New seed fund for Australian web companies
Announcement posted by Pollenizer 09 Dec 2010
(SYDNEY, 8 December 2010): Pollenizer has today announced it has raised $500,000 for a seed fund it will use to invest in early stage Australian start-ups.
Pollenizer co-founder Mick Liubinskas said he hoped to have invested all the money by June next year, with investments between $10,000 and $100,000.
A key difference from other venture firms is that Pollenizer joins as a co-founder, working directly on developing and building the web businesses the company invests in.
Pollenizer has successfully built up high-profile portfolio of 16 companies including mogeneration, Posse and 99 dresses. These companies together employ more than 60 people across Australia.
Pollenizer co-founder Phil Morle, said Pollenizer Ventures would only invest in early-stage ideas with strong commercial growth potential. “We’re looking for businesses at a very early stage, that can be validated quickly,” Morle said. “We prefer transactional business models rather than be advertising based. We’ve learnt through solid experience that these are the companies with the best chance of success.”
Liubinskas said the fund comes at a time when the Australian technology sector is experiencing unprecedented growth and investment.
“There’s so much uncertainty in other sectors, that investing in growth in private companies is very strong,” he said. “We see the fund as another vote of confidence by the market, in the Australian technology sector. We thank the Pollenizer team for its dedication and the investors for their support. Most importantly, we thank the entrepreneurs we work with for their unending passion and hard work.”
The $500k seed fund is made up of some of Australia’s most experienced technology veterans including:
Scott Farquar, AtlassianMike Cannon-Brookes, Atlassian
Matt Macfarlane
Stuart Richardson, Adventure Capital
Adrian Vanzyl, Adventure Capital
Matt Dickinson, Growth Angel
David Cooper, Deloitte
Mark Greig via Elevated Capital
Adam Broadway
Rob Antulov & Nick Gonios via 3eep Ventures
Chris Hitchen, Getprice.com.au
Alan Jones, The New Agency
Domenic Carosa, Dominet Digital
Phaedon Stough, Mitchell Lake
Tony Faure
About Pollenizer Pty Ltd and Pollenizer Holdings Pty Ltd
Pollenizer was co-founded by Phil Morle and Mick Liubinskas in 2008 to build and invest in web businesses in Australia. It has co-founded 16 businesses and employs more than 60 people – with a team of 15 in Australia and over 50 in India.
The team is composed of globally experienced technology web veterans covering all aspects of a web business including director level leadership, product management, engineering, user experience design, marketing, business development and finance.
Contact Details:
Mick Liubinskas
0422 56 42 48