Interested in sponsoring Silicon Beach?
Last updated 11 May 2020
COVID-19 UPDATE
Online events
We have successfully pivoted all our events online. To help our sponsors during the COVID-19 pandemic, we are offering special rates and deals. Here is a summary of the current sponsor offerings as of May 2020.
Community Sponsorships
3 months $2,100
6 months $3,600
12 months $6,000
(No GST. We are below the threshold for f/year 2019/20)
Community sponsors are entitled to co-host online events (via Zoom) such as webinars, panel discussions, presentations during their sponsorship period. These events will be listed on all Silicon Beach meetups in Australia. Currently there are 8 Silicon Beach meetups in the Silicon Beach Group network — Melbourne (13k+ Silicon Beachers), Sydney (nearly 5k), Brisbane (3k), Adelaide, Launceston, Geelong, Darwin & Ballarat. That’s over 20,000 Silicon Beachers.
Events will be recorded on Zoom Cloud and uploaded to Silicon Beach TV, youtube channel, giving you more exposure.
These events would also be listed on Eventbrite, LinkedIn (as LinkedIn events and promoted via LinkedIn posts) and Facebook Events (linked to Eventbrite) to attract interested people outside of our community. Click throughs will be measured via bitly links and information shared with you.
Community Sponsors are entitled to have a dedicated EDM sent out to the whole Silicon Beach network of communities via the Meetup email gateway once per month.
Other sponsorship opportunities
We are now hosting a wide variety of online events – virtual pitch nights, virtual networking events, webinars, online presentations and social event. Many of these are recorded and uploaded to our youtube channel, Silicon Beach TV. This gives you the opportunity to buy In-Event Advertisements.
These are 30 second ads within the event and viewable in the replay on YouTube. Ask us for the rates of in-event ads.
Community Sponsors will be acknowledged within our online events so if you come in as a Community Sponsor, there is no need to buy in-event ads.
Event Sponsorship
In addition to above, we are always ready to discuss your specific sponsorship requirements – whether it’s a specific event sponsorship, in-event ad or something else.
Please get in touch with us to discuss – siliconbeachaustralia@gmail.com
Here is the Sponsor Deck
Please note: The information below relates to the period before COVID-19 .
Read the information below and please get in touch with us, if you have other sponsorship ideas. We are always open to innovation and happy to try new ideas.
We are Silicon Beach Group Ltd, a Not For Profit Company incorporating Melbourne Silicon Beach with a membership of 13,500+ (and counting), firmly on track to become the largest tech/startup community on Meetup.com in Australia. We also represent all the Silicon Beach meetup groups around Australia – Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Darwin, Geelong, Ballarat & Launceston. Perth to be added soon along with new meetups opening around the nation.
Silicon Beachers (as we are known) are a diverse bunch. We are a motley collection of startup founders, wannabe founders and techies who could be working on web or mobile apps, cloud computing, graphic/web design, video, photography, IoT, 3D printing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmented reality, virtual reality, voice recognition, robotic, space tech, agtech, fintech to any other field that’s emerging.
Of late we have been attracting a lot of “corporate refugees” (lawyers, accountants, marketing professionals to mining engineers) and creative “arty” types curious about tech startups. And of course a smattering of investors too (some stay ‘under cover’). We have a healthy mix of small businesses, professionals, freelancers who are service providers to the startup community.
We are proud of our inclusiveness — with people of all ages, ethnic backgrounds, education and happy to say the gender balance is improving with around 25% female members. We need to do more work in this area — your sponsorship will help.
While people join most meetups and community groups to meet “like minded people”, on Silicon Beach you are more likely to meet people who don’t think like you. It’s place where you will be challenged and encouraged to think about innovative solutions in collaboration with people with different mindsets. Our events on Meetup are designed to cater to this diverse community.
Membership of our meetup groups are free. We believe that lack of money should not hold anyone back from having a go at launching a startup. We know that best founders come from disadvantaged backgrounds. They have experienced “the pain points” first hand and have a good grasp on how to solve problems of the world.
While membership of our meetup groups will always remain free, soon we will launch a subscription based model for premium educational content and rewards for financial members. Your sponsorship will help keep this subscription model accessible to all members – even those with low income.
We are part of the Australia wide Silicon Beach network. The plan is to strengthen and expand this network and take our passion for #EmpoweringFounders and fostering innovation to regional & rural Australia too.
Our BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) is to make Australia the #2 startup nation in the world by 2025. We are currently #5 nation (source : startupblink.com – switch to country view). Your sponsorship will help us reach this goal.
How will sponsoring Silicon Beach benefit YOU?
