Attivare — to start, to activate, to put into operation. The name was the brief: activate Australian innovation.
The story begins with the Turnbull Government’s National Innovation and Science Agenda. Its Tax Incentives for Innovation Bill 2016 passed the Senate on 4 May 2016, giving investors in early-stage innovation companies a 20% non-refundable tax offset and an exemption from capital gains tax for shares held for at least 12 months.
In an interview with Acuity in June 2016, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull explained the thinking. A technology start-up is too risky to qualify for an unsecured bank loan, so early-stage businesses are “really more suited for equity”. The incentive was designed to go after “the very early stage where we felt there was a degree of market failure”.
He was just as clear about culture. Australians had to be rewarded “for having a go, even if it doesn’t work”, and organisations had to “intelligently experiment and if something doesn’t work then cut it quickly and learn from it”.
Seedchange was founded in 2017 to put that agenda into practice: help founders qualify as Early Stage Innovation Companies, fund them in stages, keep the ideas that work and close the ones that do not. Attivare took the same discipline further.
By 2023 the Seedchange method had shown that a disciplined, fail-fast approach to early-stage companies worked. But it had limits. Seedchange start-ups were funded by founders’ families and friends, in modest amounts, and founders were asking for longer runways and larger commitments so they could attempt bigger and bolder innovation.
David Strybosch, who had worked with Seedchange on ipRenewal, joined Eric Ranson and Peter Topperwien to form Attivare. The aim was to take the same risk-management discipline to sophisticated and wholesale investors, and to give founders more time to prove their ideas.
Early-stage companies that met the ESIC tests applied online, published their offer documents and business plans, and were introduced to sophisticated and wholesale investors.
Attivare provided templates and guides for incorporation, ESIC self-assessment and compliance, so founders spent their time on the idea, not the paperwork.
Attivare took a small equity stake in each start-up and acted as company secretary. If the company succeeded, so did Attivare.
Each start-up worked to an agreed budget, with risk and compliance management, so that progress was measured and money followed results.
Ideas that gained traction kept going. Ideas that could not go on were stopped early, cleanly and cheaply.
Attivare helped two companies raise $17m: GNR Media, now a trading business valued at $50m, and Actuarial Insights, which closed cleanly when a change in the ATO’s interpretation of the ESIC rules removed any path to further funding. Attivare raised no further funding after June 2024, stopped trading in early 2025 and was deregistered in March 2026.
Co-founder · Marketing
David has more than 25 years’ experience providing tailored solutions for individuals and businesses, with a long commitment to social impact and sustainability. He led Attivare’s marketing and is the founder of GNR Media, which grew out of his work taking ipRenewal to market.
Co-founder · Actuary
Eric is a Fellow of the Actuaries Institute with a BA and a Master of Applied Finance from Macquarie University, and more than 30 years in risk management. A pioneer of Australian securitisation, he was Treasurer of Australian Mortgage Securities. At Attivare he worked with founders on structured risk management in early-stage fundraising, and founded Actuarial Insights.
Co-founder · Lawyer
Peter is an admitted legal practitioner with more than 40 years’ experience in business and insurance law. He built Australia’s largest shelf-company business, pioneered the life settlement market in Australia and the United States, and co-founded Seedchange. At Attivare he looked after corporate compliance and financial record-keeping.
Founders, former investors and anyone interested in the Attivare story are welcome to contact us. Attivare has ceased trading and does not raise funds or list companies.
This website is published by Cootheservices Pty Ltd (ABN 44 616 928 897), trading as Seedchange.