Attivare · 2024 to 2025 · the results

Two start-ups. Two results. One growing business.

Attivare took the Seedchange method to bigger, bolder ventures. Two companies raised $17m through it. GNR Media used its runway to build a platform that now serves small businesses in Australia and overseas, and is valued at $50m. Actuarial Insights tested its idea, ran into regulatory hurdles and was closed cleanly. That is the early-stage incentive working as Parliament intended.

Read the two stories About Attivare

$50m GNR Media’s value, as at 30/06/2025

$17m Raised by the two companies through Attivare

15:1 Company value for each $1 of ESIC tax offset

50% Success rate: 1 of 2 companies still operating, 1 closed early and cleanly For early-stage innovation companies the success rate is usually only about 5%.

The stories

Both founders have agreed to tell what happened

The facts of early-stage investing: one idea that worked, and one that, but for regulatory changes, might also have grown and flourished. Here are both.

Operating · growing $50m

GNR Media

Built for one founder’s problem. Now a platform for small businesses in three countries.

David Strybosch needed a way to see what marketing was being done, what it cost and whether it was working. GNR Media turned that into a managed visibility service — the Marketing Passport®, community publishing and evidence-first reporting — sold on monthly plans to businesses in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. It raised $15m as an Early Stage Innovation Company and kept building.

Read the GNR Media story →

Closed cleanly Halted early

Actuarial Insights

A good idea, prematurely halted, cleanly closed.

Actuary Eric Ranson set out to automate actuarial advice for the nine in ten Australians that financial planning does not reach. The company built and trialled its retirement-income tools. The trials had not yet proved the idea, and the change in the ATO’s interpretation of the ESIC rules removed any path to further funding. The company was closed cleanly.

Read the Actuarial Insights story →

The results

Every company Attivare helped fund

Companies funded through Attivare: year incorporated, capital raised, current valuation and status (AUD)
Company	Incorporated	Raised	Valuation	Status
GNR MediaManaged visibility platform for small businesses	May 2023	$15m	$50m	Operating
Actuarial InsightsAutomated actuarial advice	2024	$2m	Nil	Closed
Total		$17m	$50m

How the figures are calculated

$17,000,000raised by the 2 companies
×
20%ESIC early-stage investor tax offset
=
$3,400,000tax offsets available to investors

$50,000,000current value of the companies
÷
$3,400,000tax offsets
=
14.71:1value for each $1 of offset

Measured against the capital raised rather than the offset, the companies are worth 2.9 times what was put in — and all of that value sits in the one company that kept going.

Notes. Australian dollars as at 30/06/2025. Amounts raised are the share capital each company raised through the Attivare platform. Valuations are based on directors' 2025 valuations and are unaudited. Actuarial Insights is shown at nil because it has closed. Both companies are also included in the wider Seedchange results, which cover every company launched under the Seedchange method since 2017.

Where it began

A Prime Minister’s challenge, taken up

In 2016 the Turnbull Government’s National Innovation and Science Agenda introduced tax incentives for people who invest in early-stage innovation companies. Malcolm Turnbull explained that start-ups are too risky for bank loans and better suited to equity, and that the incentive was aimed squarely at the very earliest stage, where there was market failure.

He also asked for a change of culture: reward people for having a go, and stop what is not working before it costs more. Seedchange was built on that challenge in 2017, and Attivare carried it forward in 2024.

The full story →

“… encourage people to intelligently experiment and if something doesn’t work then cut it quickly and learn from it.”

Malcolm Turnbull, Prime Minister — interview with Acuity, June 2016

The Early Stage Innovation Company rules, in Subdivision 360-A of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (Cth), exist “to encourage new investment in small Australian innovation companies with high-growth potential”. Attivare’s two companies show both halves of that bargain: one idea prematurely but cleanly closed, and one that is now a trading business serving customers in Australia and overseas.