x15ventures

Applications for Xccelerate24 are now open – and we want to hear from teams who are reimagining the customer and employee experience with data and AI 🤖 Xccelerate is our annual program helping early-stage founders explore the pathways to corporate partnership. It lifts the lid on what it takes to partner with a large corporate, like Commonwealth Bank, and enables teams to stress-test whether growing with the support of a strategic partner is right for them. Participants will have the chance to form deep connections with experts from x15 and CommBank, and bounce ideas off some of the best in banking.    We’re aiming to invest $250,000 into the startup with the strongest partnership potential, so head over to the Xccelerate page (link below) to submit your application before 20 August 2024 🤩 A big thanks to our 2024 partner Amazon Web Services (AWS) for helping us bring this year’s Xccelerate to life. If you have any questions about the program, drop them in the comments below or reach out to Fiona Aaron.   #artificialintelligence #AI #data #xccelerate24 

Time to expand your horizons? Our annual #Xccelerate program returns next week – and with a brand-new focus area for 2024 🤖 So, if you’re an early-stage founder that sees strategic partnership with a corporate as a path to scaling your business – make sure you're keeping an eye on our page for more info 👀 #xccelerate24 #x15ventures #venturecapital #investments #innovation

The people have spoken! 🏆 Congratulations to Yish and the incredible Kit team for their win at FinTech Australia's #Finnies. More below 👇

Yesterday, nearly 400 x'ers from across the country came together to reflect on what we've achieved over the last six-months and to plan for the next. Each of our ventures has very different plans, but they share a common thread - getting stuck into innovations that benefit our customers. We packed a lot into the day, but highlights included: ⚽️ A keynote from Matilda’s Head Coach Tony Gustavsson on the mindset of winning teams, including how to prepare for key performance moments, creating safe spaces for people to reach their potential, and why you won’t see a phone at the dinner table in the Gustavsson household (I took creative liberty on this one - telling my kids it applied to all screens, most of the time... 👩🏫). 🟡 Commonwealth Bank EGM Digital & Customer Meg Bonighton joining us for a fireside chat (sans fireside) about the Bank’s digital journey, how we continue to create joy and confidence for customers - including through 'plugging in' more offerings from x15, and... the realities of juggling life with work. 🏆 Seven teams walking away victorious from an x15-wide hackathon. There were so many great ideas on the day that we’ve decided to bring each of the seven finalists back together over the next few weeks for a final showdown to decide the winning idea! ⚒ And a chance to celebrate the x’ers who’ve made the biggest impacts over the past year through awards that recognise people that live our values and support our purpose. A big thank you to everyone who participated and made the day so memorable – particularly our guests and speakers; hosts Alicia Novello Steve Hanzic; Hackathon squad Jaime Di Laudo Sam Adeloju Esther Cha and Maja Enander; Andrea Adams Sheree Jackson Beau Fraser Bradley Tubb Asha Barbaschow Kirby Buchanan Krisha V. for organising; and Amer for these epic action shots.

Truyu Managing Director Melanie Hayden spoke with 7NEWS Australia about our Australian-first identity protection tool. Hit play on the clip below and head to your chosen app store to try Truyu for yourself 👇

We had a lot of fun hosting a panel at #Sunrise2024 last week, talking all-things corporate-startup partnerships, or, as x15 Portfolio Director Laura Faulconer, called it, "dancing the corporate-startup tango". Looking back on the tough year that was Aussie VC in 2023, Laura said the industry as a whole seems to be moving through 2024 with “cautious optimism”, which can only mean positive things for founders (and corporates).   Adele Moynihan from Bupa Ventures admitted to being “obsessed” with founder DNA. Our takeaway from Adele is that while the startup or idea is important, so too is the person or people behind the scenes. She said it was important to “not get blinded by the lights of the opportunity”.   It was a similar story on the founder side, with Daniel Oertli from Unloan sharing tips on how to “avoid kissing a frog”. His advice for founders? However tempting, try not to get dazzled by the size of the corporate’s customer base and be ready to ask the hard questions early — such as exactly how you’re going to get in front of those customers.   And from hard questions to hard truths, Anish Sinha from upcover reckons it's best to remove the emotion and treat building a partnership with a corporate as a process.   A big thank you to Blackbird for putting on such an incredible event and to our panellists for speaking so honestly. 

Join us in welcoming Mark Raso to x15ventures 🎉 Mark's extensive background in the hospitality sector and passion for innovation means he's the perfect person to be stepping into the role of CEO at Doshii. Welcome aboard, Mark.

Introducing Truyu – a new digital identity protection tool we’re testing that will alert consumers the moment their identity is being used – or misused – online at major merchants across Australia, as well as when their credentials have been exposed in a data breach 🚨 Our Managing Director Toby Norton-Smith sat down with Paul Smith from The Australian Financial Review to talk about the increasing threat posed by identity fraud, why x15 was the ideal testing ground to explore potential solutions at pace, and what we hope to learn from the pilot. A link to Paul's article is in the comments, below. Head to your chosen app store to try Truyu for yourself.

Join us at #Sunrise24 tomorrow where our Portfolio Director Laura Faulconer will be hosting a conversation going deep on startup-corporate partnerships alongside Daniel Oertli from Unloan, Adele Moynihan from Bupa Ventures, and Anish Sinha from upcover. Get your ticket 👉 https://lnkd.in/eztKTjhj Check out the rest of the agenda 👉 https://lnkd.in/eztKTjhj

It’s been a big week for Daniel Oertli and the Unloan team, as they officially mark the launch of their Buy A Home offering 🎉    For those who haven’t been following the Unloan story as closely as I have, it's also a pretty epic milestone in proving out a new approach to building and scaling a venture through the x15ventures model (space between start-up and enterprise).   So, I thought I’d take a quick trip down memory lane and share a few snaps that summarise the journey so far.    This video from 2019 shows a fresh-faced looking Dan and Jack (Chuyang) Li cooking up the idea for an online-only, no frills home loan in what was then the CommBank Innovation Lab (we were doing this in parallel to preparing to launch x15ventures!).    The next step, pitching that idea to @Commonwealth Bank, was in fact the easy part. The harder part – the deep tech integration required to build a disruptive digital home loan business that could still rely on the compliance and back end support of Australia’s largest bank. So many people were involved in making that happen, but a particular call out to the leadership of Tess Sutherland and the role her team played in getting Unloan to market - snap two: discussing that integration at Intersekt. Thank you, Tess!!   With the build complete, the next image brings us to May 2022 Unloan launch party, celebrating offering customers a new way to refinance their home loan (we also launched Kit - our kid's money app - on the same day 🤣).   Final shots, taken just round the corner from our launch event, brings us right up to date. Less than two years since launching, the Unloan team have successfully built the spine of a brilliant business – one that’s helped make a difference to thousands of customers all around Australia, with a loan book that surpassed $5bn in December last year and is accelerating from there.    That’s why Buy A Home is such a big milestone for the Unloan team, for x15, and for CommBank.    You can now buy a home with Unloan and obtain conditional approval in as little as 10 minutes, no hidden fees or chargers, just a great home loan with a loyalty discount for each year your mortgage continues. It’s an incredible accomplishment and means thousands more Australians will now be able to take advantage of Unloan’s very unordinary home loans. You can find out more about Buy A Home here: https://lnkd.in/gAArHw7w