Accessing Investment Without Selling the Farm with Matt Allen from Tractor Ventures | #111 - a podcast by Nathan Bush
from 2021-08-29T19:00:36
In this episode of Add To Cart, we are joined by Matt Allen, CEO of Tractor Ventures. These guys offer revenue based finance, meaning that they can provide capital in return for payback (with interest) once you start generating the returns from the investment. This means founders don’t have to give away big chunks of equity to unlock growth. They’ve already got eCommerce leaders such as Kate Morris from Adore Beauty, Ed McManus from Deliveroo and Rob Ward from Quad Lock involved in the fund. In this ep we cover exactly how the Tractor Venture investment model works and the types of businesses it is most suited to. We also cover Matt’s observations around how male and female founded businesses differ, hear about the two Shopify apps that Tractor Ventures has backed and learn why Matt thinks moves like Afterpay’s acquisition will lead to non-linear growth for Australian innovation.
Links from the episode
Shopify Plus & JBHi Fi (sponsored)
Signet & Cheers Sweetie (sponsored)
Questions answered:
- At what stage do you recommend founders start looking for investment capital?
- What do you look for when investing in eCommerce startups?
- What have you learnt from the big names you’ve been involved with, like Kate Morris from Adore Beauty and Ed McManus from Deliveroo?
This episode was brought to you by…
Think Shopify Plus if just for ‘simple retailers’? Well let me tell you - JB Hi Fi is no simple business. But when their old site crashed for two hours during Black Friday, doing nothing was simply not an option. Shopify Plus was selected as the eCommerce partner to help facilitate the fast growing $5b retailer. However, with over 200 dispatch locations, a reliance on a web of API’s and the ability to handle tripling growth - it wasn’t an out of the box implementation. But the results spoke for themselves. JB Hi-Fi cruised through a record Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2019 without a hitch, have reduced average page load time by 15% and were even able to redeploy three techies whose job was to watch the servers to make sure they don’t go down! JB Hi FI - not just smashing prices but smashing eCommerce. To read more of B Hi-Fi’s story and see other case studies visit the customers sections on shopify.com.au/plus.
How do you like your cocktail gift boxes? Shaken? Maybe. Stirred? Perhaps. Broken? Definitely not. Cocktail giftining company, Cheers Sweetie, were finding that they were regularly coming up against broken items when mailing their gift boxes all over Australia. Not only was iot costing them money but it was a horrible customer experience. Working with our packaging supplier partners, Signet, Cheers Sweetie added an outer protective layer and internal cushioning - all while remaining environmentally friendly. They are now saving over $6,000 a year in broken items. Cheers to that. Visit signet.net.au/blog to find out more.
About your host: Nathan Bush from eSuite
Nathan Bush is a digital strategist, Co-founder of eCommerce talent agency, eSuite and host of the Add to Cart podcast. He has led eCommerce for businesses with revenue $100m+ and has been recognised as one of Australia’s Top 50 People in eCommerce four years in a row. You can contact Nathan on LinkedIn, Twitter or via email.
About your co-host:
Matt Allen from Tractor Ventures
Matt Allen is a deeply experienced founder, operator, mentor and investor and the CEO of Tractor Ventures, a new vehicle for investing that offers founders revenue-based financing. Matt and his team at Tractor are grounded in the belief that secure founders make better business decisions; venture capital money simply isn’t the right fit for every business, so Tractor Ventures is filling a funding gap for ambitious founders who want to grow their businesses at a pace that suits them. As an angel investor, he has invested in 30+ companies as part of his portfolio, including BuildKite, Practice Ignition, Spaceship, Qsic, Kasada, Donesafe, Pin and Goterra. Matt is a three-times ex CTO, and led the VC portfolio at AWS for ANZ.
You can contact Matt at LinkedIn
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