We are very pleased to announce that BugHerd has received a $500k investment from local Australian venture captital firm Starfish Ventures.

Starfish Ventures is a Melbourne based firm that has been investing in innovative Australian technology startups for over a decade. They have been backing some impressive local startups, such as Design Crowd and iSelect.

We first met with Starfish after a pitch event we participated in as part of Startmate program back in April 2011. Even though at that stage it was too early for us to be seeking investment, we felt they would be a great partner to work with and kept in regular contact with them throughout the year. A lot of startups are in a rush to get over to the US these days, but we’re keen to show that with the right support you can do it all from here, without compromising the business.

Tony Glenning, Starfish Ventures’ lead on the investment, said: “We are strong believers in what the BugHerd team is aiming to achieve. We could see how the products available on the market really weren’t usable by non-technical users, leaving a huge gap in the market for a solution like BugHerd. The guys have really identified a strong customer pain point and developed a remarkable product to meet it.”

The main reason for us taking on funding is to hire great talent and scale the product. We have a really good product at the moment but it is squarely focussed on smaller agencies. We’re now looking to expand that vision. We’re also bringing on support in marketing (hiring a new Marketing Manager – James MacGregor last week) and looking for talented front-end developers (send your resumes to jobs@bugherd.com!).

We’re very grateful to all our customers that have helped shape BugHerd’s future, and eternally thankful to our mentors Niki Scevak and Alan Jones. With this investment we’re confident we can grow the product and meet the vision we’ve all shared.