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Jelix and our raises

Read Andrea’s thoughts on this matter.

Listen to Andrea’s insights on the current state of the Australian tech eco system.

Read Ian’s thoughts on this matter.

‘Sequoia Capital, Accel Partner, Index Ventures — there’s a few and they’re starting to actively invest in Australia. Australia is a less hotly contested market, and I think they see where they can add value in terms of helping companies scale internationally.’

‘In Jelix Ventures, in particular, Dreyfus says the team found an investor “we felt we could trust from day one”. Andrea Gardiner, a former lawyer herself, was “super excited” about the startup, he says. “They were excited about the mission that drives us … making legal services accessible,” he adds. “[Gardiner] had a really strong view about what it was going to take to get our company from where it is now … to a company that really can transform the way lawyers work the world over.’

Read more about the Josef raise.

‘Jelix Ventures founder Andrea Gardiner said “I almost said red flag, but it’s more of a risk that you have to assess. Founders having a falling out is one of the big risks for an early-stage start-up.’

‘Kiwi drone startup Dotterel Technologies has raised $1.06m from Sydney-based Jelix Ventures, which specialises in backing early-stage companies. Jelix now has an 11.45 per cent stake in Dotterel.’

‘Digital marketing technology start-up Sinorbis’ bid to connect Australian businesses with Chinese consumer demand has received another vote of confidence in the form of $4m in Series A funding led by Jelix Ventures.
The Sinorbis software is designed to make it easier for Australian and international businesses to market their products to 800 million Chinese online consumers who make up more than a quarter of the world’s online population.’

‘Jelix has led a $4 million round in [a] marketing tech start-up … Sinorbis provides a digital marketing platform that makes it easy for western business to market their products to Chinese consumers, be it in consumer goods, education or tourism.
It was co-founded by former Expedia executive and global president of HotelClub and Ebookers, Nicolas Chu, alongside Allen Qu, who had launched China’s third largest digital agency Netconcepts.
… “The market is massive, it is close to representing 33 per cent of total ecommerce spend, but it’s also the most difficult market to crack,” he said.’

‘Aussie venture capital funds are making significant strides in boosting the diversity of their portfolios, but women still make up only a tiny percentage of the investors in the sector. … Other notable female investors rising in prominence include Jelix Ventures’ Andrea Gardiner, Skip Capital’s Kim Jackson and new chief executive of Scale Investors Ariane Barker.’

‘Just last month Ian Gardiner — stalwart of the Australian startup scene — sent shockwaves across the ecosystem as he announced he was stepping down from his role as head of the Australia and New Zealand startup division at Amazon Web Services, to work full time at Jelix Ventures, the investment business headed up by his wife Andrea Gardiner.Andrea has been running Jelix for two years already, becoming the second female founding chief executive of a venture capital in Australia. Having already led 12 syndicated investments into nine startups, and made its first exit, Jelix is now upping the ante and raising its first VC fund.The people who have joined are excited by the vision, she adds. Although, when speaking to Andrea, it’s hard not to be, as her enthusiasm is infectious.
“It’s a new business model and it is exciting. I feel like I’ve hit my sweet spot in work — I’ve never loved doing what I do as much as I love doing what I’m doing now,” she says.’

‘Australian venture-capital firm Jelix Ventures has its sights set on its first $30 million fund, after the seed-stage investors scored their first exit from the sale of StorReduce to $9 billion US company Pure Storage. Founded by husband and wife team Andrea and Ian Gardiner in 2014, the fund has flown largely under the radar to date and served as a personal investment vehicle for the Gardiners, along with some high net-worth investors. Having invested just $180,000 in StorReduce in 2014 when the business was still pre-revenue, Jelix investors have banked a 10-times return from the sale of the company, which de-duplicates, manages and migrates data.’

‘Stone & Chalk resident and board member Andrea Gardiner, founder of Jelix Ventures, met Naseer Shafaq through an intern program. An accomplished Afghani refugee who lost his job when his employer became insolvent, Naseer had been unemployed for 18 months. Naseer had received no replies from over 700 job applications when Andrea hired him as an unpaid intern for her new business, Jelix . Today, Naseer works in the heart of Sydney’s CBD with the ATO as a Tax Practitioners Board Officer. “Andrea was also generous enough to pay me for all of my past work once her business took off,” he says.’

‘So here is a guy that applied for circa 720 jobs and the system overlooked him and yet Andrea Gardiner from Jelix Ventures found him at Tech Refugees (as he was trying to avoid going back to the conflict in Afghanistan), saw his talent, snapped him up and he’s now on his way hopefully.’

