Open The Pod Bay Doors

This week, we’re excited to share a very special episode featuring our first ever ‘trio’ on the pod who discussed the impact, role, and necessity of Australian startup boards. Ian sat down with Amanda Price, Head of KPMG High Growth Ventures, Anthony Sochan, Partner at Think & Grow and Martin Dalgleish, Partner at Morpheus Ventures, for an in-depth exploration about company boards - discussing everything from how to create successful boards, to tackling board diversity, to when to start creating boards? Recently, KPMG High Growth Ventures and Think & Grow teamed together recently to produce a brilliant and comprehensive report titled The Startup Board Report, interviewing 26 startup board directors globally and surveying over 70 Australian startups. Some key stats they found include:40% of late-stage startups don’t have an independent board member50% of startups compensate board members with cash or equity76% of startups don't have a diversity target in place65% of startups don’t recruit board members

Recognised as somewhat of a startup celebrity, Steve Baxter is an entrepreneur, investor, and best known as one of the (more sharkier) sharks on Australia’s Shark Tank. We were excited to have Steve this week on #OTPBD to look back on his early telco & internet startup successes, deep dive into his considerable career, and listen to his strong opinions on government & politics, climate change and more.** As you may know, Steve is very direct and can be sometimes outspoken on topics, which was no special case for this episode. As a climate change skeptic, Steve definitely put up a thought-provoking debate with Ian on the topic of clean energy - definitely worth the listen! A short spoiler about this Ep.Steve’s career started at the young age of when he joined the army and was recruited as a solider with contract for 9 years. At 23, he and his partner took out a home loan for $11,000, which became used to launch his first startup, an internet service provider, SE Net from one of the spare rooms from his

On first thought, a Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of a superannuation fund seems an unlikely guest for Open The Pod Bay Doors. However, you'll soon hear how Sam Sicilia, Hostplus’ CIO of 10 years, has become a driver for investment into VC, and is overall passionate about tech innovation for the future prosperity of the Australian economy.We were excited to have Sam on the pod who gave us some great insights into Hostplus’ investments. Last year, Hostplus invested over $1 billion into venture capital, making the fund Australia’s largest VC investor, with capital into Blackbird Ventures ($160M), The IP Group ($100M), Artesian ($135M) & Main Sequence Ventures ($70M) to name a few. As one of Australia’s largest superfunds with almost $40B under management, Hostplus has become one of the most influential figures in the Australian tech venture capital sceneSam also discussed how their first dedicated VC investment (into Blackbird Ventures) came about, and delved into the importance of relationships with fund

On today’s pod, we feature an exceptional female entrepreneur, who’s also an investor, advisor, board member, and mum of 3. We’re excited to celebrate International Women’s Day this year with a brilliant guest, Jane Martino.Melbourne local, Jane Martino has had an impressive career so far, and she’s only just getting started. Recently appointed as Executive Director - Ventures for VC firm, Light Warrior, Jane has a passion for investing and advising early stage ventures and businesses particularly in the areas of health/wellness, consumer, retail & FMCG and those with a social impact.Previous to this, Jane was CEO of Unlockd, which raised $40M, and also built a number of dynamic businesses, two of which had successful exits: Undertow Media, acquired by Bastion Collective, and Shout, acquired by ANZ Bank. Her third business, the non-for-profit, Smiling Mind, a program centred around delivering free online mindfulness meditation programs, has now over 3 million users globally.In this ep, Jane shares some ex

Guinevere CapitalOn today's pod we're talking all things esports with Dave Harris founder of .What are esports we hear you say? Esports refers to organised competitive gaming among professional players, the most popular games are generally team-based multi-player games. Just a bunch of dudes playing video games? Think again, the esports industry has grown at a tremendous pace over the past few years. According to Newzoo, total eSports revenue jumped from $493 million in 2016 to an estimated $900 million in 2018!Dave is the founder and Managing Director of Guinevere Capital, which owns and operates many of Australia's biggest esports teams. Hailing from a background of commercial success in "traditional" sports like Rugby League, Dave has brought a huge degree of professionalism to the emerging world of esports.Guinevere owns several teams such as the LG Dire Wolves (League of Legends), the Sydney Drop Bears (Overwatch) and Supa-Stellar (a female Counter Strike team). Recently Guinevere completed a deal to acq

In the latest Ep of Open The Pod Bay Doors, Phaedon spoke with the brilliant Aussie entrepreneur, Geoff McQueen, co-founder of Accelo, and Executive Director of the Aussie Founder Network based in Silicon Valley. Geoff is one of those founder’s that truly knows how to grow a business. In this episode, Geoff gives us some fantastic insights into capital raising in the US, and what it takes to make it in Silicon Valley.Born and raised in Wollongong, Geoff dropped out of the University of Wollongong to focus on running his first business in 2000, a full spectrum digital agency called Internetrix. Within in this field, Geoff saw a problem around SMEs and their internal business management, and after performing lots of customer development around an idea, Accelo was born in 2009. In May 2011, Geoff was invited to exhibit at Google IO - Google's annual developers conference, and in July that same year, decided to take the plunge to move and launch Accelo in the US without any capital, and running on a little bit of

