Two local WA startups have been announced as the first companies to be backed by WA’s first early-stage venture capital limited partnership (ESVCLP) fund, Purpose Ventures.
Digital healthcare platform PlanCare, and edtech platform Paperly, are the first to be selected for funding after Purpose Ventures received conditional early-stage venture capital registration in February 2023, after winning some funds from the WA Government’s Venture Support Program (WAVES) a month earlier, and closing its first $37M fund just six weeks later.
Purpose Ventures founders Derek and Kylie Gerrard say the fund was flooded with more than 100 investment applications in the first few months of opening.
“We’ve had some great investment opportunities presented to us since we launched our fund and it demonstrates there is no shortage of deal flow in WA,” Derek said.
“One of the best things we can do for the startup sector is not just talk about a fund, but start writing real cheques to bring confidence that WA wealth wants to back their innovation and help significantly scale these amazing companies.”
Purpose Ventures Co-founder, Derek Gerrard
“We’ve had a longer-term relationship with some of these founders so it’s been great to be able to get some early investments away into some great WA startups.” he said.
PlanCare and Paperly have both chosen to withhold the dollar figure of their funding boosts but Purpose Ventures have indicated their cheque sizes range from $500K to $3 million.
Paperly
With just over 30 WA schools using the EdTech platform, Paperly founder Daniel Dawson aims to use the funding to get some key hires on board to expand nationally.
“Obviously, there’s been interest from schools over East as well as other states in Australia so we’re going to break into those markets,” Daniel said.
“Eventually we would like to get into the New Zealand market as well. That will open up international for us.”
Paperly is an education admin platform that streamlines workflows usually done across platforms or with pen and paper.
Daniel was in the 2022 cohort of Spacecubed’s Plus Eight Accelerator program which was run by Purpose Ventures founders Derek and Kylie Gerrard.
“On the back end of that program, I was fortunate enough that they saw the potential in me and Paperly,” Daniel said.
Plancare
PlanCare was founded in 2021 by Dave Newman, who is also a co-organiser of Perth Morning Startup, one of Perth’s longest-running startup events.
Dave was also a graduate of the Plus Eight program in 2017, with another business Ovass.
Already servicing over 1,000 clients, PlanCare has set its sights on the national expansion of its platform which allows self-management of healthcare-at-home support.
Dave told Startup News that while the healthcare platform has been “profitable from pretty much right out the gate” the investment will help PlanCare grow more quickly.
“We grew so quickly that the working capital in our business became a real issue,” Dave said. “This funding will be used to bring on the right staff and to tackle the working capital problem.”
“This round of capital and Purpose Ventures input will allow us to provide our platform and support to more clients in Australia in the aged care and disability sector.”
PlanCare CEO, Dave Newman
There are more investments on the horizon for WA’s first local venture capital with Purpose Ventures signalling hopes to announce additional funding in the coming months.
Best wishes to these two newly-funded WA startups, and congrats to Purpose and its partners for getting these deals done.
Startup News tried to confirm whether all future investments have to start with the capital ‘P’ (Purpose Ventures, Paperly, PlanCare…), but has not been able to ascertain one way or the other. I suppose time will tell…
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