Giant Warm Intro: Lowering the Barrier, Not the Bar in 2024
The annual Giant Warm Intro (GWI) event, connecting seed and pre-seed stage founders with the country's most active investors, was hosted as an in-person event for only the second time in its history. As part of the Cremorne Digital Hub’s inaugural Tech Week, GWI bought together investors including Archangel Ventures, Artesian, CoAct Capital, Gandel Invest, Giant Leap, Rampersand, Seek Investments, Skalata, Square Peg, and The Alice Anderson Fund together with 40 Victorian-based founders, all converging on Carsales in Cremorne for one-to-one investor matching (or investor speed-dating as we call it).
“The opportunity to talk to investors quicker without contacting them directly is superb because not only was I able to talk to two highly engaged investors, but I was able to talk to fellow founders on the same journey.” - 2024 GWI Founder
WHAT IS THE GIANT WARM INTRO?
Giant Warm Intro is our program that gives any pre-seed founder a warm introduction to Australia’s most active investors. While we have encouraged all founders to apply, it has become known as the most inclusive platform for underrepresented founders, including women and migrant founders.
Women and founders of other underrepresented groups receive a smaller proportion of venture capital funding worldwide, including in Australia. According to Forbes Australia and Cut Through Ventures Q3 Funding Report, in 2023, 23% of funding went to founding teams with at least one woman founder, significantly higher than 2024’s current statistic of 13%. However, only 5% of deals undertaken in 2023 went to companies without a male founder.
The GWI program connects founders from the earliest stages of their businesses to kick off conversations with investors. These conversations could be around capital raising or other relevant topics such as how to think about scaling their businesses, hiring, mental health, or anything else early-stage founders are bound to confront.
“We believe GWI can act as the catalyst to unlock opportunities for founder from underrepresented backgrounds from receiving valuable advice to growing their network or raising their startup’s first round of capital. Diversity of backgrounds is a core ingredient which will allow our startup ecosystem to really thrive where people come together with different experiences and insights to shape the businesses of tomorrow.” - Taryn Pieterse: Partner, Rampersand
SO, HOW DID THE GIANT WARM INTRO STACK UP IN 2024?
Since 2020, we have run multiple iterations of the Giant Warm Intro, proudly facilitating more than 1200+ warm introductory meetings between early-stage founders and investors.
Some stats for 2024 are:
Of all meetings since 2020, 36% have been with female-identifying founders, and this increased to 38% in 2024
87% of all founders who applied were from underrepresented groups.
78.2% of founders who applied were hyper-early in their journey within the ideation, build, or pre-revenue minimum viable product stages.
64.8% of applicants were actively seeking to fundraise within 6 months of the program
67.5% stated that fundraising was the core focus area in which they were the most keen to receive advice from the investors in the program.
92% said they would recommend GWI to other founders and that we are eager to meet new and emerging startups in the next iteration!
Holding the event in person limited the numbers to Melbourne-based founders only. However, with 100% of founders stating they loved the in-person format, we are encouraged to try it again.
“The people I was matched with had relevant subject matter expertise - so their advice was useful and provided a really good signal for my business on what we can/should do in order to raise investment in 6 months.” - 2024 GWI Founder
In 2024, we saw companies from various categories apply for the program. Unsurprisingly, most of the applicants fell into the domains of SaaS, AI, and Enterprise Software startups, given the nature of successful Australian startups of the past. However, companies across all verticals, including climate-tech, marketplaces, fintech, social commerce, and medtech/hardware, were very promising. Building out Australian companies in all areas is greatly important to facilitate a culture of Australian innovation.
We know that connecting with investors at the earliest stages to build relationships and navigate conversations is invaluable to a founder. We look forward to delivering more opportunities in 2025 for incredible humans from all walks of life to deliver their big ideas to those who can boost their future success.
Want to apply for Giant Warm Intro 2025? Be sure to subscribe to this SubStack to find out when applications open.
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