**How Kate from Simpology raised over $15 million — Transcript & Summary | SozAI** Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/kate-simpology-raised-15-million/ Kate Gubbins, CEO of Simpology, shares how she raised over $15M by building a secure digital mortgage platform for banks. ## Key Takeaways - Building a secure, compliant platform is critical for fintech startups targeting banks. - Strong personal and professional networks can be instrumental in raising early-stage capital. - Understanding customer pain points deeply (Kate’s mortgage management experience) helps create valuable solutions. - Raising capital often requires demonstrating robust technology and a capable team, not just a good idea. - Improving operational efficiency for clients (banks) can be a compelling investment narrative. ## What the video covers - Kate Gubbins founded Simpology, a digital mortgage platform designed to help banks digitize and automate mortgage application processes. - The platform allows banks to publish their internal credit policies securely to brokers, improving loan application quality and processing speed. - Initially self-funded, Kate raised about $5 million from angel investors and later secured $15 million from the REA Group. - Kate’s background includes running a mortgage management business, which gave her insights into the challenges banks face in mortgage sales. - The need for bank-grade, enterprise-level security and compliance drove the decision to raise capital and build a robust team. - Kate leveraged her personal network, including family connections, to gain introductions to major investors. - The onboarding process with banks is lengthy and complex, requiring significant funding to meet compliance and security standards. - Simpology’s value proposition centers on reducing loan processing costs by improving the quality of broker-submitted applications. - The business evolved over 2-3 years of development before raising significant external funding. - The episode is part of the Raising Capital podcast, hosted by James Tuckerman, focusing on startup funding stories. Answers ## Questions about this video What is Simpology and what problem does it solve? Simpology is a digital mortgage platform that helps banks digitize and automate their credit policies, enabling brokers to submit compliant loan applications faster and more accurately. How did Kate Gubbins raise funding for Simpology? Kate initially self-funded the business, then raised about $5 million from angel investors through her network, including family connections, before securing $15 million from the REA Group. Why was raising capital necessary for Simpology? Raising capital was essential to build a secure, enterprise-grade platform that met bank compliance standards and to fund the lengthy onboarding process required by banks. ## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown 00:00 Speaker A Hello and welcome to this episode of the Raising Capital podcast and YouTube show. I'm your host, James Tuckerman. If you have not done so yet, please make sure that you hit that subscribe button so that you never miss an episode. And if you're listening to this or watching this on your phone and if you have never given us a review, please take a minute to do just that. You'll be helping us in ways that you may never know. Now, this episode is proudly brought to you by the B2B Dash podcast network. If you are a B2B business owner, B2B-Dash.io helps you automate over 90% of the client journey via one suite online platform. It's a funnel builder, a sales pipeline manager, and a CRM all in one. Use it to get more B2B clients and keep them forever. Now, today I have as my guest Kate Gubbins. She's the CEO and founder of Simpology, which is a digital mortgage platform solution, and I'll get to share all the details about that in just a moment. It was initially self-funded, then Kate raised about five sweet million dollars through angels and then had a couple subsequent rounds and recently raised 15 million dollars from the REA Group. Hello, Kate, how are you? James, good, thanks. Thanks for having me. Where are you today? I always like to know where I'm having a chat with someone from. So, I'm in the office. Hooray. I must say a lot of my gang aren't here. They're still working from home, but I'm in Redfern in Sydney. Redfern in Sydney, cool, rock and roll. Well, I'm in Melbourne, Victoria, and it is wonderful these days that it is just so simple and easy for us to catch up and have conversations wherever we are in the world or Australia, and it feels kind of cool. Now, this business Simpology, when you went out to investors for the first time, how did you pitch it and is the narrative different or the same than you pitched today? How would you describe this business of yours? Yeah, without a doubt. So, the first time, so the reason why I first went out to get funding is, as you said, the initial phase of my business where we were building our platform was self-funded. So, and our customers, the platform that we built is our customer base of banks. And so, we needed to have bank-grade, enterprise-grade technology for a bank to, no matter how good our technology was, there was no way they were going to onboard us unless we were of a certain size. So, it couldn't be Kate sitting in front of it in her garage selling them wonderful tech. It had to be Kate with a great, you know, team behind her to be robust and defensible and uncrackable. