Early-stage investment firm Antler Australia recently backed a new cohort of startups as part of its ongoing program to build great local tech companies.

Startup Daily shares the details of each venture in the “Antler Investor Memos” series, which is designed to give you a quick, incisive insight into the startups and people involved, with many seeking follow-up capital beyond the initial pre-seed investment from Antler.

Company Name: Nuggets Academy

Date of incorporation: 2022

Stage of business: Pre-seeding

founders: Joyce Ong and Ross Lin

Current investors: antlers

Currently increase: Yes

Description of the company

Each year, financial professionals must complete dozens of hours of mandatory continuing professional development (CPD) and training to maintain professional standards of competence and integrity.

Not only is this often a painful tick-box exercise, but the training offered by traditional industry associations is considered by many to be old and expensive and offers inaccessible and outdated learning experiences, while other comparative learning platforms lack the depth and insight required to do so. professional matter.

Nuggets Academy is pioneering industry change with a new platform that enables finance professionals to share their expertise to learn together and from each other, enabling exceptional live learning experiences.

At the head of this company are Joyce Ong and her co-founder Ross Lin. Joyce is a tax specialist and formerly the National Tax Governance Lead of the ATO. Ross is a tech and product guru and former startup founder.

Prior to Nuggets Academy, Ross founded Jayride, raising $15 million in funding and scaling to a team of over 100 employees. Jayride, is now listed on the ASX.

Together, the two are on a mission to disrupt the way employees approach education, empower finance professionals to succeed in their careers, and eradicate death by PowerPoint.

Antler investment thesis

“Nuggets Academy scores high on team, product and market,” said Jake Booker, Associate Partner at Antler Australia.

“The product is innovative, the team has developed a very clear value proposition and there is currently little competition in the market. In addition, the global financial CPD market is valued at $20+ billion in Western English-speaking countries alone, with online learning rapidly growing at a rate of 14.6% per annum (CAGR).

“The team’s traction to date in terms of revenue, organic growth and low churn are strong early indicators of building an impressionve platform guided busage. We believe there is a significant opportunity for Nuggets Academy with the ability to scale virally.”

Traction/milestones, so far

Since launching in February 2022, Nuggets Academy has attracted over 700 paid subscribers and over 50 teams. In addition, the live events have been attended by more than 4,000 finance professionals and attracted more than 30 instructors who are currently teaching on the platform. As a result, the ARR has tripled to more than $480,000 in the past year alone.

Latest financing

Pre-seeding antlers.

Use of Funds

Antler Australia’s initial investment will enable Nuggets Academy to continue to validate its business model, find product market fit and build out its MVP. Specifically, the team plans to focus on automating CPD capture and reporting for the accounting industry and standardizing operations for running live virtual events for future scaling.

The founders say

“At Nuggets Academy, we are never satisfied with the status quo,” says Joyce. “If there is a way to do something better, rest assured we are working on it.

“We believe that real change starts with people. Whether you’re a seasoned practitioner or trainer thinking about creating content, or an experienced professional looking for a career with purpose, oOur platform enables anyone in the finance industry to teach with us, share their expertise and exchange knowledge with other finance professionals. This allows us to scale up quickly and efficiently.

“Our vision will be the live learning platform for financial professionals. So far wwe found that the product market fits within the Edtech financial space; and have clear know-how to scale this up thanks to our strong founding team.

“Antler has also provided invaluable mentoring and guidance in fundraising for our next round, as well as credibility that is critical in the finance profession. We also acquired talent and investor relationships through the Antler network and community.”

What’s next?

Antler, an early-stage global VC, is revealing all of its latest investments in aspiring Australian founders and startups. With over 100 investments in early stage companies, Tax Nuggets Academy is one of the most recent portfolio companies.