💫 Ramplify: April Audit

Tariff Tumbles, VC Reverse Pitch, Canva's AI push, Q1 Numbers

Apr 22, 2025

(Rampersand Venture Partner, Helen Souness will “Flip the Pitch”at Startspace)

👋 Built for Tough Markets: The Aussie Founder Advantage by Paul Naphtali

There are decades when nothing happens, and weeks when decades happen. While this line is most often attributed to Vladimir Lenin, my main thought is to wonder when the next decade where nothing happens might be?? We have had a pretty consistent run of major exogenous shocks, from the GFC to Covid and now Tariffs, and it seems history is being made on a near-daily basis.

Regular readers of Ramplify will know how bullish we are on this period for Aussie startups. They may wonder whether this market upheaval has dampened our enthusiasm. The short answer is no. If anything, we’re even more enthusiastic. We think (and the data confirms) that Australian founders are more gritty, efficient and effective in more capital-constrained markets than most others worldwide. So if capital gets tight, if the markets get tough, we’ll back you to find a way through (and of course be there to help).

The truth is, no one knows what’s in store. Trade policies and market sentiments can turn on a dime (yes, deliberate use of currency), so anyone who makes a super confident prediction about the next few months has about the same chance of being correct as the typewriting monkeys. So the sage advice, in our view, is to be prepared, run some contingencies, and be able to make cash last longer than you otherwise might have, but don’t take your eyes off the grand prize.

Market downturns and periods of uncertainty have historically given rise to some of the most iconic companies, and we’re predicting this cycle will be no different. We are in the midst of a super cycle, so yes, be aware of the surrounding environment, but this could be the perfect time to crack on. And if you are, we would love to chat.

🗞️ Tech News:

Canva’s AI push into new markets. Canva’s AI‑driven Visual Suite 2.0 represents its boldest push into the productivity market, layering generative intelligence atop design heritage to challenge Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets. At its Create 2025 event, Canva unveiled four major innovations—Canva Sheets, Magic Charts, Canva AI, and Canva Code—all powered by AI to streamline data entry, visualisation, content generation, and app building within a unified interface.

OpenAI Releases o3 & o4-mini with Agentic Tool Use. OpenAI’s latest models, o3 and o4‑mini, now support agentic tool use—allowing them to autonomously call APIs, manage data, and orchestrate multi‑step workflows. Developers began experimenting with ten wild use cases, from hands‑free research assistants to self‑driving debugging bots.

🛠️ How to Startup:

PRODUCT PIONEERS – Part 1: Starting the Product From Scratch. Rampersand Venture Partner Rod Hamilton kicks off a three‑part “Product Pioneers” series by reflecting on the hurdles of building Australia’s iconic startups from the ground up. He spotlights lessons from his own experience building Culture Amp and gets input from Canva (Cameron Adams), A Cloud Guru (Sam Kroonenburg), and Aconex (Kirsten Mann). Rod dives into ‘why’ he launched the “Product Counsel” community to pass on hard‑won wisdom to the next generation of founders, something he longer for while building Culture Amp.

“Sharing the scars and collective wisdom from one generation to the next is the driving force behind Product Counsel, an initiative I’ve been running behind the scenes at Rampersand. It’s about creating a safe space for product leaders and builders at portfolio companies to riff off each other and not have to learn everything from first principles to move and build faster.”- Rod Hamilton

Advice on Building a 10× Content Engine. Adrian Alfieri recommends making customer case studies your fastest path to time‑to‑value by interviewing top advocates and publishing polished narratives on a Tier 1 CMS. He then advises systematically repurposing those stories across social, influencer partnerships, email workflows, and your sales funnel to maximize reach and engagement.

“From a time‑to‑value lens, case studies will be your highest‑performing asset — full stop. Isolate your happiest customers, ping them for opt‑in confirmation, then book a 30 m Zoom session. On the backend of the interview, transcribe > editorialize > get final cut sign‑off > deploy on your CMS. Important note: design matters here. Default, Unify, Ramp, Perplexity all are great examples of Tier 1 CMS design. After deployment, repurpose across social channels > boost via influencers and partners > ship email flows > activate in your sales funnel.”

Jen Abel’s Startup Sales Learnings. In a concise thread, Jen Abel distils three core lessons for early-stage sales: founders must act as their own first salespeople, product/market fit often lies in unexpected adjacent markets, and demos should highlight how your solution amplifies a buyer’s influence—not just its features. These pointers underscore the need for relentless adaptability and a customer‑centric mindset to build a scalable sales engine.

