often finds herself recommending creatives within the space to startups and businesses outside the space who are looking for help on with short and long term projects - this has spawned the creation of a technology platform that automates this connection process. When launched, this platform will be called The Great and will seek to systemise and amplify what Kupriyenko has already been doing for the past year and a half. "We meet so many artists, makers, and designers that are really, really good through this space," says Kupriyenko. "And we get a lot of people email us asking, 'Do you know a developer? Do you know any designers? We want to take advantage of that." "It's obviously something we can help people with and we do it well. It's the kind of social capital, or whatever you want to call it, that we have built through the space. We want to connect artists and designers to projects, and eventually even project manage interesting things as well."The platform is still under construction but will be launching publicly soon. In addition to connecting creatives to projects, the site will also house an online art gallery, promoting new and up coming artists and selling their works in a similar spirit to what Adelaide startup Bluethumb is doing.
"I want to promote artists that we come to know through this space to a wider audience beyond physical exhibitions and to allow art sales to happen," says Kupriyenko. "The goal is to expose these guys and hopefully get some nice commissions for them as well. We are in a perfect position to be able to manage that."
The business model for The Great will be a clip-of-the-ticket play, where the startup will take a percentage of each project uploaded to the platform and each sale made through its online gallery. While both Bluethumb (online gallery) and another Australian startup Expert360 (online project management) have proven that both these business models work for each of those focuses, it will be interesting to see if a blended platform that combines both will be able to attract similar engagement and produce equal results.Domain and RealEstate should worry about startup NationMaster because its service may eat into their critical revenue strategies

"The site provides demographic data far more fine grained than the usual suburb reports that property buyers are used to," says Metcalfe. “Within a suburb there are distinct markets. A unit right next to Lindfield station gives you a totally different lifestyle to a bush frontage house on Lane Cove National Park. Gladesville has waterfront mansions and also houses on Victoria Rd right on public housing. This is the kind of detail that NationMaster is providing users with right now.”
The founders of Couchelo have launched a new platform QLC.io and it’s getting a lot more traction
"The reason why we combine career and lifestyle is because in today's era, millennials are always looking for the next thing," says Fan. "They're switching careers every two to three years, jumping 15 to 20 times throughout their lifespan, and they're always looking for new learning experiences, new travel opportunities and meeting new people. The problem we're trying to solve is making that jump between industries a little easier."
Jumping between career paths is actually quite scary: not knowing the right people, not having access to the right network, not having the right skills, and so on. This fear of 'opportunity cost' actually holds a lot of people back from leaving the jobs they are no longer happy working in, and moving on to something different they would find more fulfilling. The goal of QLC is to give people a chance to 'try before they buy' a new career option by way of presenting them with moonlighting opportunities.
"We want people to think of it as a combination of online education and practical up-skilling," says Fan. "Users can spend six weeks experiencing a role in fashion or in food or in travel or in another country, but you actually don't need to quit your job. The typical user case for our platform would be, 'I'm an accountant but I always wanted to learn about the fashion world. I'm not going to quit my job to work for Vogue in New York. But what I want to do is utilise my weekends to learn more about the industry in a hands'on manner'. So we actually connect people like that to innovative early-stage startups, social enterprises and creative projects."
QLC launched in November last year and has been running projects for the past couple of months. Currently most of the candidates are from mature markets like the US, UK, Australia and Southeast Asian cities like Singapore. Fan claims there is just over 5,000 users on the platform at the moment, and that QLC has run a little over 300 projects to date.
From that 25 percent of its customers have returned to partake in another project or have actually moved on from their jobs and continued with that business. There is scalability in the fact that a single project can have multiple users stacked onto it within the same month.
At the moment, most of the projects seem to be technology-related or projects that can be taken part in remotely. This makes sense because the bulk of moonlighting activities usually take place in an online environment, but I also believe that this will create a culture for QLC where particular types of businesses within particular fields begin to join the platform and post projects. I don't foresee a mining company, for instance, placing an engineering project on the platform. The business model that QLC has implemented is an interesting one. Both the candidate and the business pay to be connected to one another. The cost for both is $300. The candidate pays this amount to be connected to a business for a six-week period; and the business pays this amount per placement for a project. Price is something the team have been testing from day one; and this seems to have come out as the preferred price point for both candidates and businesses. From a quality control perspective, it also means that QLC only has serious candidates and businesses using the platform that are obviously committed to exploring the next opportunity or actually hiring a new staff member."Our hypothesis, which we have proved, is that even if you don't have the experience or background, you probably have the smarts to pick it up in a very short time," says Fan. "My background was in technology consulting and before that, it was in Law. If I had used that as a indicator as to whether I should build a tech startup, I never would've done it."
"Where we actually provide the confidence and then accelerate users is via our training and tool kit. We take a lot of examples from the traditional consulting world where there are companies like Accenture and McKinsey. These firms have their own toolkit, their own database of case studies and success stories, which their management consultants can use.
"Similarly, from our end, we have our own templates, tools and trainings. So a candidate that doesn't know much about the biking industry, for example, but has a background in corporate, can actually go to our platform, connect with a business and actually use our frameworks to apply for market entry strategy roles. The way we curate the candidates is already self-selective. Our users are motivated people with three to five years work experience, who want to do something on the side. They're not only capable of learning via our toolkit for training but they're also passionate enough to lend their time to learn about the biking industry."
It could be easy to confuse what QLC is doing with a traditional "find-a-freelancer" type platform like Upwork, Freelancer or even Expert360. However, the user does not receive any remuneration for taking part in a project; and it is in this aspect of the platform where the real difference lies. The user is paying for a process of self discovery and to broaden their experiences. It is not about a short-term side gig for some extra cash.When asked about whether or not QLC was in the middle of raising a round of seed funding, Fan was silent on the subject. From that, I don't think it would be a stretch to surmise that it is most likely they are perhaps having some serious conversations with investors or even close to closing a round.
I would hazard a guess that a seed funding round for a play like this in Asia would end up being somewhere between $450,000 to $800,000 given the vision QLC is looking to execute on.
QLC is making some headway into the tertiary education space, which is also very interesting. It looks like it will serve as an accelerator of sorts when it comes to user growth on the platform.
QLC is about to announce a partnership with the University of NSW, which will see the university piloting the QLC platform with 100 of its Post-Graduate and Masters students - in other words, students with life-experience in the workforce. This will help the startup achieve its vision of there being a way for universities to provide high quality, real-world experiences for its students by 2020.
If the pilot flies smoothly, then it could eventuate in QLC being embedded into the university curriculum. This would mean 50,000 odd students will have access to instantaneous internship opportunities. The pilot is set to kick off in October this year.