Open The Pod Bay Doors

Welcome to the latest edition of the OTPBD News Special, our fortnightly series analysing the news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.Meet this week's panel...James Riley, Innovation AusAmanda Price, KPMG High Growth VenturesVuki Vujasinovic, Sling and StoneTopics we discuss:In this news special, we discuss the recent and upcoming IPOs of several Aussie companies including Hipages, Booktopia and Airtasker, as well as global and local funding news like Hopin's recent $125m raise and Aussie accounting platform Bookipi's $1.6m seed round. We also talk about how the recent positive vaccine news and the results of the US election might impact the Australian startup ecosystem.As mentioned in this episode, the 2020 Founder Survey from KPMG High Growth Ventures is now live. If you're a startup founder willing to reflect on your work-life balance, health and wellbeing, participate in the survey here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Patrick Llewellyn is the CEO and President of 99designs, the global creative platform that makes it easy for designers and clients to work together. Patrick is Open the Pod Bay Door's second ever two-time guest. Since we've last chatted with Patrick, a lot has happened for 99designs. 99designs now employs over 100 people, has a community of over 25,000 active freelance designers, and in October, was acquired by global printing giant Vistaprint.In this chat with Ian, Patrick speaks about his lockdown experience living in Melbourne, how a plan for a massive global restructuring was completely disrupted in March by COVID-19, and how a casual coffee meeting with the founder of Vistaprint ultimately led to an acquisition. Patrick dives deep into his mindset and decision making progress around the acquisition and how the company and his role will evolve as a result of the new partnership. Some other topics covered include how reverse brain drain may be impacting the talent market and the key macro insights from the

Welcome to the latest edition of the OTPBD News Special, our fortnightly series analysing the news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.Meet this week's panel...Rebecca Wilson, Starts at 60Justin Lipman, EVPJodie Imam, SBE AustraliaTopics we discuss:In this news special we cover Adore Beauty's ASX debut, lots of recent local raises from the likes of Linktree, Sundrive, Zero Co, v2food, and SafetyCulture and the downfall of Quibi. Elections are up for discussion, including how the outcome of the US election could affect local startups and the results of the Queensland election. We also discuss Antler Sydney's hot streak and the arrival of the "no-code" generation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to a very special milestone for Open the Pod Bay Doors -- our 100th episode! To mark the occasion we brought back some of our favorite guests from the past 3 years of the podcast and asked them what they're most looking forward to in the next 3 years.A rockstar lineup of investors and founders shared their insights: Daniel Petre (E1), Luke Anear (E20 & E79), Niki Scevak (E14), Leigh Jasper (E86), Kate Cornick (E45), Patrick Llewellyn (E26), Ben Keighran (E56), Sam Sicilia (E60), Paul Bassat (E69), Alan Jones (E33), David Walsh (E96), Olympia Yarger (E94), Sam Wong (E42), James Cuda (E43), and Emma Weston (E51). Their vision for the next 3 years certainly has us excited for what's to come.We'd like to extend a huge thank you to our listeners, all of our amazing guests, and our supportive sponsors AWS, AIG Firemark Ventures, KPMG High Growth Ventures, and Macquarie who have made the last 100 episodes possible. Here's to the next 100!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to a fresh edition of the OTPBD News Special, our fortnightly series analysing the news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.Meet this week's panel...Sam Wong, BlackbirdBronwen Clune, InklMick Liubinskas, Director of Product and Growth for BCG Digital Ventures and Author of She's Building A Robot!Topics we discuss:As always, we cover recent local and global deals like 99designs being acquired by Vistaprint, an oversubscribed Epi Minder Series A, Hopin raising a new round at a valuation of as much as $2 billion, and two new deals from agtech-focused VC firm Tenacious Ventures. The panel discusses whether COVID-19 is accelerating reverse brain drain with more Aussies and Kiwis flocking home, the decline in funding for female founders shown in Quarterly VC's funding report, a recent instance of Facebook and Twitter cracking down on fake news and what measures can be taken to regulate the role social media plays in society, à la Social Dilemma. We also talk about a splash for cash for science and

Chris Hitchen is the Germany-based, Australian-born Founder and Managing Partner of Inventures. Inventures invests €100k - €500k globally in early stage tech companies and actively helps founders reach their first institutional VC Round. Chris started out as an entrepreneur; he built and sold price comparison business Getprice to News Corp, eCommerce marketplace Next Commerce to Future PLC and programmatic ad marketplace Hynt to Zalando. He has invested in more than 60 startups. Prior to establishing Inventures, he was an angel investor and worked as Venture Partner with VC funds EQT Ventures, Project A and SquarePeg Capital.In this chat with Phaedon, Chris talks about:His investment thesis and the structure of his portfolioWhat he looks for in a founderWhy he doesn’t join boards anymoreThe backchannels he uses to conduct due diligenceThe LPs that make up his fundRecommendations from Chris:Books - Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Evans, The Road to Character by David BrooksPodcast - The Twenty Minute VC, Noti