“My shortlist of startup sales learnings over the years …
0‑1 sales talent does not exist. Founders, this is you.
Product/market fit is (almost) always found in adjacent markets. Don’t handcuff yourself to Day 1 market vision.
The demo should never be focused on the product — focus on how it changes their influence in the organization.”

👕 VC in Australia/New Zealand:

Cut Through Ventures Q1 2025 Report: Aussie Startups Raise $993M Across 100 Deals. Aussie startups raised $993 million across 100 deals in Q1 2025—the strongest quarter since early 2022, signaling a clear market rebound. Activity was broad-based, with AI-first startups leading on deal count and biotech/medtech and climate tech outpacing traditional business software segments.

NextGen Ventures Secures $1.5M toward $2.5M Student VC Fund. 🌱 Student‑founded NextGen Ventures has raised $1.5 million toward its $2.5 million debut fund, with Blackbird partners Niki Scevak and Rick Baker, Airtree Ventures, Rampersand Managing Partner Paul Naphtali and several angels committing capital. The fund plans ~36 checks of ~$70 000 each into early‑stage student startups—early bets include AI process platform Fluency—and aims to close the remaining $1 million by end 2025.

“Our ambition is to build a generational venture firm that strengthens the grassroots of our ecosystem.”

🤩 Portfolio News

Sherlok’s RateTraker Accelerates Toward $1 B in Connected Loans. Sherlok’s RateTraker leverages open banking to continuously monitor home loan interest rates and alert brokers (and their clients) whenever rates become uncompetitive, enabling timely repricing or refinancing to retain business. Underpinning this is Sherlok’s proprietary Retention Score, which evaluates a range of loan parameters—much like a credit score—to flag high‑risk loans before they churn. Brokers using RateTraker have already connected nearly $1 billion in loans, automating post‑settlement engagement and boosting client retention without extra headcount Sherlok Knowledge Base. You can track your interest rate here.

Rise & Shine with Cuttable at Sunrise. Join the Cuttable leadership team—CEO Sam Kroonenburg, COO Edward Ring, Principal Product Manager Daragh Kan, and Head of Sales Ciaran Alstowe—for a relaxed coffee morning at Double Barrel Coffee + Food House in Newtown. Enjoy complimentary coffee and pastries, gain exclusive insights into Cuttable’s latest developments, and network casually before day two of the Sunrise by Blackbird event. Space is limited, register to join.

The Tech Founders Podcast #16 – Barb Hyman on Ethical AI Hiring. Sapia.ai CEO Barb Hyman explains how their AI‑powered chat interviews eradicate bias, deliver structured feedback to every candidate, and enable companies to hire at scale in under 48 hours—with zero human touch in initial screening. She also reveals strategies for selling cutting‑edge innovation into large enterprises and why Europe’s regulatory landscape offers a clearer path than the U.S.

“CVs need to die—competency‑based hiring is the future.”

💼 Portfolio Job Board

Back End Engineer at Cake Equity

Location & type: Gold Coast, Full Time
What they do: Cake Equity is the intuitive equity platform for fast-growing startups. It simplifies cap table and equity management for startups, enabling efficient issuance of stock options, management of shareholder relations, and facilitation of capital raises.
What you’ll do: You'll work hand in hand with product and the development team to architect, develop and maintain the back end systems which drive Cake.

Staff Software Engineer at Skedulo

Location & Type: Fortitude Valley, QLD (Hybrid) & full-time
What they do: Skedulo creates cloud-based software to allow any company in any industry to schedule, manage, engage, and analyze their deskless workforce.
What you’ll do: You’ll lead the technical direction of Skedulo’s core backend services, providing architectural guidance, owning key codebases, and fostering a culture of observability and incident resilience.

Do you have a job you’d like us to promote? Add it to Hatch and share the link with us.

See all jobs across the Rampersand Portfolio.

🌏 Rampersand Travel Diary:

Brisbane: Partner Andrew Poesaste is planning founder hours in May, founders and operators reach out if you want to grab coffee.

🎉 Upcoming Events:

Sydney: See you at Sunrise on 30 April - 1 May! Check out Andrew and Taryn’s key picks from the line up and reach out to connect at the event.
Melbourne: Rampersand Venture Partner, Helen Souness will “Flip the Pitch” at Startspace on 13 May at the State Library Victoria (or online). Helen will join 21 other speaker,s each delivering a 3-minute pitch on how we support founders, startups and aspiring entrepreneurs across the state. Get your in-person ticket or register to attend online.

Thanks for being part of the Rampersand Community! You can stay updated with even more news and info on our LinkedIn and X/Twitter pages.