Associating your brand with Silicon Beach will help acquire mind share among the startup community. Not just in Melbourne but across Australia and very soon across Asia.
Sponsoring & co-hosting an event is an efficient way to deliver more awareness about your company to a prime, target audience — the tech & startup community — the future leaders of our increasingly tech enabled world.
The ROI on your sponsorship can not be measured in $$s alone.. there is a huge intangible component that is hard to measure. We are happy to talk about tailoring a sponsorship package to cover your specific needs.
Will you qualify?
We offer Sponsorship opportunities only to companies, organisations, startups and small businesses that ‘fit’ our community. If we think your service or product does not fit within our mission of “empowering founders”, we will tell you upfront. You will be better off spending your sponsorship dollars elsewhere.
Please note our sponsorships are non-exclusive. You may find other organisations that are your ‘competitors’ sponsoring us. That is part and parcel of building a healthy startup eco-system. We must all pull together to build and grow the eco-system. If this is a problem for your business or organisation, then we are sorry, you can not be our sponsor.
Community Sponsorship Rates (Pre – COVID 19)
During COVID-19 we have slashed these prices by 50% (see the top of this sponsor deck)
3 months $4,200 (now $2,100)
6 months $7,200 (now $3,600)
12 months $12,000 (now $6,000)
There is no GST because our turnover is below the GST registration threshold for the 2019/20 financial year,
Commit for a longer period and save. There is absolutely no pressure to continue if you think it’s not of value to you.
Minimum sponsorship commitment is 3 months - it’s the optimum time needed to create proper engagement and obtain mind share.
Other types of Sponsorship
If Community Sponsorships are beyond your budget, fear not. We have other options for you. If you have a once off event or project you would like to promote to our community we could do that or send a Sponsored EDM to the whole Melbourne Silicon Beach community via Meetup. Ask us for a quote.
So how do I sponsor?
Glad you asked. Send us an email siliconbeachaustralia@gmail.com or join our Slack channel and tell us you would like to sponsor us. And we will take care of the rest.
What do you get for your Community Sponsorship?
1) Your Community Sponsorship will be announced to members through an introductory EDM via Meetup.com’s email gateway (Meetup does not reveal the email addresses of our members to us). Sponsors get 1 dedicated EDM per month for the duration of their sponsorship.
2) Your logo displayed on our website linked to your website or landing page.
3) Co-branded and co-hosted events. These events will be listed on MSB Meetup, our website, Eventbrite, LinkedIn etc. Events should be beneficial and/or educational to our community.
4) Acknowledgment at our MSB Drinks & Pitch Night which are videoed and uploaded to our SB TV YouTube channel.
5) Exposure and acknowledgment as a sponsor via our social media channels – Twitter, Facebook & Instagram. Our team is active on LinkedIn in their personal profiles. Expect to get a lot of exposure via LinkedIn.
7) The warm and fuzzy feeling you get from knowing you are supporting Melbourne’s (And Australia’s) startup eco-system and contributing to our efforts of #EmpoweringFounders.
8) The even warmer and fuzzier feeling you get from knowing that you are one of the pioneers supporting the early startup phase of Australia’s answer to Silicon Valley — connected Silicon Beach communities around Australia. Some of these founders could be the millionaires and billionaires of the future – imagine them knowing that it was your startup, small business or professional service that supported them in their early days!
9) Want even more bang for your sponsorship dollar? Talk to us. We are listening. We are ever willing to accomodate all reasonable requests!
10) While our largest community is in Melbourne, we are now able to offer your exposure across Sydney & Brisbane as well as Adelaide, Darwin and some of the regional cities. The three cities of Sydney, Melbourne & Brisbane easily covers 70% of Australia’s startup community.
What will we do with the funds?
Glad you asked.
Your funds will help us open new Silicon Beach communities in Hobart & Canberra and several regional cities. We have several projects in the pipeline. Eg. SiliconSchool — educational classes, courses and events by our community for the community.
We have plans to help our early stage founders who pitch their ideas at our pitch nights with access to capital, co-founders and mentors etc. A SiliconIncubator.
There are events planed to connect our founders and the broader community to the Silicon Valley and other startup eco-systems around the world.
Upto now Silicon Beach has been a volunteer run organisation. But as we navigate the COVID-19 pandemic we have to be sustainable and financially strong. We plan to offer employment to our hardest working volunteers. Your sponsorships ensure that we are able to do this ensure the long term growth of Silicon Beach.
Come. Make history with us.
Have questions?
Join us on Slack and chat to the team or email siliconbeachaustralia@gmail.com
Looking forward to your sponsorship and thanks in advance.
See you on the Beach!
Team Silicon Beach
#EmpoweringFounders