Welcome to the OTPBD News Special, our fortnightly series analysing the news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.Meet this week's panel...Tim Burrowes, MumbrellaJackie Vullinghs, AirtreeSteve Fanale, Drive YelloTopics we discuss:Our panel discussed the explosion of e-commerce in Australia, changes to the JobKeeper program, and recent revelations about the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Some other topics include the launch of Amazon's new indoor home drone, Airtree's new explorer program, and easing restrictions in Melbourne. We also talk about recent raises from companies including Airwallex, Airbirds, Snapper and Catalyst and IPOs from Adore Beauty, Palantir and Asana.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daniel Darling is the founder and managing partner of Darling Ventures, an early stage VC firm based in San Francisco. Daniel is an Aussie that's been working in the California tech scene for over a decade. He started his journey on the founding team of Mobile Interactive Group, an advertising tech startup that was acquired by NASDAQ-listed Velti for $60M. Back in 2014 he identified a unique opportunity to build a venture firm that would grant Aussie investors access to US-based investment opportunities. He swapped his operator hat for an investor hat, and founded Darling Ventures. Their specialty is writing the very first check for domain-expert founders using software and data to transform an industry. 6 years on, the firm has made 23 investments to date and recently launched Fund 3, a $30 million pre-seed fund.In this conversation with Phaedon, Daniel discusses his early career experience working in ad tech, his unique investment thesis, and how he prepares portfolio companies for rockstar series A rounds.

Welcome to Innovation Bay's OTPBD News Special, our fortnightly series analysing the news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.Meet this week's panel...Founder: Olympia Yarger, GOTERRAInvestor: Andrea Gardiner, Jelix VenturesEcosystem Leader: Alex McCauly, StartupAusTopics we discuss:Some of the biggest headlines our panel discussed are the continuing war over media bargaining between the Government and the tech giants, and what to expect from the the Federal budget in a few weeks. We also talk about the Safety Culture's first acquisition of EdApp, Atlassian's announcement of a new $70M venture fund, plus Snowflakes record breaking IPO with predictions on which other unicorns will go public.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Large buildings are both economically and environmentally costly to operate. David Walsh saw lots of data flowing in and around these inefficient buildings but there was no focus on using this data to find or fix the root causes of wastage. That's why he founded CIM in 2013. CIM's platform analyses building data to detect faults and inefficiencies that are wasting energy, saving their customers money and improving environmental outcomes. Today, CIM counts 58% of premium grade shopping grade centres in Australia as customers, has offices in Dublin, London and Sydney, and employs just under 40 people.In David's conversation with Ian, he talks about his personal career journey, starting as an Irish backpacker in Australia, how he's attracted an incredibly talented team with a sustainability-focused mission, and the ways to overcome the challenges of enterprise sales. David also discusses why he was determined to bootstrap as long as possible, the importance of maintaining strong company culture, and how CIM doub

Olivia Humphrey is the founder, former CEO, and current executive chairman of Kanopy, the award-winning video streaming service for universities and libraries. She worked in media rights management at the BBC and Village Roadshow for 10 years before founding Kanopy in Perth back in 2008. After growing the business for a few years, Olivia and her young family packed up and moved to San Francisco in 2013 to help Kanopy's overseas expansion. Today, millions of students at thousands of universities use Kanopy's service. Olivia transitioned from CEO to Executive Chairman in 2019 and moved back to Perth. She was recently appointed entrepreneur-in-residence at Curtin University.In this conversation with Phaedon, Olivia talks about...How to think about growing beyond Australia from the startScaling once landing in the USThe pros and cons of bootstrappingThe process of exiting KanopyWhat's next for herSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to the OTPBD News Special, our fortnightly series analysing the news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.Meet the panel...Founder: Emma Weston, AgriDigitalInvestor: Craig Blair, AirTree VenturesEcosystem Leader: Michael Bakto, StartmateTopics we discuss:Some of the biggest headlines our panel discussed include the federal government's news battle vs. Facebook and Google, recent volatility in tech stocks, and big upcoming tech IPOs. We also talk about the launch of Second Quarter Ventures, the new secondary fund from David Tarascio, Andrew Spykes, Ian Beatty, and Leigh Jasper, the role tech jobs will play in Australia's economic recovery, and Elon Musk's Nuralink chip.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Olympia Yarger, founder and CEO of GoTerra, is converting food waste into livestock feed by using robots, AI, and maggots. Yes, maggots. After years of working across many different agriculture sectors, Olympia knew she wanted to find a new way to help farmers and make farms more efficient. It was only when she starting farming insects to feed her own poultry that she stumbled upon the solution. She was blown away by how difficult insect farming was and decided to engineer her own fix; she ended up developing a high-tech solution in which maggots in robot-run automated capsules turn food waste into animal feed and fertiliser. Olympia welded the first prototype herself and GoTerra was born. Since founding GoTerra in 2016, she's steadily scaled operations and recently completed a $6 million Series A round of funding with Grok Ventures and Tenacious Ventures to fuel future growth. Olympia is living proof that with time, passion, and tenacity, you can solve big problems.Some specific topics touched upon in Phaedo