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I know this because even just when we wanted to get, what's the thing that you have to get in Europe where you're compliant about the privacy things? Yeah, I would GDPR something or other. Yeah, compliant. Yeah, and suddenly it was, whoa, really? I'm sure that what you had to go through is absolutely next level. Yeah, so that was the cause, huh? Yeah, I'm gonna have to raise money to make this secure. Yeah, without a doubt. And also, the onboarding process with any bank takes a lot of time. So, time, we really had to fund the time that we had to take to be onboarded by a bank and Winnebago as well. So, yeah, so that's why it got to a point, you know, in the evolution of Simpology that I needed to raise capital and build the team. And so, I was actually lucky in the sense that I started putting the feelers out in my own network and network including family as well, to be honest. And I was very lucky my brother actually ended up sitting on a chairlift with the head of one of the major funds in Sydney for a period of time. Their sons were on the same ski team and they were the dads looking after the ski team. And so, for a couple of days, they're going up and down chairlifts. And so, my brother started, they were talking about everything under the sun and my brother started telling this guy about my business and the fact that I was at this point in time and I needed to raise money to go to the next level, et cetera, et cetera. And this fundy was good enough to say, well, how about, okay, give me a buzz and tell me about her business, which I did. And that led to an introduction to one of the largest family groups in Sydney. And then, you know, the rest of the story began. Well, let's pause there for a moment because there's one thing that's really important about that. And that is you obviously had narrowed down, you'd found a way to describe what it was that you were doing where your brother could say to a stranger on a chairlift what it was that you were doing. So, what was the elevator pitch back then? What is the simple Simpology pitch? The clients are banks. What do you do? Yep. So, what we do is we have a technology platform that allows a bank to build a digital schema that represents all of their internal credit policy, business validation, all of their secret sauce, if you like, with regards to a mortgage application. Aha, right. And mortgages, you know, everyone loves selling a mortgage in Australia. And I've got, and also banks, they do have a lot of secret sauces in so far as, you know, what their policies are and what their logic is. So, we built a platform whereby that schema can be digitized and published in a secure fashion down to external user interfaces such as broker systems that can help a broker put a loan application together that's valid with the lender's business logic and requirements, submitted into the lender, and get a faster outcome because they have complied with the lender's policy. Where did this wild idea come from, Kate? Because it's not like the typical startup idea. It's a complex idea. What was this business that you were running that you decided to sell and move into creating Simpology? What's that story there? It's a big piece of the story, full stop, actually. And particularly even from an investment perspective, my original business was a mortgage management business. And if you like, it was a small version of what a bank's whole ecosystem is when it comes to selling a mortgage. And so, on a grassroots level, I understood the difficulty that banks had in communicating effectively their logic and their requirements down to their sales force, external sales force, which is broken so that they don't necessarily control. And ensuring that those parties in the outside world were doing a good job in conveying to the customer, you know, what the product is and what the requirements are, et cetera, et cetera. Gathering all the right details at point of sale and submitting it in ready for assessment. I understood all of that because we were actually, in at a grassroots level, experiencing the, I guess, the difficulties of conveying that down to our own network, which was mortgage brokers. And then, the quality of the deals coming in, the more rework you've got on a deal when you're trying to assess and approve a loan costs you more. So, every time you touch a loan, it costs you 200 bucks, let's say. And so, the better quality deals cost you less to process, therefore better margin on the deal, essentially. So, yeah, I can do this. I can see working in this job. You can. You're at the mortgage broker level. You can see how the banks are struggling with these different things. On mortgage management level, you had that business, you sold it to fund the next thing. And as far as I understand, you then spent about two or three years getting your ducks in a row before you raised money. During those three years, did you have any clients? Kind of. So, again, because I was in the market, I had a really, really great network within the market. And in those two to three years, we actually built the first iteration of our platform, which is the capability to have that digital schema, if you like, that's publishable down to an interface down on the broker fingertips to help them. 00:13 Speaker A you're listening to this or watching this on your phone and if you have never given us a review please take a minute to do just that you'll be helping us in ways that you may never know now this 00:25 Speaker A episode is proudly brought to you by the B2B Dash podcast network if you are a B2B business owner B2B dash dot IO helps you automate over 90 of the client Journey via one suite online platform it's a funnel Builder a sales pipeline 00:42 Speaker A manager and a CRM all in one use it to get more B2B clients and keep them forever now today I have as my guest Kate gubbins she's the CEO and founder of simpology which is a digital mortgage platform solution and I'll get to share 