Scaleup Mediafund is Australia’s leading media investor for growth businesses. We provide consumer facing businesses with out-of-home, TV, radio, print, and digital advertising using our unique investment model. With Australia’s largest, quality multi-platform audiences and advertising providers in one place, we help early stage businesses drive market adoption and build a household brand.
OUR PORTFOLIO
National scale partnerships,
tailored campaigns
Scaling consumer businesses with media investment.
Scaleup Mediafund is Australia’s leading media investor for growth businesses. We provide consumer facing businesses with out-of-home, TV, streamed video, radio, podcast, print and digital advertising using our unique investment model. With Australia’s largest, quality multi-platform audiences and advertising providers in one place, we help early stage businesses drive customer adoption and build a household brand.
Scaleup Mediafund invests in consumer-facing businesses that demonstrate strong potential to scale and gain their market, through a strategic partnership with Australia’s largest media owners. We provide each of our portfolio companies with campaign solutions that match their unique needs. We deliver targeted ROI through guaranteed advertising inventory and flexible terms so each campaign can be optimised based on results.
17
Investments
02
Exits
03
IPOs
>$25m
Brand and Paid Avertising
HIGHLIGHTS
Mable
A marketplace to find independent support workers for aged or disabled clients, established ahead of the Federal Government's changes to aged care funding and the introduction of the NDIS. Scaleup Mediafund provided a number of tactical campaigns that were matched to the NDIS roll-out by geography, utilising radio and print media. Today Mable has delivered over 16 million care hours to over 20,000 NDIS and aged care clients, from over 16,000 active support workers.
HIGHLIGHTS
Mosh
Mosh is a digital health clinic for men that facilitates online telehealth consultations and, if appropriate, delivery of treatments to its users that suffer from hair loss and issues relating to weight, sexual health, skincare and mental health. Scaleup provided highly targeted access to its target market within live TV Sport ads and live TV show integrations.
HIGHLIGHTS
Pointsbet
PointsBet is a corporate online bookmaker founded in 2015 with operations in Australia and the United States. Scaleup provided Pointsbet funding for businesses plan to build scale operations in the Australian market and best position it to take on US expansion by providing $2 million in media 2018 and deployed over 18 months. The media solution created for Pointsbet high-impact brand and offer advertising with leading state-based mastheads including the Herald Sun and The Daily Telegraph as well as quality advertising placements with Australia’s leading media sports content providers including News Corp Australia print and digital, FOX SPORTS and owned affiliate wagering sites
HIGHLIGHTS
Bare
Funerals
Bare is a funeral provider that supplies products and services to consumers principally for cremations that are unattended by family and friends - known as “direct cremations”. Growing rapidly, Bare has the mission to reinvent funerals for the better, through the combination of best-in-class digital experiences and world-class human-led care. Scaleup is working with Bare to build brand awareness in its target market so that Bare is top of mind when an at-need occasion funeral occurs.
HIGHLIGHTS
Mosh
Mosh is a digital health clinic for men that facilitates online telehealth consultations and, if appropriate, delivery of treatments to its users for treatment of hair loss and issues relating to weight, sexual health, skincare and mental health. Scaleup Mediafund provided highly targeted access to its target market within live TV sport and live TV show integrations.
HIGHLIGHTS
PointsBet
PointsBet is an online bookmaker founded in 2015 with operations in Australia and Canada. Scaleup Mediafund provided Pointsbet funding to scale its customer base in Australia and best position it to expand offshore, by providing $2 million in media deployed over 18 months. The media solution created high-impact brand and offer advertising with leading state-based mastheads including the Herald Sun and The Daily Telegraph as well as quality advertising placements with Australia’s leading sports content providers including FOX SPORTS and News Corp Australia-owned wagering affiliate sites
HIGHLIGHTS
Bare Funerals
Bare is a funeral provider that supplies products and services to consumers principally for cremations that are unattended by family and friends - known as “direct cremations”. Growing rapidly, Bare has the mission to reinvent funerals for the better, through the combination of best-in-class digital experiences and world-class human-led care. Scaleup Mediafund is working with Bare to build brand awareness in its target market so that Bare is top of mind when an at-need occasion funeral occurs.
INVESTMENT MODEL
Our investment model is uniquely designed to support growth companies
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Scaleup Mediafund is the largest media-for-equity fund in Australia.
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Designed to support brand and customer growth of venture backed companies
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Our investment model allows companies to stretch their cash reserves further by reducing cash burn on marketing
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We provide services from a range of media partners that reach all of Australia
OUR INVESTMENT MANDATE
Investment edge and strategy
Our investment criteria reflect our position as an affiliate of Australia’s largest media and marketing platforms. We are a strategic marketing partner and will work closely alongside a wide variety of institutional, venture capital and family office investors to support the marketing needs of our portfolio companies.