Welcome to the latest edition of OTPBD News Special, Innovation Bay's fortnightly podcast analysing the news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.Meet the panel...Founder: James Ferguson, Immutable GamesInvestor: Niki Scevak, BlackbirdEcosystem: Cheryl Mack, Stone & ChalkTopics we discuss:Our panel covers recent funding news, including raises by See Mode, Buildkite, SpaceX and Blackbird's new fund. Some other key topics include Canva and Atlassian blasting changes to R&D tax scheme, the COVID-19 Global Venture Funding report from Crunchbase, and AirBnb's upcoming IPO. Our panel also discuss the growth of edtech, the formation of a new venture fund for female founders by Marisa Warren and Kate Vale, Expert360's Bridget Loudon joining the Telstra board, and the ongoing battle between Apple and Epic, the creator of Fortnite.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

David Shein first emigrated from South Africa to Australia in 1986. 9 months after touching down he founded his company Com Tech, a specialist supplier of networking and communications products. He grew the business for 14 years and eventually sold it to Dimension Data for over $1bil. At the time of David's exit, Com Tech employed over 1,400 people, had offices Australia wide, and achieved revenues of $700 million. After leaving Com Tech, David transitioned into becoming an investor and mentor to a number of startups. He is the GP and cofounder of Our Innovation Fund, an early stage venture capital fund that invests in exciting Australian startups, as well as a founding partner in the Israeli Venture Capital enterprise, OurCrowd, the first Global Equity Based Crowd Funding Platform.In this episode, David discusses:-Where his love of mentoring startups comes from-Why he feels lucky to have landed a terrible job when he first arrived in Australia-How customer service fueled his company's growth-Why he was calle

Kristo Käärmann is the co-founder and CEO of TransferWise, a peer-to-peer international money transfer business. Kristo Käärmann cofounded TransferWise in London in 2011 with fellow Estonian Taavet Hinrikus, the first employee at Skype. Since then, the business has amassed over 8 million customers and moves more than US$5 billion every month. TransferWise has 2,200 employees in 14 global offices and is valued at US$3.5 billion.In this conversation, Ian and Kristo discuss:• The origin story of TransferWise• Kristo's experiences raising capital• The highlights and challenges Kristo has encountered scaling the company• Impact of the pandemic on TransferWiseSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to the OTPBD News Special, Innovation Bay's fortnightly podcast that analyses the news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.Meet the panel...Founder: Lauren Hall, iVvyInvestor: Bede Moore, Antler Ecosystem Leader: Angus Hervey, FutureCrunchTopics we discuss:In this episode our panel covers ANZ funding news, including raises by Jig Space, Pyn and XYSense, as well as relevant local and global news. Some key topics include Blackbird's new fund, the BigCommerce IPO, and the government's mandate that Google and Facebook pay for news. We also talk about COVID-related news such as Atlassian and Facebook's new WFH policies, some good COVID stories you might have missed, and the big dip in hotel transactions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tom Humphrey is an experienced Aussie entrepreneur and Partner at Access Ventures, a venture capital fund based in Denver, Colorado that invests in early stage technology companies. Before joining Access, Tom helped grow two successful startups, OurDeal and Kanopy. He was COO of OurDeal, a “group-buying” ecommerce website in Australia and helped scale the business to a successful exit to News Corp. Tom was also COO/Director of Sales of Kanopy, a B2B video streaming platform that he saw through an exit to L2 Capital in 2018, delivering a 14x return to investors.In Phaedon's conversation with Tom, the two cover:• The story of building Kanopy with his sister Olivia• How Tom managed rapid growth when OneDeal scaled from 8 employees to 80+ in a year• The segments and markets Tom is excited to invest in• Qualities Tom looks for in a founder• The value of partnering with a VC• Why he lives in Colorado instead of San FranciscoSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sarah Nolet is one of Australia's leading agriculture technology (agtech) experts. She's the founder and CEO of AgThentic, an agtech strategy and advisory firm, and the co-founder of Tenacious Ventures, Australia’s first dedicated agrifood tech VC firm. Sarah also hosts the podcast "Agtech - So What" which tells the story of innovators at the intersection of agriculture and technology.In this episode, Sarah talks about her professional journey moving to Australia and growing the agtech ecosystem here, cofounding a new venture fund, and starting a podcast. She also shares the criteria her fund uses when evaluating food and agriculture startups, the first addition to the Tenacious Ventures portfolio, and some insights about sustainable farming.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to the OTPBD News Special, our fortnightly podcast analysing the news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.Meet the panel...Founder: Billy Tucker, OneFlareInvestor: Melissa Widner, NAB VenturesEcosystem Leader: Gavin Appel, Ignition LaneTopics we discuss:In this episode our panel covers both ANZ happenings and global headlines. Some local topics covered include local funding news, people moves, the best Aussie employers of 2020 and TikTok scrutiny from the Australian government. We also talk about world news like the international boycott Facebook movement, Bitcoin scammers, and COVID app woes around the globe.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.