Catherine Prosser is at home in Narrabundah, Canberra, when we speak; I want to find out more about how StageBitz, the theatre inventory management platform she started with co-founder Mat Lawrence, raised an $890,000 angel investment round from a consortium including ANU Connect Ventures, and the Sydney Angels Sidecar Fund.
She pitched the platform — which allows you to maintain a full inventory of props needed for a show, and borrow things you don’t have — at both Innovation Bay and Sydney Angels more than 12 months ago. Although there was interest, it wasn’t enough to see anything happen fast. Closing this round has taken a long time, says Prosser.
She says she’d heard about the ANU Connect Ventures Discovery Translation Fund, which almost sounded too good to be true — the fund provides grants between $25,000 and $100,000, doesn’t require match funding, and doesn’t take equity.
“Anything that gets funded can go through to the seed program,” she says. “They were excited about something new.”
The ANU investment panel were impressed with the pitch, but told Prosser StageBitz was further along than companies the fund was looking to invest in. She was referred to their seed fund, which offers investments up to $500,000 per enterprise. It took some time to do due diligence and sign term sheets, as the investment panel wanted to ensure IP was properly secured (StageBitz outsources their web development). The panel also wanted to speak with customers in Australia and the US.
“I think our space is different to other companies they’ve invested in. It’s usually a lot of BioTech.”
“I don’t think you hear many stories where someone goes over to the US to pitch, raise investment and then say ‘I’m going to go back to Australia and spend it there’.”
The $10 million Sydney Angels Sidecar Fund is only able to consider an investment when more than three members are in favour of a deal. Because there were four individuals from Sydney Angels prepared to invest, StageBitz was eligible for the Sidecar Fund as well. A few individual Canberra investors also wanted in.
The fundraising round followed a research trip to the US, sponsored by ATP Innovations, as Prosser and Lawrence were awarded the Innovation Explorer Award at Tech 23 last year. In a post on the Tech23 blog, Prosser explained the benefits of the trip.
She tells me raising investment in the US was never on the agenda. Instead, the trip provided an opportunity to develop a better understanding of the US market and lay the foundations for future expansion there. Prior to heading to Silicon Valley, Prosser says the pair spent time at the US Institute of Theatre Technology conference.
“I don’t think you hear many stories where someone goes over to the US to pitch, raise investment and then say ‘I’m going to go back to Australia and spend it there’.”
“We learnt a lot of things from the trip, but not necessarily what we thought we would. We’ll be going back next year to sign-up customers over there.”
Neither of the co-founders have technical skills, and Prosser says it took a while to find a good company to undertake their development work. The pair settled on GEVEO earlier this year; a Canberra-based web development agency with coders in Sri Lanka. In May the company did a complete rebuild of the StageBitz site. They continue to iterate, and work for a monthly fee. Prosser says the CEO, Ravi Weerasooriya has been honest about what’s do-able which is something she didn’t find elsewhere. She says his team speak up if something isn’t going to work.
“With other development companies if they think you’re doing something stupid, they don’t tell you.”
StageBitz spent four months with Pollenizer in March last year, though living and working in Canberra made it difficult. Prosser says the startup didn’t really fit the usual mould of the incubator’s portfolio, which was also challenging. The best thing to come out of the experience was an introduction to the startup community in Sydney, and access to a network of mentors and potential investors. Prosser says by the time she was ready to pitch at Sydney Angels and Innovation Bay, she was well-prepared and could explain to investors what they would get out of StageBitz. By that stage, she also knew many of the faces in the audience, which made it less intimidating.
While Prosser won’t say how many people are currently on the platform, she says in the past month 30 new users have signed up, from four different companies. It’s the network effect which seems to drive customer acquisition. She says if one person at a theatre company signs up, they tend to convince a bunch of others to join too. QUT (Queensland University of Technology) and NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Arts) are some of the more recent organisations to sign up. Prosser says universities are a good market, as they can have multiple productions at a time, and large inventories.
The investment round allows Prosser and Lawrence to continue to invest in web development, and gives some assurance to customers that the platform will continue to be supported. Prosser says Lawrence can now leave his current role with Opera Australia, to focus full-time on StageBitz; “I can’t tell you how good it will be to have his brain full-time.”