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Sidestage operates a digital marketplace designed for discovering, listing, and booking musical talent, including individual musicians, bands, and DJs. The platform streamlines the process for event organizers, venues, and private individuals to find and engage artists for various engagements. It leverages a community-driven model to connect talent with booking opportunities, simplifying what traditionally involves complex negotiation and discovery.
The company was co-founded in 2014 by Schuyler Deerman and Daniel Karl Roberts, originating in Berlin, Germany. Deerman, an American entrepreneur with previous experience in developing the messaging platform Moped, conceived Sidestage from the insight that the live music booking industry was fragmented and inefficient. The founders aimed to create a more accessible and transparent system for both artists seeking gigs and clients looking for performers.
Sidestage primarily serves event planners, corporate clients, and private users seeking to hire live entertainment. The platform’s vision centers on democratizing access to musical talent, fostering a more direct and efficient interaction between performers and those wishing to book them. It aims to empower artists by providing a dedicated channel for career growth and simplifying the booking experience for all parties involved.
Side Stage Ventures is a founder-led seed-stage venture capital firm based in Australia, specializing in pre-seed and seed investments in high-potential early-stage tech startups.[1][2][3] The firm's mission is to back the top 1% of "outlier founders" by writing the first cheque and providing hands-on support to help them build and scale globally scalable businesses, drawing from the team's own experiences as founders, operators, and investors.[2][4] Sector-agnostic with a focus on big markets, it invests across fintech, healthtech, edtech, and more, emphasizing differentiated products solving meaningful problems.[1][2] In the startup ecosystem, Side Stage contributes through capital, strategic guidance, a robust network, and a community that fosters debate and support, having backed successes like Go1, Airtasker, and amaysim.[1]
Side Stage Ventures emerged from a team of serial entrepreneurs and investors who built the fund they wished they'd had when starting their own companies, focusing on the unique struggles of early-stage founders.[2] Key figures include Co-Founder and General Partner Markus Kahlbetzer, with over 18 years in venture capital, agriculture, real estate, and equity markets, and a track record in top Australian investments via his role at BridgeLane Group.[1] Elli Hanson, Principal Investor, brings founder experience from co-founding Flaus (named in TIME's Inventions of the Year), plus global design strategy expertise at Ogilvy earning 25 Cannes Lions.[1] The firm's evolution centers on a founder-led model, expanding to support pre-seed/seed tech startups locally and globally while prioritizing people over sectors.[2][3][4]
Side Stage Ventures rides the wave of Australia's burgeoning tech startup scene, where early-stage funding gaps persist despite global VC interest in APAC innovation hubs.[1][3] Timing is ideal amid post-pandemic digital acceleration, with market forces like rising fintech/healthtech demand and underserved big markets favoring their sector-agnostic, high-conviction bets on local talent with global ambition.[2] They influence the ecosystem by de-risking pre-seed/seed stages—often the hardest for founders—through founder empathy and networks, amplifying Australia's output of unicorns and fostering a culture of bold, world-changing entrepreneurship.[1][2][4]
Side Stage Ventures is positioned to deepen its role as Australia's go-to seed partner for elite founders, potentially expanding globally as APAC VC matures. Trends like AI-driven disruption in big markets (health, climate) and founder-friendly capital will fuel their portfolio; expect more exits from bets like past winners, evolving their influence toward multi-stage support or larger funds. This founder-first approach, rooted in real struggle, sets them apart to capture the next wave of outliers shaping tech's future.[2]