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Gathering resources to make your ideas happen

How do you gather the resources to make your ideas happen?

From gaining feedback and advice, securing the team and finances Anne-Marie Birkill, General Partner - OneVentures Innovation Fund, shares her insights into turning ideas into reality.

Agenda
What does “happen” mean?
What are your chances?
Seven things to do well
One resource: capital
Resource list

What does “happen” mean to you?
What is your goal?
Do you want to
• be a freelancer or an entrepreneur?
• build a profitable SME?
• lead and control a significant business that endures?
• build a company and exit it at a profit?

This important decision will drive how you approach your entrepreneurial journey, and the resources you need along the way.

What are your chances of success?



Resilience and persistence
• Established 2001
• Applying molecular technologies for disease
• $10 million capital raised
– $0.5m seed
– $6.5m Series A
– $3m debt
• $1.85m government grants
• Under external administration 2006
• Athlomics established 2006
• Septicyte technology launched June 2010

OneVentures pipeline
• 400+ opportunities
• 190 declined early
• 40 ‘review’
• 15 terms discussion
• 1* investment



What do you need besides a “big idea”?


NB: attributed to
“Breathing Buildings", published at University of Cambridge for Enterprise Tuesday

Seven things to do well*
• Find your true passion
• Market research
• Simple strategy, ruthlessly executed
• Love your mountain
• Focus on the business model
• Live the numbers
• Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity, cash flow is reality
• Become a super salesperson
*+1 Listen, learn, grow

Business planning
• Fail to plan, plan to fail
• Hope for the best, plan for the worst

One resource - capital
• FFFF
• Government grants
(www.commercialisationaustralia.gov.au;
www.innovationtoolbox.com.au)
• Angel investors, groups and individuals (www.aaail.net.au)
• Venture capital (www.avcal.com.au)
• Banks
• The share market

Fultec Pty Ltd
• First Patent 1993
• Uniseed Funds Prototype $0.35m 2001
Inventor as Interim CEO, half time basis
• Prototype built, successful Skyrail field trial 2002
• Uniseed supports company $0.35m, 2002
Experienced CEO engaged
• Allen & Buckeridge invest $1.0m mid 2003
(Product development, business plan, fund raising)
• Mayfield/Comventures invest $11.2m Apr 2004
• US Flip Up Apr 2004
• US CEO, Marketing/Sales Manager May 2004
• Planned in 2005:
– Next funding round 2nd half 2005
– VC target of US$150m+ IPO or Trade sale 2006
• In fact:
• Last funding round 2007
• Acquired by Bournes Inc (California) Oct 2008

What is Venture Capital?


What “happen” means to a VC
• A VC will be looking for the potential to achieve a 50%+ IRR from each investment
• IRR is the rate of return used to measure the profitability of investments
• It is the interest rate at which the NPV of costs equals the NPV of benefits



What investors look for
• People with passion
• A large and growing market
• A plan to get there
• Barriers to entry
• A profitable business model
• The capacity to add value
• Exit (at the right IRR)

What you should expect
• Equity investment – dilution of ownership
• Tranches tied to performance milestones
• Focus on commercial activities and practices
• Shared control
• Money plus expertise
• To work together to build a business with a view to exit

The ownership control trade-off


Founder equity value


Resource repositories
• Incubators
• (Innovation Centre Sunshine Coast, i.lab, Creative Enterprise Australia, Gold Coast Innovation Centre,)
• State Government
• (Innovation Toolbox, Mentoring for Investment)
• Federal Government
• (Ausindustry)
• Industry Peak Bodies
• (ACS, Ausbiotech, WiT)
• University Commercialisation Offices
• Business planning competitions
• (JHEC, UQ Enterprise)
• Entrepreneurship associations
• (YEA, EA)

RedFlow – ASX: RFX
• RedFlow Limited founded in 2005, based in
Brisbane, Australia:
• Listed on ASX in December 2010 (ASX: RFX)
• Currently ~ 1,200 shareholders
• Core business activity is design and manufacture of electricity storage systems based on RedFlow zinc-bromine battery module. Masters of ‘lean’ resource utilisation
• Founded by brothers Chris and Alex Winter
• Bootstrapped to key value inflections
• An i.lab incubator member 2004-2009
• Mentored by i.lab mentoring team
• First shares issued to seed investor in 2006
• First patents filed in 2008
• Successfully secured ISUS, COMET and AEST (ZBM).
• Core customers are blue-chip electricity distribution utilities and renewable energy developers.
• Currently in midst of Phase Three expansion:
• $3 million capital investment;
• Major upgrade of capability;
• Order book at record levels;
• Further expansion planned; and
• Growing international interest.

My Top 10 books for Entrepreneurs
• Geoffrey A. Moore, "Crossing the Chasm“
• Geoffrey A. Moore “Inside the Tornado”
• Jim Collins, "Good to Great: Why Some Companies
Make the Leap... and Others Don't".
• Malcolm Gladwell, "The Tipping Point: How Little
Things Can Make A Big Difference".
• Robert Cialdini, “Influence: The psychology of persuasion”
• Guy Kawasaki “The Art of the Start”
• Seth Godin “The Purple Cow”
• Chin-Ning Chu “Thick Face, Black Heart”
• Tony Ulwick “What Customers Want: Using Outcome
Driven Innovation…..”
• Thomas Friedman “The Earth is Flat”

Newsletters/websites/social networks
• Business Review Weekly
• Australian Anthill
• Lipper Current Weekly
• Social networking sites
• Mashable
• Linked in
• Startup nation
• Techcrunch
• Knowledge@Wharton
• e corner (Stanford University’s Entrepreneurship Corner)
• Slattery’s Watch
• Biznic
• Young entrepreneur
• The Funded
• Cofoundr
• Perfect Business
• StartupNation

Places to meet
• Pitch Club (and other Australian Anthill events)
• The Hive (www.thehive.org.au)
• Edgeware (www.edgeware.com.au)
• Meetup groups (www.meetup.com/find)
• Incubator events (i.lab; Gold Coast Innovation Centre; Creative Enterprise Australia)
• Seminars, workshops, networking events (www.innovationtoolbox.com.au)
• Awards events (Smart Company, EoY etc)

OneVentures Innovation Fund
Contact:
Anne-Marie Birkill
General Partner and Executive Director
W: www.oneventures.com
E: abirkill@oneventures.com

About Anne-Marie Birkill

Anne-Marie Birkill is a General Partner in OneVentures, a $40 million venture capital fund backing innovative companies with global relevance in CleanTech, IT&T /New Media and Life Sciences.

A champion for entrepreneurs and an active member of the innovation community, Anne-Marie is also Director of the John Heine Entrepreneurial Challenge, a member of the UQ Business School Industry Advisory Board, Chair of the QUT Faculty of Science and Technology Industry Advisory Committee, a member of the ICT Industry Ministerial Advisory Group.

 


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