Photo — Charlie Cropper – Senior Vice President, Financial Adviser, Morgan Stanley, Tom Carlton – Chief Executive Officer, Bailey Abbott, Andrew Kay – Chief Executive Officer, the South Australian Business Chamber, Chris Wood – Executive Director, Invest SA.
The South Australian Business Chamber, South Australia’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry hosted a closed-door investment pitching session yesterday, teaming up with Morgan Stanley Australia and Invest SA, an agency within the Department for Trade and Investment.
The invitation-only event, which took advantage of the rare congregation of business heads in Adelaide for the AFL Gather Round saw 15 local businesses, predominantly in future technologies like space, cyber, fintech and energy pitch their products and investment expansion ideas to private equity investors in hope of raising capital to further scale their ventures.
The Chamber’s CEO Andrew Kay says yesterday’s event demonstrates an excellent example of the tangible, yet less public benefits the inaugural football event presents to South Australia.
“Having investors of this scale in Adelaide en masse is extremely rare. The festival of football has been the catalyst for their visit.
“The presence of this group underscores the opportunities that exist within South Australia.
“Our state has a wealth of global investment opportunities; they have chosen to come here to discover what our business community has to offer”.
Bailey Abbott Group Pty Ltd, a nimble start-up and IT transformation consultancy, was established in October 2020 and has grown from three to sixty staff in three years across eight core business units, presented to the investors.
CEO Tom Carlton described the experience as a fantastic opportunity to build relationships with the investment community as his organisation continues its growth trajectory.
“As a fairly new company on a journey towards innovation and disruption of the information services industry, being able to pitch for capital, to a room of elite-level movers and shakers is an enormous opportunity”, said Mr Carlton.
Invest SA, the entity responsible for bringing stakeholders together was re-established in 2022 following the election of the Malinauskas Labor Government, to focus on driving inbound international and national investment into South Australia.
The investment event comes ahead of today’s official AFL Gather Round Business Lunch, hosted by the South Australian Business Chamber and the AFL where more than 700 businesspeople will come together to hear South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas and AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan highlight the overall economic benefits of the round, and the greater business impact football has on South Australia.