Our target deal size is $1 million to $2 million in discounted media. Allocation of inventory between media platforms is highly flexible and depends on each portfolio company’s unique requirements. We do not typically lead investment rounds as this task is best conducted by founders or venture capital partners
WHAT WE DO
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Participate in planned financing rounds on the same terms as the co-investing participants
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Provide high quality brand and paid advertising from our media partners at highly attractive prices
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Invest in a variety of instruments such as ordinary equity, preferred equity and convertible notes
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Invest quickly with experienced and targeted due diligence
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Offer knowhow and relationships to portfolio companies to assist in developing marketing plans and campaigns
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We are a minority investor and typically do not seek board positions.
OUR PROCESS
Streamlined partnership solutions- where innovation meets influence
01
DIAGNOSTIC + PRE-DEAL ADVICE
We expertly evaluate a potential portfolio company's existing marketing plan and create an overarching media strategy that matches your goals.
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NEGOTIATION + DEAL
We build a proposal which outlines how our discounted media fits with the plan.
03
MEDIA + DELIVERY
We deliver a complete advertising solution including:
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scheduling the execution of media campaigns, including technical campaign setup
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assistance with planning, booking and buying media from the Scaleup Mediafund media partners
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go-live report on campaign outcomes and advice on identifying improvements
MEDIA PARTNERS
We reach all of Australia
Scaleup Mediafund’s media partners cover all of Australia with brand and performance media, providing our portfolio companies the opportunity to reach Australian households
BENEFITS
Supporting our portfolio
We are focused on driving marketing based growth. Our offer goes beyond capital. We offer audience reach, data and insights and unparalleled marketing expertise with a network of industry professionals and experts. We are uniquely built to support growth companies.
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CONNECT WITH AUSTRALIAN HOUSEHOLDS
We source premium advertising from Australia's premier media companies to reach virtually every Australian household
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ALIGNED TO YOUR NEEDS
We offer expert advice on how to set up your marketing campaigns for success and setup your ad sales relationships
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GUARANTEED ADVERTISING INVENTORY
We secure a contractual commitment for our clients to premium inventory at industry-leading discounted pricing
04
OPTIMISED EXECUTION
We offer full flexibility in booking ads so you can adjust media plans based on your campaign results
TEAM
FAQ
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Scaleup Mediafund is a media-for-equity fund. Our mandate is to provide support and capital to consumer brands as portfolio companies so they can mature their marketing capability and grow their customer base.
The funds expertise and focus is making the best marketing investments. We look to traditional VC and PE funds to lead rounds.
Describe a feature you’d like to share about this company or highlight a particular service it offers.
We have found that the right size deal for Scaleup Mediafund is $1m to $2m. This size deal allows our investees to execute a meaningful marketing campaign that is able to impact the business.
The fund has followed on initial deals with further investments a number of times. Follow-ons are relatively easy to execute and the fund has a strong track record of supporting iportfolio companies growth over a number of years.
We transact the investment as an off-set agreement. This means the fund supplies its advertising upfront as a prepayment and the portfolio company typically pays for this prepayment through either shares or a convertible note.
The funds expertise and focus is making the best marketing investments. We generally look to traditional VC and PE funds to lead rounds and occationally do bilateral deals.
The fund has an investment committee that meets every 6 weeks. This committee decides on the opportunities assessed and presented by the fund’s managers. We assess investments based on both marketing due diligence and the investment opportunity. The marketing due diligence encompasses the core questions of 1) the ability of the potential portfolio company to execute the marketing campaign, and 2) the ability of the brand advertising and paid media to accelerate the growth of the potential iportfolio company and drive value.
The best candidates for media capital investments are typically consumer-focused brands and scaleups where advertising plays a significant role in customer acquisition and revenue generation, such as e-commerce, fintech, digital health, and other consumer-focused sectors. Some notable global examples of companies that have raised media for equity investments include Airbnb, Coursera, Uber, what3words, and Zalando among others.
In addition to premium brand advertising and paid media we: 1) provide media company internal expertise to advise on what works and setup your campaign and ad sales relationships; 2) secure a contractual commitment for our clients to guarantee value and obtain advertising at the lowest prices with no margin or commissions; and, 3) offer full flexibility in booking ads so you can adjust media plans based on your campaign results.
Media-for-equity is a form of investment where a media company provides advertising space and expertise to a startup in exchange for an equity stake in the company. Rather than providing cash or financing, the media company invests its advertising inventory in helping the scaleup supercharge its brand and win its market. Media-for-equity is a good funding option for scalable, consumer-focussed startups that require significant marketing spend to grow but cannot afford to spend significant budgets on advertising.
oOh!media which provides outdoor ads, Nova which provides radio ads and podcast ads, Foxtel which provides TV and BVOD ads, News Corp which provides print, digital and video ads and REA which provides digital ads.
CONTACT
T 0412 526 082
We love meeting founders and getting to know growth businesses. Get in contact to discuss how Scaleup Mediafund might work for you.
We follow a streamlined approach to developing solutions for our partners across three key phases.