Portfolio coverage

  • 23/5/2019 Why legaltech Josef’s $1 million raise was more about securing experts than cash  Smart Company
    ‘In Jelix Ventures, in particular, Dreyfus says the team found an investor “we felt we could trust from day one”. Andrea Gardiner, a former lawyer herself, was “super excited” about the startup, he says. “They were excited about the mission that drives us … making legal services accessible,” he adds. “[Gardiner] had a really strong view about what it was going to take to get our company from where it is now… to a company that really can transform the way lawyers work the world over.’
  • 6/5/2019 Start-up raises funds to help lawyers automate themselves AFR
    ‘Ms Frederick has invested alongside Jelix Ventures and former Telstra Ventures principal Ben Armstrong via her new fund Tiger Financial, in a seed round over the $1 million mark as [Josef] looks to win more Australian customers before focusing on international expansion.’
  • 28/12/2018 Here’s Why You Should Buy Pure Storage (PSTG) Stock Now
    ‘Pure Storage’s recent buyout of StorReduce is enabling the company to provide enterprises with purpose-built backup appliances (PBBA). Further, management remains elated about gaining StorReduce’s de-duplication technology.
    …  The StorReduce acquisition is expected to strengthen the company’s object storage portfolio and bolster the public cloud integrations as well. The company also expects to better manage unstructured data across multi-cloud environments with this buyout.’
  • 05/11/2018 Kiwi drone tech company Dotterel raises money, launches new product NBR
    ‘Dotterel has several commercial projects on the go, largely in the screen industry which it originally targeted, but its other commercial partners aren’t ready to go public yet. Dotterel has also just completed an oversubscribed $1.06 million capital round, led by Sydney-based venture capitalist and tech startup specialist, Jelix Ventures. It follows a $A500,000 funding round last year and should last the Auckland-based startup another 12 months.’ (Free login required.)
  • 05/11/2018 The Kiwi company driving commercial drone tech growth bizEdge
    ‘Innovative Kiwi drone technology company Dotterel Technologies is geared for growth, focusing on commercial applications of its products.
    The company has announced an oversubscribed capital raising round, the appointment of a new director and a partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).’
  • 16/10/2018 Oz open banking at risk – Trade Ledger  Finextra
    ‘Global corporate lending platform, Trade Ledger, is warning the Federal Government of substantial weaknesses in its proposed Open Banking implementation plan, when compared to the global best-practice model.
    These primarily include the lack of an independent implementation and governance organisation, and limited consumer and SME representation in the development of industry standards.’
  • 16/10/2018 Australian open banking at “significant risk,” Trade Ledger says Money Management
    ‘Global corporate lending platform, Trade Ledger has warned the Federal Government of substantial weaknesses in its proposed Open Banking implementation plan, when compared to the global best-practice model.
    These primarily include the lack of an independent implementation and governance organisation, and limited consumer and small to medium-sized enterprise representation in the development of industry standards.’
  • 12/10/2018 Sinorbis raises $4 million Series A to connect the world to China’s booming digital market Australian Anthill
    ‘Digital marketing technology start-up Sinorbis announced a Series A investment of $4 million led by Jelix Ventures. Other investors include Executive Channel Holdings who led the previous round of early stage funding in April 2017.
    The funding will be used to scale the growth of the digital marketing platform, Sinorbis, which was launched to market in July 2017.’
  • 11/10/2018 Trade Ledger rides the open banking wave Computerworld
    ‘The banking sector is in the midst of its greatest technology-driven transformation since the introduction of the ATM, according to the chief executive of Trade Ledger Martin McCann.
    That shift is most visible in Europe, and particularly in the UK, where the combination of open banking legislation and the GDPR have helped precipitate a “seismic and very fast shift in banking,” the startup CEO told Computerworld.’
  • 10/10/2018 Sinorbis raises $4mn in Series A funding round Business Chief
    ‘    The digital marketing and technology startup, Sinorbis, has raised $4mn through a Series A funding round.
    The round was led by Jelix Ventures, which contributed its largest ever investment, with participation from existing investor Executive Channel Holdings.
    The Sydney-based firm aims to connect Australian businesses with Chinese consumer demand through software.’
  • 28/08/2018 Sinorbis’ Nicolas Chu on winning at the Mumbrella Awards Mumbrella
    ‘Winning best marketing technology company at the 2018 Mumbrella Awards was a vindication of his team’s hard work and an important benchmark, says Sinorbis CEO Nicolas Chu. Chu told Mumbrella that the entering the awards was an opportunity to see how Sinorbis compared against the rest of the industry: “As a new provider in the marketing technology sector we were keen to understand how our software would stack up against the competition and get some feedback from leading industry experts.”’
  • 21/08/2018 Pure Storage buys StorReduce in first ever acquisition
    ‘Pure Storage said the deal — its first ever — will bolster its object storage portfolio with sophisticated deduplication technology. Exact terms of the deal were not disclosed.’