StrideCorp Equity Partners has announced the launch of Stride Equity, Australia’s first equity crowdfunding platform that is backed by a dedicated venture capital fund, Stride Lead. The fund will provide cornerstone investment to all companies successfully raising capital on the crowdfunding platform.

Stride Equity will assess each unique investment opportunity against their internal selection criteria. They will back pre-qualified companies with up to 20% co-investment from Stride Lead, with the remaining amount raised on the Stride Equity crowdfunding platform. The unique model also goes further to provide mentoring and industry contacts to the early stage founders, further enhancing their companies’ chances of success.  

The founding team at Stride Equity is Jon Brett (Chairman), Alan Chonowitz (Director) and Maria Halasz (CEO), who together have several decades of collective experience across M&A and investing in emerging companies across sectors including IT, biotech, telecom, funds management, property and consumer products. The team, who previously all worked together at Investec, collectively have over 30 successful investments in scaleups and startups including Vocus, Airtasker, Goanna Ag, MediPay and MadeComfy.

Maria Halasz, CEO of Stride Equity, said, “Around $220 million has been raised by crowdfunding intermediaries since 2018 but only a few exits executed so far. Unlike our model, where we pre-qualify investee companies, crowdfunding is normally transactional and companies are not routinely vetted by professional investors.” 

“Our purpose is to close the funding gap for emerging businesses by combining our experience as successful venture investors with the power of equity crowdfunding. We back these companies with our money, expertise and connections.” 

Alan Chonowitz, Director of Stride Equity, added, “I am especially excited about the uniqueness of our offering in the crowdfunding market, which brings our own funds as co-investment into each offer, making our model more attractive to investors and investee companies alike .” 

CEO of Stride Equity Maria Halasz provided an introduction to the company and then facilitated the panel discussion featuring two of Australia’s brightest, award-winning young entrepreneurs, Samantha Brett - CEO and founder of Naked Sundays and Ben Lipschitz, CEO and cofounder of FoodByUs, who was named 2022 Entrepreneur of the Year at the CEO Magazine Executive of the Year awards and played an instrumental role in FoodByUs’ recent $12M Series B funding round. They will be joined by StrideCorp Chairman Jon Brett for a discussion on the funding climate for emerging companies and the outlook for venture capital generally.

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