Swallowtail co-founders Ash Fogelberg and Nick Frandsen
Based in Sydney and Auckland, Dovetail is a full service venture studio that works closely with founders who have a great idea but may not have a technical background. Dovetail helps them build businesses from the ground up and prepare them for growth and more funding. The success stories of Dovetail, which was founded in 2014, include Afterpay, the Melbourne-based unicorn, which, alongside Klarna and Affirm, is one of the most prominent players in the Buy Now, Play Later sector.
“People can see us as the technical co-founder responsible for developing and executing product strategy, designing and developing scalable products,” Nick Frandsen, co-founder of Dovetail, told TechCrunch.
Dovetail is currently raising an A $ 10 million (approximately $ 7.5 million) fund that will be used for Seed, Series A and Series B rounds in 15 of the most promising companies its venture- Have gone through the studio program. As an investor, Dovetail has issued check sizes between A $ 150,000 and A $ 1 million.
One of Dovetail’s goals is to prepare startups to apply for funding from other VCs. Companies that have invested in Dovetail’s portfolio companies include Blackbird, Qantas and Wavemaker.
“Before we have to make an investment decision, we would have worked with them daily for at least three months before a seed round and twelve months for a series A, essentially investing with the information advantage of a co-founder,” said Frandsen. “Another characteristic that makes Dovetail unique is that we share our stake in our portfolio companies with the entire team. This promotes unity, commitment and the desire to be successful in our team. “
Dovetail started working with Afterpay in 2017 when the company had fewer than 40 employees. Frandsen said Afterpay founders Nick Molnar and Anthony Eisen were looking for a digital product development partner to develop and scale their mobile and web apps. Although both had extensive financial services experience, they came from a non-technical background. This is where Dovetail came in, expanding Afterpay’s technology platforms and helping with the launch of its consumer-facing products.
Some other notable startups that have gone through their venture studio program include the Runn resource planning SaaS platform; One-click invoice tool jam; Provider Choice, an administration platform for providers in Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme; Landmarks ID, a privacy-compliant mobile location intelligence platform for marketers; and Fluenccy, a service that helps importers and exporters save money on foreign exchange.
Before Dovetail, Frandsen and co-founder Ash Fogelberg’s startup, ticketing and payment platform 1-Night was founded, TicketDirect took over in 2013.
Dovetail’s venture studio is industry-independent (although it has extensive experience in fintech, SaaS and marketplaces) and works with startups who may not yet have a product but have founders who are “ambitious, commercially savvy and have industry expertise in the field by trying to solve a problem, ”said Frandsen.
When deciding which founders to work with, Dovetail takes into account the viability and growth potential of their idea. This also includes checking how well founders are suitable for the topic, whether there is enough market potential for the startup to grow into a large company and how much competition there is.
Dovetail has a product agency that mostly serves US companies, but its venture studio is currently focused on Australasian startups with plans to expand into North America in the future.
“We are actively looking for industries that are big but are underestimated by the startup community,” said Frandsen. “We’re looking for ideas. that require hard-earned industry experience and cannot be easily replicated by teams of young aspiring entrepreneurs. “