01:01 Speaker A all the details about that in just a moment it was initially self-funded then Kate raised about five sweet million dollars through angels and then had a couple subsequent rounds and recently raised 15 million dollars from the r e a 01:18 Speaker A group hello Kate how are you James good thanks thanks for having me where are you today I always like to know where I'm I'm having a chat with someone from uh so I'm in the office hooray um I must 01:30 Speaker A say a lot of my gang aren't here um they're still working from home um but uh I'm in Redford in Sydney in Redfern and Sydney cool rock and roll well I'm in Melbourne Victoria and it is wonderful these days that it is just so 01:41 Speaker A simple and easy for us to catch up and have conversations wherever we are in the world or Australia and it feels kind of cool now this business sympology when you went out to investors for the first time how did you pitch it and is the 01:58 Speaker A narrative different or the same than you pitched today how would you describe this business of yours um yeah without a doubt so the first time so the reason why I first went out to get funding is as you said the 02:13 Speaker A initial phase of my business uh where we were building our platform um was self-funded so and our customers um the platform that we built is our customer base of banks and so we needed to have Bank grade Enterprise grade technology for a bank 02:32 Speaker A to um no matter how good our technology was there was no way they were going to onboard US unless we were of a certain size so it couldn't be Kate sitting in front of it in in her garage selling 02:42 Speaker A them wonderful tech it had to be Kate with a great you know team behind her to be robust and defensible and uncrackable yeah yeah absolutely yeah I know this because even just when we wanted to get uh uh what's the thing that you have to get 02:58 Speaker A in Europe where you're compliant about the Privacy things uh yeah um I would uh G something or other yeah compliant yeah yeah and uh suddenly it was whoa really I'm sure that what you had to go through is absolutely Next 03:12 Speaker A Level yeah so that was the cause huh yeah I'm gonna have to raise money to make this secure yeah without a doubt and also the onboarding process with any bank takes amount of time so time we we really had 03:28 Speaker A to fund the time that we had to take to be onboarded by a bank and winnebank as well so so yeah so that's why um it got to a point you know in the evolution of sympology that I needed to race and 03:41 Speaker A capital and and build the team um and so uh I was I was actually Lucky in the sense that um I started putting The Feelers out in my own network um and network including family as well to be honest 03:57 Speaker A um and I was very lucky my brother actually ended up sitting on a chair lift with um the head of one of the major funds in Sydney um for for a period for a period of time their sons were on the same ski team and 04:13 Speaker A they were the dads looking after the ski team and so for a couple of days they're going up and down chair lifts uh and and so my brother started they were talking about everything under the sun and my 04:22 Speaker A brother um started telling this guy about my business and the fact that I was at this point in time and I needed to raise money to go to the next level et cetera Etc and this Fundy was good enough to 04:34 Speaker A say well how about okay gives me a buzz and tells me about her business which I did and um and that led to an introduction to a um one of the um sort of largest family groups in Sydney and 04:49 Speaker A um and then uh you know the rest of the story began well let's pause there for a moment because there's one thing that's really important about that and uh and that is you obviously had narrowed down you'd found a way to describe what it 05:02 Speaker A was that you were doing where your brother could say to a stranger on a chair lift what it was that you were doing so what was the elevator pitch back then what is it what is the simple simpology pitch the clients are banks 05:18 Speaker A what do you do yep so um so what we do is we have a technology platform that allows a bank to build a digital um schema that represents all of their internal uh credit policy uh business validation um all of their secret sauce if you like 05:37 Speaker A um with regards to a mortgage application aha right and and mortgages you know everyone loves selling a mortgage in Australia um and um I've got and also Banks um they do have a lot of secret sources in so far as you know what their policies 05:54 Speaker A are and what their what their logic is so we built a platform whereby that schema can be digitized and published in a secure fashion down to external user interfaces such as broker systems that can help a broker put a loan application 06:12 Speaker A together that's valid with the lender's business logic and requirements submitted into the lender and get a faster outcome because they have complied with the lender's policy where did this wild idea come from Kate because it's not like the typical 06:28 Speaker A startup idea it's a complex idea what was this business that you were running that you decided to sell and move into creating simpology what's that story there um it's a big piece of the story full stop actually um and particularly even from an 06:47 Speaker A investment perspective um my original business was a mortgage management business and uh if you like it was um a a small version of what A bank's whole ecosystem is when it comes to selling a mortgage uh and so on a 07:05 Speaker A Grassroots level I understood the difficulty that Banks had in um communicating effectively