“The Dash mission is to fight the war on the increasing costs of receiving financial planning advice. Recent statistics that we’ve come across suggest that only one in 10 Australians seek and receive advice surrounding their superannuation and their retirement needs,” Mr Whelan said.
Bailador Technology Investments co-founder David Kirk. Janie Barrett
“It doesn’t help anyone if financial planning and advice is only a plaything of the wealthy … The current price of advice averages over $4000.
“We are in the process of rolling out digital advice solutions on behalf of global insurance businesses, industry funds, and other large-scale financial institutions who are looking into addressing the advice gap for Australians, who have more simple needs but will typically go unaddressed due to the cost of delivery of advice under current regulation.”
The lion’s share of the funding round came from Bailador, which tipped in $20 million.
It follows on from another $20 million investment from Bailador last month in Sydney-based digital healthcare platform Updoc, and highlights a trend for larger start-up funding rounds to return to the Australian market, after a relatively fallow period, which saw Bailador go a year without making any investments.
“We are seeing a steady stream of interesting deals across a range of sectors. The last six months in particular have been good,” said Bailador managing partner David Kirk.
Mr Kirk said the market was getting back to a sensible place, which suited his firm well.
“The vibe in the market has definitely changed from 2021 and early 2022 when there was too much money and too high valuations, and then 2022 and 2023 where liquidity was much reduced, and companies that took too much money at too high valuations were refinancing with SAFE notes, and seeing valuation multiples declining.
“Now it’s back to quality [companies] getting funded at fair valuations, founders choosing their partners more carefully, and a focus on profitability and capital efficient growth.”