Oct 26, 2015

A new investment fund backed by one of the co-founders of MYOB has begun business with logistics startup Premonition. | Topic: Start-Ups Sydney-based Rimon Advisory, a startup advisory firm, has extended out into the realm of funding and launched the AU$1 million Rimon Investments fund to target early stage investments. The fund will initially target between eight and 10 seed investments in the range of AU$30,000 to AU$200,000, said Lior Stein, director at Rimon Advisory and Rimon Investments. "The whole point of Rimon Investments is to find talent at the earliest stages and take the risk early on, even be the first to take the risk," Stein told ZDNet. "There needs to be a differentiation between Series A and seed. Seed is early and risky, often pre-revenue ... There will be a revenue track record in Series A. " Latest Australian news Telstra 4G network to reach 99 percent by mid-2017 Stein said that through its advisory services, the fund will be able to invest before many companies are looking to raise capital. The first company to be funded will be Premonition, a company that is looking to combine real-time logistic fleet optimisation with big data. Until this point, Premonition had been self-funded and boasts nine employees to date, and 3,000 active users. "Premonition saw early success with a number of large clients, and have been able to develop key features for this market," said Brad Lorge, co-founder of Premonition. "Funding allowed us to invest in plays we think we explode in the medium term, and fundamentally shift the industry, but for which invoices are more difficult to raise in the short term. " "Rimon provided a warchest for developing our product and testing new markets. " Rimon Investments is backed by, among others, MYOB co-founder and Ingogo board member Brad Shofer, who will join the board of Premonition. Stein said that the fund has another four companies in the pipeline to be funded. Last month, Telstra's Muru-D startup accelerator announced that applications were open for its Sydney fintech hub, with the telco to provide up to AU$60,000 to 10 startups over a six-month incubation period. Muru-D is seeking media industry startups thanks to a partnership with Seven West Media that will see chief digital officer Clive Dickens take a place on the startup advisory board during the program. Applications for this round of Muru-D funding are open until October 31. Join Discussion