their logic and their requirements down to their sales force external sales force which is broken so that they don't necessarily control um and ensuring that those parties in 07:22 Speaker A the outside world were doing um a good job in conveying to the customer you know what the product is and what the requirements are et cetera Etc Gathering all the right details at point of sale and submitting it in ready 07:33 Speaker A for assessment I understood all of that because we were actually um in um at a Grassroots level experiencing the I guess the difficulties of conveying that down to our own network which was mortgage brokers and then um the I guess the quality of the deals 07:51 Speaker A coming in the more rework you've got on a deal when you're trying to assess and approve a loan cost you more so every time you touch a loan it costs you 200 bucks let's say and so the the the the 08:01 Speaker A the better quality deals Cost You Less to process therefore better margin on the deal essentially so yeah I can I can do this I can see working in this job you can you're at the mortgage broker level you can see how the banks are 08:16 Speaker A struggling with these different things uh on mortgage management level um you had that business you sold it to fund the next thing and as far as I understand you then spend about two or three years getting your ducks in a row before you raise money 08:30 Speaker A during those three years did you have any clients uh kind of so again because I was in the market I had a really really great Network within the market um and um in those two to three years we 08:45 Speaker A actually built the first iteration of our platform which is the capability to have that digital schema if you like that's publishable down to a an interface down on the at the broken fingertips to help them Lodge into lenders so we had our first version of 09:00 Speaker A our platform and I actually had started by the time I started earnestly looking for an investor we had um a few customers that were onboarding at already and we actually I think this was a key one as well I actually had a 09:16 Speaker A lot of um I'd been working and nurturing on um a lot of the key stakeholders at the banks over that period and telling them what we're up to and you know what was coming we're going to solve all your 09:28 Speaker A problems all that sort of stuff and um and so and they actually had all all a lot of them had really believed in what we were doing and the the use case the problem we were solving in The Way 09:40 Speaker A We Were solving it they really believed in it and they saw the value in it and so um uh so while we didn't have sales with all of these stakeholders um I had a whole lot of stakeholders that were willing to talk to investors 09:55 Speaker A to tell investors from there yeah and they did they actually had meetings with investors to tell the investors from their point of view why this was going to be a winner in the industry yeah so that was a key one 10:07 Speaker A actually to have so that's cool so let's so there's clearly a clear case study there's a good backstory guys and gals if you're listening to this this is a common theme there seems to be a narrative or a backstory which helps the 10:19 Speaker A uh entrepreneur explain the situation uh a simple story that even Kate's brother can explain to a stranger on a chair lift um then Kate's working behind the scenes she's pulling together the technology she does not have clients yet or they're 10:35 Speaker A smaller maybe you know special deals for new people those sorts of things um and then we jump ahead to this scenario where you need to raise some money because the big banks are not going to take you seriously unless the 10:48 Speaker A platform seriously robust what was the was the so was this the first comp your brother was that the first conversation and then that opened doors to other conversations how did it flow from there yes so I did have a few 11:03 Speaker A other um uh um opportunities on the go to be honest when this this particular opportunity came up um and I I actually um had from from my brother's conversation I had a conversation with a key person who who 11:20 Speaker A um uh listen to my story told me that it was a good story but but decided not to invest to be honest um and but I did say to him well okay so who can you introduce me to and he 11:34 Speaker A introduced me to another couple of key parties and one of those parties uh ended up investing um so yeah so it was there was certainly a few um uh sort of steps in the story and a few opportunities to practice too uh 11:51 Speaker A where people can tell you why they don't like it yes without a doubt yeah so um this amount that you raised was about five million dollars um now this was obviously private deals so uh the valuation is usually private 12:09 Speaker A but how many people did you have among those among that 5 million was it one person that dropped five million or 10 people that put in half a million what was the breakdown well um in the end the party that um was the key 12:26 Speaker A investor had not before invested in a fintech startup they'd invested in a hole that was a lead oh they've invested in other things but not a thing yeah for they'd invested like honestly their portfolio is ginormous but they had never invested in 12:41 Speaker A a fintech startup and so um they actually uh reached out to their own network and asked um a few other parties to come and do due diligence on us and those other parties had uh one for instance had 12:56 Speaker A built um gone from fintech to a billion dollar evaluation another had yeah so they they pulled in some really some people who knew what they were doing essentially