Folklore Ventures

Discover what SimConverse co-founders William Pamment and Aiden Roberts find 'Curious', what technology developments Sachin Samarawickrama is staying close to, how Strong Compute enables scaled AI research and more  –

From scaling a company 'from 0 to listing' to working as a boutique investment banker and playing a key role in the strategy and capital allocation at Eucalyptus. Mitchell Bissinger brings unique, and niche, insights to his role as an Investor at Folklore Ventures. This conversation looks at what gets Mitch excited, what areas of investing he is bullish on, where has provided leverage to portfolio companies, as well as a few of his contrarian views.

A great opportunity in our team awaits for a detail-oriented operator to support our growing Investor Relations function. Working alongside Chris Comino, this role will manage and support operational activities to ensure the successful execution of the firms Investor Relations and distribution strategy, elevate efficiency, and support the ongoing requirements of a fast-growing investor base.

As the Folklore team continues to grow, we're excited to welcome Ellen Posa to the firm as Executive Assistant to Alister Coleman. Ellen joins Folklore with 10+ years experience at professional services firms, including Deloitte and most recently Commonwealth Bank of Australia, where she has been for the past 6 years. Ellen is a Bondi-residing, gym fanatic who isn’t shy about managing complex situations and getting things done. Learn more about what drives Ellen, how to reach out and more: https://lnkd.in/gBPkWZkK

Portfolio update – here's an update from a few of our portfolio companies: Wonde – Congratulations to Wonde on celebrating usage across 60+ countries and 30,000+ schools. The team has been busy at events, including the ICT Group Schools Summit WA 2024, the IPPN Education Expo & Advertising and #SAEdTechWeek2024.   Congratulations on being a finalist in the Bett Awards 2025 for 'Innovation in EdTech'. As well as partnering with The Jamie Oliver Group for the Food Hero Awards. Wonde also celebrated new integrations with Pupil Pathways, Alfonica Messaging, Fetching and more. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gSvAzPtR Visionary Machines – Visionary Machines recently released their Q3 wrap up, outlining the latest on their optical 3D spatial sensing with the Passive Optical Radar Array (PORA) for drone detection and tracking. As well as sharing insight from recent trade shows, including the Land Forces Defence Exposition 2024, Australian Investment Councils Conference and the Defence Industry Development Strategy (DIDS) Summit.   The team also welcomed Enver Eyiam as Vice President of Growth. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gcNRDBx7 Auror – Congratulations to the Auror team and CEO Phil Thomson for leading their latest funding round, marking Folklore's 4th investment in over 6 years, also supported by Axon and W23 Global, as well as Reinventure Group.   Auror recently celebrated 10 years in operation - supporting partners to reduce crime, harm and loss in stores and communities. The team also celebrated winning the global award for 'Most Scalable innovation' at last week's ECR Retail Loss Innovation Challenge.  Read more: https://lnkd.in/g-_8GZEi Komodo – Komodo has been busy hosting School Wellbeing Success Workshops around the world, including in Bangkok.   As well as attending the FOBISIA Annual Leadership Conference, and sharing a range of resources to help teachers better recognise wellbeing signals in the classroom. Read more: https://lnkd.in/g2g4MgKu SimConverse – Congratulations to the SimConverse team and founders, William Pamment and Aiden Roberts, on their inclusion in The Australians Top 100 Innovators List.   William Pamment also featured on a podcast recently, speaking to how AI innovates education in healthcare. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gAp4d2rt. Forever Network – Forever Network won 'Best innovation in Sports Design' for their Basketball Forever platform. As well as celebrating NBA size platform growth including 56.41% growth in impressions and 55.5% in unique global reach across their basketball vertical since the beginning of last season. The 6.17 billion cross-platform impressions and 313.6M unique reach are all-time FN records. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gbHxYKn5.

Calling all Aussie founders and angels – Folklore and Cut Through Venture have started another year of collating the largest, crowd sourced data set on startup funding in Australia, to be released in February next year. Have your say on current funding allocation, and emerging trends that will shape the ecosystem. Sign up to access the survey: https://lnkd.in/g--RwcgX.

Good fun to be a part of the AWS Startup Founder & Investor Connect panel on Monday. I liked that a good portion of the time was devoted to questions from the audience (almost entirely of founders), as opposed to just listening to the panel wax lyrical - great thinking Lauren Capelin! One conversation thread that stuck with me was regarding the pretty common feeling amongst the audience in not truly knowing why an investor has said "no". My thoughts on this at the time (which thankfully still hold), are that there is basically zero downside, and a lot of upside, to be found in using a portion of the first call with an investor to get their on-the-spot take as to what excites and creates uncertainty for them regarding what they know so far about the company. At the least, you'll get a good insight into how they think / what they hold important / how much thought has gone into this etc. Requisite pics below. Thanks to everyone who has reached out since!

Congratulations to recent graduates of the Angel Investing Program at AGSM @ UNSW Business School. 👏 👏 👏 I had the pleasure of sitting in on a fireside chat between Beste Onay and Alister Coleman - focused on Folklore Ventures' 'First cheque to forever' investing framework. The audience heard more about Al's journey (from founder to Folklore.) As well as getting an unfiltered look at the rationale behind his investing rigor, and some thoughts on emerging markets that should shape future investment decisions. Thanks again for organising Beste Onay, UNSW Founders, UNSW, UNSW Angels, Rita Wu.

Supercharge your career with the role of a lifetime. Here are a few opportunities at our growing portfolio companies – Finance Manager @ Ansarada (Aus): https://lnkd.in/guV98MF3 Senior Software Engineer @ Auror (NZ): https://lnkd.in/gK_bYGpg Sales Development Representative @ Komodo (NZ): https://lnkd.in/gWJaxX2M Product Marketing Manager - DataSync @ Wonde (UK): https://lnkd.in/gCGxudUG Engineering roles @ Strong Compute (US): https://lnkd.in/gmgKChvn View the full list of roles available: https://lnkd.in/gG-Wutfd

We are very proud of the Auror team and CEO Phil Thomson for leading this milestone round. With its incredible growth and impact, Auror is one of the great software companies in the making. This round represents Folklore Ventures' 4th investment into Auror over 6 years and we wholeheartedly welcome Axon and W23 Global and their partnership.