Home featured Featured Funding | Investment Startup Featured VCs are competing for startups, accelerators are sharing mentors: funding landscape panel James Harkness December 11, 2017 As competition heats up in the venture capital space, it’s becoming tougher for VC firms to participate in funding rounds. Meanwhile, deep-tech startups face difficulties attracting ‘smart money’ in the seed stage because investors lack domain expertise and patience. These were some of the takeaway message from a panel discussion held at the Global Mobile Internet Conference in Sydney last week. [Related: Why the startup ecosystem needs more non-technical entrepreneurs, not stereotypes ] The panel, “Growing complexity and opportunities in the funding landscape”, included Phil Morle (Partner, CSIRO innovation Fund – Main Sequence Ventures & ex-CEO, Pollenizer), Jing Guo (GM, International Department, Galaxy Group), Peter Huynh (Partner & Co-founder, Qualgro VC & ex-director, Optus Innov8) and Petra Andrén (CEO, Cicada Innovations). Morle, as the panel moderator, kicked off the discussion by asking his fellow panellists if there was any truth to the saying, amongst VCs, that “good companies always get funded”. First to bite was Huynh. The Ex-Optus Innov8 director said that, in his experience, “great teams do get funded… eventually.” He continued, “It takes teams a lot of time and effort outside of the business to prepare yourself for an effective capital raise. You have to prepare all your materials, including your investor presentation and financial model, as well as your data room and the list of VCs you’ll be targeting. It’s a long