and they did the due diligence um on behalf of this other party and 13:12 Speaker A um and in the end they invested too which was pretty cool so um so in the end I got more than just the investment I got these wonderful people who knew a lot about how to turn my business into a success which was to 13:26 Speaker A set you up for the next round yeah and set you up for the next round how much did the lead put in um of the five perhaps I think it was four in the end it was four wow this is 13:38 Speaker A a big double figure that's cool so this when you say due diligence how thorough was the due diligence or how intense was the due diligence quite intense um quite intense so obviously you know um on that that would be one thing I 13:55 Speaker A would I would put forward as you know if you're getting going out there to look for investors have all of your collateral ready to go so you can you know you can throw it at them when they ask you for it and and 14:06 Speaker A um and you can answer any question that that they ask um and so yeah definitely have your data room and your pitch deck or obviously a pitch deck but your data room ready um know all your key metrics when they 14:17 Speaker A ask you all those questions etc etc um so the due diligence was was quite um astringent in that again at this stage we had the first iteration of our platform so they um they did some due diligence on the 14:33 Speaker A platform itself um they also did some due diligence on the opportunities so and again it was really key and really great to have some stakeholders from the industry come it's almost like having a purchase order that you can go to the bank with and say can 14:48 Speaker A you lend me some money because I've got this big purchase order you're going do you want to invest in my business because I've got these five people that are just chomping chomping or champing at the bit whatever the expression is to get on board yeah 15:00 Speaker A without a doubt yeah it was that was a huge huge I'd say a huge piece of the puzzle was was having not me tell them what the opportunity was but the the parties that are going to benefit from 15:11 Speaker A the technology tell them yeah uh yeah so I'm just that I'm sorry that's just it's blowing blowing my mind that uh that the way that it came in was that the that uh hang on I've lost my train of thought 15:28 Speaker A there I'll click my fingers three times by the way this is the first time I've ever done that I was up at yesterday I was up at five and said well I was on the I was doing a zoom at 5am 15:39 Speaker A and this morning I was doing a zoom at 6am with American investors not as not as not as sharp as it as it should be uh all right so where am I where am I going here um all right 15:58 Speaker A so what I'm hearing is your when you invested your own money that was kind of like the seed Capital Stage yeah when you invested the 5 million was it spoken about as series a or was it talked about 16:14 Speaker A as seed or the language just wasn't used or how did people talk about it it wasn't really used but it would have been series a rather than Siege without a doubt yeah we had a product we were ready to go basically 16:25 Speaker A um so we were at that stage in the Genesis of symbology um so yeah it was it was certainly more series a yeah and how long ago was that now that the five million dollars it was a bank account it was actually 16:40 Speaker A um four years ago four years ago years ago did you treat yourself to a cheeky Chardonnay or ah yeah absolutely yeah it would have been a very exciting moment now more recently you've had another shall we call shall we call it a 16:56 Speaker A champagne moment or a Chardonnay moment um when the Rea group decided to invest and for those who aren't familiar with the name which is probably not very many people um it's a massive Behemoth of an organization that owns 17:14 Speaker A pretty much every single every half of the real estate industry online really doesn't look at the the apps and the websites and the whole bit and all the other stuff how did that all come about um okay so 17:29 Speaker A um probably oh probably even two odd years ago uh I had an opportunity to get to know a few of the key stakeholders in the financial services um of Rea because to be honest I was pitching some of our Wares to them 17:45 Speaker A um and nothing happened so um it didn't go anywhere which was um a Pity but anyway made some great um uh contacts and um and over time we've kept in touch which has been really good um and then uh definitely the world has 18:03 Speaker A changed a lot um in so far as um origination of mortgages and as you know all even with covert you know we're all digitizing everything right now and certainly the the origination um workflows are all digitizing really really quickly and the the audiences at 18:22 Speaker A point of sale which might be broker or consumer are all really really um uh um sort of open to using digital workflows to do anything as we all know everyone's sort of embracing embracing digitization and and so we asymptology so over the 18:40 Speaker A over that period from the first investment we've we've moved ahead and we've got a bunch of the um you know major Banks and second tiers and even and and smaller banks on board which is really great we've got about 30 18:52 Speaker A um lenders who are using us now and um and in the last perhaps 18 months we decided to actually re-platform ourselves and so we've rebuilt we've essentially rebuilt everything with a really really um Keen Eye on digitization and and 19:11 Speaker A um our Ambitions and what we want to achieve with regards to um mortgage origination are really in line with what um Rea groups want to achieve as well and so um the opportunity came about to perhaps oh well it was probably nine months ago 19:32 Speaker A again like I had the opportunity to get in front of Rea stakeholders and talk about what we were up to and and what we wanted to achieve and became very apparent that that we were very aligned from from the point of view of um what 19:47 Speaker A our strategic objectives were and what we wanted to achieve and and so the conversation turned into an investment conversation which was um great actually yeah we'll see what's um let's tear this piece down I I did recently have someone on the show and 20:02 Speaker A something similar happened with a giant um Insurance Company and I could I it's not something that it seems that most people who were building a business or raising money actively go out to do because they have to find a 20:20 Speaker A senior middle manager within a larger organization that's willing to Champion and you to the broader organization itself yeah so who were the people that you were speaking with when you say stakeholders were they the general manager of a division or do 20:39 Speaker A they have their own dedicated investment unit within the organization what what's the structure here so that other people might be able to navigate similar structures in other organizations yeah so this was not so Rea definitely have an investment arm 20:55 Speaker A um that that that completely managed the whole investment but it wasn't that piece of the organization it was the business um uh part of the organization that made the sense for us to be um working with it was Financial 21:09 Speaker A Services essentially um and so it yeah so we were having a business conversation that then turned into an investment conversation rather than Me Knocking on the investment um group store to be honest so you were talking to them about the business it 21:23 Speaker A was a senior decision maker within the financial's arm so it could have been a you know a product head or someone like that yeah and then they just went Hey listen Kate we got this division of the business which is the investment 21:34 Speaker A Division and their investment in businesses like yours go talk to them yeah pretty much yeah so from that first conversation and I can't imagine what it was what was it over a zoom call or did you meet someone in a boardroom or a coffee shop 21:49 Speaker A can you remember no it would have been it was well I guess it was during covert but it was in a coffee shop yeah one of those brief periods where they let us out I do remember I did know them like so I 22:03 Speaker A you know we'd had a nice relationship for a couple of years beforehand so it wasn't that unusual you live in a lovely suburb red fern you did head down to Surrey Hills and have a have a have a 22:13 Speaker A coffee by Melbourne barista yeah exactly uh anywho so you had that conversation and it takes a little bit of time now so the first time when you did your series a you had these people come in and do 22:27 Speaker A some due diligence yeah what was it like the second time around when it was uh oh it was more intense to be honest it was it was yeah um it was absolutely more intense and maybe because we were more of a company at 22:42 Speaker A that stage or you know you know we did there was so much more that they had to review from a risk perspective um you know all of our current contracts with our customers and um certainly now that we were really 22:55 Speaker A um servicing Banks properly you know were we servicing them all compliantly and all that sort of stuff um we there's a whole lot of um you know legislation that we have to adhere to so there was a lot more that they had to 23:10 Speaker A dig into to ensure that we were a safe bet to be honest um and then of course um you know I've got a big team around me now so they absolutely had a look at my team and whether they were worth investing in as 23:23 Speaker A well because of course they're not just work investing in the tech they're investing in all of us as well so it was a lot more intense all of my team got involved everything yeah so if at this point you've got 25 30 23:36 Speaker A Banks you've probably dusted off your pitch deck from like the early days and added everything that's new to it um how big it was this Market that you're introducing to them because they must see this as a significant 23:50 Speaker A opportunity if they're going to drop 15 million dollars and they're already a behemoth and and they're obviously thinking about your business as a I don't know 100 million 500 million one billion dollar company is that the view that they're taking 24:07 Speaker A I hope so um how big is this Market how big is it like because I'm I'm obviously you know I'm just a Layman interviewing you I don't have I didn't know that there were that many lenders even yeah no there's 24:19 Speaker A and genuinely there's so many more there's a lot of lenders this is just Australia as well too and you've obviously you've had plans for the rest of the world right um so so um and there's a lot of lenders that 24:33 Speaker A that people in their everyday world don't realize the lenders as well so there's there's a lot there's easily 100 if not more um 150. just in Australia yeah absolutely without a doubt yeah um and we actually are over in New 24:48 Speaker A Zealand as well so there's the New Zealand Market that um you know is is part of our immediate remit essentially yeah yeah yeah and there's no presence in there as well too so there's also the Strategic value of having that 25:01 Speaker A organization to back you now they're publicly listed which means that when they invest in you they need to declare and disclose their investment which means that suddenly you would have had to have revealed how much your business is worth based on that valuation on 25:17 Speaker A paper are you prepared to share that right now oh sure I mean anyone can look it up but yes the 15 mil and it was a 45 mil investment evaluation so you didn't have to give up too much uh and uh you're already at uh 25:37 Speaker A a 45 million dollar valuation well that definitely would have been worth not just a glass of champagne maybe a maybe a bottle of bubbly to go with that top shelf bottle of bubbly yeah um I've got only one or two more questions 25:51 Speaker A for you and uh hopefully they're reasonably simple but um what was the hardest bit so often we think things are going to be easy and then we go out and we discover that they're a little bit harder what was the hardest bit 26:06 Speaker A um I I definitely you know anything always takes longer than you think it will I mean I'm sure that's what everyone says to you but without a doubt everything takes longer than you think it will so you've got to be it would be 26:17 Speaker A it's wise to um really believe that when you set out because um that can knock you about a bit uh as as you go through um the journey and of course there's so many ups and downs as well 26:32 Speaker A um you know you'll have a win with a customer and then you have a loss with an investor or vice versa whichever way it goes um and and even um you know I mean you're constantly building you're constantly building full stop whether 26:45 Speaker A it's um whether it's the technology or the people or the um you know the customer base or whatever it happens to be it's you know there's no letting up you can't not work on it full stop so you've got 27:00 Speaker A to be prepared for that as well to be honest and some people will say oh she was so lucky because her brother was on a chair lift with someone else and the reality is is that your brother knew 27:09 Speaker A everything that you were doing and you'd given him the story he knew exactly what he needed to pitch because it had been better down then when these initial investors you began speaking with them and they brought in their investors you 27:21 Speaker A had to have it better down plus you'd already done your groundwork by getting all those different lending institutions interested in what it was so that your story was even more compelling and I'm and then when Rea comes around people 27:33 Speaker A say oh what a what a wonderful coincidence for you Kate but you were happen to be in the right place at the right time no now you'd set yourself up for that situation okay what is that what was the easiest bit 27:46 Speaker A were there any easy bits were there bits that you went oh that that happened a little bit easier than I expected oh that is a hard one isn't it interesting we have to pause yeah that's a hard one I mean oh god 28:00 Speaker A um that's a really hard one I mean this will sound really flippant but an easy thing is um is you know constantly believing in your own story and and and keeping the passion going that's actually funnily enough even though it's 28:18 Speaker A all such hard work that's that's a really easy thing and and the rewards that you get of course not just you know investment rewards and all that sort of stuff but the rule the rewards that you get from bringing something to reality 28:31 Speaker A and having you know building a team that believe in it as much as you and all of your customers giving you feedback that that you know makes it all worthwhile that's really the cool and easy bit uh because it's really really rewarding 28:47 Speaker A um from that sense and if you're just listening to the audio Kate's eyes were almost the size of saucepans just there I could see the passion in her eyes and a lot of people don't get this if you're 28:58 Speaker A not into what it is that you're doing as an entrepreneur you're not going to last six months no okay but if you're into it and you see the difference yeah yeah I completely agree and even just from the 29:08 Speaker A investment perspective going back to that I mean they're investing in you as much as the opportunity as well so um yeah you really have to have it have that passion in you I think um sort of wind up where to next uh 29:24 Speaker A Australia domination New Zealand domination world domination have you thought about the health insurance industry I can see it's a logical progression what next no you're right there's a lot there's so much we can achieve but this year um for us we're um 29:38 Speaker A bringing to Market our re-platformed version of ourselves so the whole new version of ourselves which is really really exciting it's um genuinely it's I already thought my product was awesome and now this new version of ourselves um it's gonna blow the 29:56 Speaker A um you know blow the socks off so many people it's gonna be great so we're really looking forward to a really great year this year and um and yeah you know we're lucky we're well funded and we're we've got good products I've got great 30:09 Speaker A team I've got good customers um so it's just a matter of doing a good job really from this point onward so it's gonna be a good year excellent it sounds very very exciting thank you Kate gubbins for spending some 30:21 Speaker A time with me today thanks James good to have your time thanks Topics: Kate Gubbins Simpology digital mortgage platform fintech startup raising capital venture funding B2B SaaS mortgage technology bank compliance REA Group investment --- This is the markdown twin of https://sozai.app/transcript/kate-simpology-raised-15-million/ — the same content, without the markup. 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