Queensland R&D finance fintech raises $2.3 million

An R&D finance fintech based on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast has raised $2.3 million towards a $25 million fund to lend as non-dilutive capital to Australian startups.

Founder Alex Knight moved home to Coolum three years ago to raise a family, having previously worked at crowdfunding platform VentureCrowd and debt financier Tractor Ventures, having also invested in both fintechs alongside backing more than a dozen startups including ordering platform Mr Yum (now me&u).

Advanced’s $25 million lending bucket is around 90% debt funding and includes the $2.3 million in equity capital. The investors include Employment Hero director Adrian Bunter, former Acclaim wealth boss Alan Hegerty, Wayne Gerard, the former Queensland chief entrepreneur and his former Queensland Investment Corporation sidekick Phil Cummins, who’s joining the Advanced board.

Advanced will play in the same space as R&D Capital Partners, Radium Capital and Paddington Street Finance, the lender ensnared in the StrongRoom AI implosion, and trying to gets its money back, offering loans secured against a startup’s future R&D Tax Incentive refund.

Knight, an accountant, said Advanced completed more than 50 R&D finance loans across biotech, manufacturing, software and deep tech for startups such as Rainstick, Sicona Battery Technologies, GapDrone and HowToo while he was completing his raise.

“Our north star goal – our ‘big hairy audacious goal’ in startup terms – is to generate a cumulative billion dollars of economic impact in Australia in the next five years,” he said.

“We’ll do this by enabling startups and innovative companies to turn their R&D Tax Incentive into a growth engine – by accessing it early, investing it into more R&D and thereby growing their refund to power even more R&D.”

Knight sees the business as a fintech, rather than a traditional financier, with a focus on speed.

“We know what it’s like to be hampered by available capital and have to hold off on critical projects that delay getting products to market, and compromise commercial success,” he said.

“That’s why we handle approvals within 48 hours and provide funding as soon as 24 hours after signing.”

He’s also signed up the business to Pledge 1%, the global charity now chaired by Atlassian cofounder Scott Farquhar to encourage startups and and other companies to donate 1% of their time, money or equity to charitable causes.

“With every R&D tax advance that we make, we also advance a cause that’s bigger than our own,” Knight said.

“If the founders and innovators we’re funding are passionate about a particular social, environmental or cultural cause, we contribute to that with our own funds, and we’re always keen to hear about local causes we can support.”