Sydney venutre capital, grand prix capital, portfolio
PORTFOLIO
GPC was the lead angel investor in hotel booking website Hotel Club which incorporates http://www.hotelclub.com/ and http://www.ratestogo.com/. We participated in follow on angel rounds and actively participated in developing the growth strategy and operational processes of the business from 1999 until its sale to the Cendant Group in 2004.
DriveMyCar - CL8 is a peer to peer car rental platform based in Sydney. GPC's initial investment occurred in December 2009. In 2015 the Company was listed on the ASX under the ticker CL8.
MicroEquities is a boutique fund manager specialized in microcap listed stocks. It has 3 open ended funds, The Microequities Deep Value Fund, The Microequities High Income Fund and the Microequities Global Value Fund. Since the time GPC invested funds under management have grown more than 10X! The unithlder base consists of high net worth individuals who through their participation in the open ended funds gain exclusive access to "deals" sourced by the manager and packaged via "Special Purpose Vehicles".
Alternative Media operates a stable of lead generation websites focused around the theme of comparing financial products. It seeks to disrupt rtraditional financial product distribution through the use of digital and telemarketing efficiencies. Typical domains include: http://www.lifeinsurance.net.au/;http://healthinsurancecomparison.com.au/; http://carinsurancecomparison.com.au/; http://travelinsurancecomparison.com.au/; etc The business both sells leads to business partners and acts as a life insurance and mortage broker.
Spoon Feed Me/Snap Revise is dedicated to improving the learning outcomes of University students. It creates, curates and delivers on-line tutorial content both tailored to individual courses at specific Universities as well as general course content. It has a particular strength in peer created tutorial video creation and the provision of highly course specific content. We provide dedicated courses for over 30 Universities in Australia, the US, the UK and Canada. Couses are sold both to individual students and to Universities.
Shippit has the motto "making shipping easier for online retailers". It provides a one stop cloud based app that facilitates online delivery for ecommerce business that previously were limited to costly delivery with one shipping provider. Shippit plugs in to most major shopping carts and its logic engine automatically selects the best shipping option for any purchase from a range of carriers. The software also faciltiates all the shipping paperwork (eg label printing) and provides enhanced parcel tracking and customer communication. Smaller retailers also enjoy reduced shipping costs via the group buying power of Shippit.
Spareworkspace enables office occupiers to effortlessly monetise spare workspace on an ad hoc basis. It is “AirbnB for office and meeting space”. The platform enables those with surplus workspace to list it for free with complete control on pricing and availability. Those looking for spareworkspace can to easily search, find and book short-term workspace around Australia. Whether you’re after a meeting room by the hour, a desk for a day or private office for a month, you can search, find and book the the workspace suited to your needs. The platform handles the not only the listing and matching process but also standard form legals and payments. With its real-time pricing & availability Spareworkspace can handle last minute bookings and a variety of special requirements such as audiovisual equipment etc.
Siteminder is a hotel "channel manager" which facilitates the central distribution and management of hotel room inventory through all on-line channels. The "Booking Button" http://www.thebookingbutton.com/ product allows hotels to take real time bookings on-line though their own websites. GPC was the first investor in 2007 when the business had 2 staff and participated in follow on angel rounds. Headcount has grown from 2 to over 410. The business has offices in Sydney, London, Bangkok and Dallas and Siteminder has secured A round funding from Bailador and B round funding from TCV.
Design Crowd is a crowdsourced design service that operates two design marketplaces: DesignCrowd which provides crowdsourced design services; and BrandCrowd maker which provides a leading logo design maker tool. DesignCrowd has over 500,000 registered designers and BrandCrowd has over 40,000 premium logo templates. DesignCrowd's customer base includes both SMEs and design studios. Initial investment was in 2009 and the business has secured VC rounds from both Starfish Ventures and Airtree.
Rezdy provides Saas booking and distribution services to Tour and Activity businesses. It allows operators to take both “on request” and “real time” time bookings through their own websites or through 3rd party websites as well as providing small operators with a ”website in a box”. Initial investment was in December 2011 and Rezdy launched its real time booking product in February 2012. GPC has done 2 follow on investments and expects tour operator software to follow the same trajectory as hotel booking technology giving Rezdy a massive early mover potential. Round A funding was achieved from Bailador in late 2015 and the business has a rapidly growing US operation.
Oneflare has the mission of revolutionizing the manner in which home services are are purchased. Instead of floundering in search of service providers users can simply post a job and receive quotes from 2 - 4 pre-vetted service providers, often within minutes. The service is free to consumers and covers a range of over 80 commonly used home services from cleaners to plumbers etc. Several tens of thousands of service providers subscribe to Oneflare which verifies their qualifications, provides consumer ratings etc. Since the initial GPC investment in May 2013 we have lead follow on rounds and the business had grown revenues 9.5X by December 2015. During 2015 the Company acquired WOMO.
UrbanYou provides online on demand household services at the push of a button. It aims to make getting a cleaner as easy as calling an Uber. GPC lead the angel investment round. UrbanYou was acquired by Oneflare in 2018
Bluethumb is Australia's online art marketplace. In a world where only a small fraction of artists are able to find gallery representation and the remainder are left with no channel to market, Bluethumb looks provide a solution to both artists and art buyers alike. It is using marketplace technology to become to be to home for art around the country.
Bonjoro provides businesses with a SaaS product which helps them convert and retain more customers through the use of personalized video messaging. Through its combination of personalization and video Bonjoro has proven its ability to get “cut through” in communicating with existing and potential customers. They can be used to delight and to create a human connection with customers, users, staff etc. Bonjoro can be integrated with a number of CRMs (eg Mailchimp, Zapier, Intercom) making it easy to efficiently manage the generation and follow up of “bonjoros” as part of the business process. It allows the automatation of prompts for sending bonjoros and the provision of the relevant data to the relevant people in formats they can tailor. It also provides dashboard analytics on theeffects of bonjoros sent with data being fed back into the CRM. Common uses of Bonjoro include personalized communication with sales leads, customer onboarding, staff management, etc.