Skalata Ventures has revealed its latest round of early-stage company investments

The baker’s dozen takes the total Skalata portfolio to 43 since its launch in 2018, backed by Melbourne businessman Paul Little and Darrell Wade.

This year the Melbourne VC has increased its total potential investment in each company in the five-month program to $1 million.

Program architect and Skalata COO, Maxine Lee, is buoyed by the quality of founders in the spring intake, which wraps up in March 2022.

“Australia’s startup ecosystem has transformed considerably over the last few years. I’m still taken aback by  the incredible talent that our community has to offer.”

“Our five-month program has been designed to give companies an unfair winning advantage. Investment capital is a commodity, but experience isn’t. We know what world-class seed stage companies look like and what it takes to get them operating at the highest level."

The companies come from Victoria, NSW, the ACT and Queensland and include augmented reality (AR) platform, Ardacious.

Ardacious co-founders Dr Ralf Muhlberger and Dr Erin Evans have developed the first AR app for tabletop roleplaying games, Ardent Roleplay. Their vision is to apply the platform to other solutions in education and  business where the transformational power of showing, not telling makes a difference.

“Global brands Meta, Microsoft, and Apple are talking about bringing augmented reality to the consumer market in 2022, and with the support of Skalata’s world class team, we are confident we can take full  advantage of this highly dynamic and expansive field,” Dr Muhlberger said.

Strength By Numbers is also in the cohort and offers a strength assessment platform for health and fitness professionals. Founder Jordan Thurgood was previously part of the founding team of ASX-listed 4DMedical.

“With customers around Australia, Strength By Numbers has sought the expertise, guidance and funding of Skalata to help propel our growth as we explore global expansion opportunities."

Maxine Lee said previous alumni attracted tens of millions of dollars in VC capital,  including retail experience platform, Preezie, which last month raised $5.5 million in a Series A for US expansion plans

Over the next 5 years, Skalata will scale its operations to support over 100 early-stage companies annually.

The 13 startups accepted into the October 2021 Skalata Ventures Seed Investment Program are: