Scaleup Mediafund

Scaleup Mediafund

Scaleup Mediafund was founded in Surry Hills, Australia, as a media-for-equity investor that targets consumer-facing businesses raising growth capital. It describes itself as Australia's largest media-for-equity fund and invests advertising inventory from its media partners in return for minority equity stakes — typically structured as ordinary equity, preferred equity, or convertible notes. Confirmed portfolio holdings include aged-care marketplace Mable, digital men's health clinic Mosh, online bookmaker PointsBet, and funeral provider Bare Funerals, each of which received tailored multi-format campaigns designed to accelerate customer acquisition during critical scaling phases. The fund's investment model targets $1 million to $2 million in discounted media per deal, delivered through partnerships with oOh!media (outdoor), Nova (radio and podcast), Foxtel (TV and BVOD), News Corp (print, digital, video), and REA (digital). It does not lead rounds, instead co-investing alongside institutional venture capital and family office investors on identical terms. Sectors of focus include fintech, insurtech, digital health, proptech, gaming, HRTech, and media and entertainment — all consumer-oriented verticals where advertising spend directly correlates with customer growth. Geographic deployment is concentrated in Oceania, and campaigns are executed as off-set agreements: Scaleup Mediafund supplies the advertising as a prepayment, and the company settles through equity or a convertible note. The firm's sole publicly named investment principal is Michael Lamont, with an investment committee convening every six weeks to review opportunities. In 2018, Scaleup Mediafund provided PointsBet with $2 million in media deployed over 18 months, supporting the bookmaker's domestic scale and positioning ahead of its US expansion (per firm website). The fund maintains follow-on capacity and has executed multiple subsequent investments for existing portfolio companies, reinforcing its posture as a marketing capital partner rather than a one-time campaign vendor. Scaleup Mediafund's structural distinction lies entirely in its balance sheet: it deploys advertising inventory — not cash — as the primary investment instrument. This links its returns to the performance of its media campaigns and the resulting customer growth of portfolio companies, creating a capital model largely de-correlated from traditional equity funds. The architecture relies on contractual access to discounted, guaranteed inventory from Australia's largest media platforms, making the fund an embedded operating affiliate of the country's commercial media infrastructure rather than a standalone asset manager.