Ben Keighran is an intelligent and down-to-earth founder, advisor and investor, who knows all about growing a great business and what it takes to make it in Silicon Valley. Phaedon Opened the Pod Bay Doors to Ben so we could talk about Caffeine, a social broadcasting platform for gaming, sport and entertainment, which Ben co-founded in 2016. We also deep-dived into Ben's perennial entrepreneurial career. He moved from Sydney to San Francisco in 2007 where he raised $US6.5 for his social media company, BluePulse, and founded the app discovery/search engine service, Chomp, which became acquired by Apple for $50M. In this Ep, Ben offers valuable advice about raising money in Silicon Valley, having recently closed a huge $146m in VC funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners and Lachlan Murdoch's 21st Century Fox. Ben epitomises the word entrepreneur and is an overall fantastic guest to learn from. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Have trouble understanding Quantum Physics? Don’t worry - it's hard to get a grasp on the theory. This week on the pod however, we spoke with an incredibly fascinating guest who articulately explained quantum mechanics in layman's terms, and described how his product is disrupting the future of quantum computers.We #OTPBD to Professor, Michael J. Biercuk: quantum physicist and technologist at the University of Sydney, Chief Investigator in the Australian Research Council and founder & CEO of Q-CTRL. Q-CTRL is an intuitive cloud platform that uses quantum control theory to solve the hardest problems facing quantum technology, improving hardware performance and accelerating pathways to useful quantum computers and other technologies. Utilising professionally developed tools, Q-CTRL puts deep expertise in quantum control into individuals hands.Michael’s research as a Quantum Physicist has been recognised with accolades including the Eureka Prize for Outstanding Young Researcher (2015), selection as one of th

We're pleased to welcome Kevin Baum and Justin Webb, cofounders of AgriWebb on this week's episode of Open The Pod Bay Doors.AgriWebb is Australia's market leader of software for livestock farmers, designed to “digitise the notebooks that sat in the top pockets of Australian farmers". The platform digitises record-keeping and takes audit and compliance data to help farmers make better decisions and improve productivity.Justin Webb and Kevin Baum, along with their other cofounder John Fargher started the business in 2014, with a mission to fundamentally transform global cattle and sheep production with their farm management software that delivers profitability, provenance and sustainability across the supply chain in the face of an impending global food crisis.Globally, AgriWebb is now used on 2800 farms, 1700 of which are in Australia, and is also expanding rapidly into the UK and Brazil. The company has grown to around 40 employees split between Australia & UK, and they've successfully raised over $21M i

Last week, we hosted a breakfast with Sarah Leary, the phenomenal founder of US-unicorn, Nextdoor, as they launched their social network for neighbourhood communities in Australia. For those not lucky enough to attend, fear not, Ian brought along his recording gear so we could capture Sarah’s amazing story and experience for building great communities and share with you.Nextdoor was launched in the US in 2011 as a social network for people to interact with others who live in their physical neighborhoods. Neighbourhoods across the US rely on the platform to engage with their community, and in the past year, the service became available in several countries across Europe.What many people don’t know, is that before Nextdoor’s success, Sarah and her co-founders Nirav Tolia, Prakash Janakiraman and David Wiesenhad already tried building a startup. It was called ‘Fanbase,’ a platform for sports fans to congregate and share information, and it was live for 2 years before Sarah realised that it didn’t have real poten

Welcome to episode 52 of Open The Pod Bay Doors. This week we dive into career and experience of Michelle Deaker, Managing Parter at OneVentures. The firm has $330M in funds under management. Michelle serves on the investment committee of OneVentures three main Funds, leads the technology practice within the firm and is responsible for investor relations managing the supervisory boards of OneVentures funds.As well as being a VC, Michelle is also a scientist who double majored in Physics and Chemistry. Michelle has always had a passion for science, holding a Bachelor of Science (Honours 1st class), Master of Science a PhD (Applied Science), and her first role was in mineral physics at CSIRO. For Michelle, science teaches you how to learn.In the late nineties Michelle built an e-commerce store called Giftvouchers.com, which she started by owning every gift voucher domain name before turning it into one of the first Australian Fintech companies. Michelle raised $6.5M from HNW's to fund the venture, as they pivo

AgriDigitalThis week on the pod we are joined by cofounder and CEO of , Emma Weston.Former lawyer and experienced grain farmer Emma Weston co-founded AgriDigital in 2015, with the goal to solve the current problems facing the agricultural supply chains with blockchain technology.Emma experienced first hand the inefficiencies within the agricultural supply chain and is passionate about ensuring wheat farmers get paid fast and fairly. The solution, a platform that uses the blockchain to provide transparency around transactions to all participants in the supply chain and builds end-to-end transactional management from farmer to consumer.The company has rapidly grown in a few short years; from the cofounders (Emma, Bob McKay, and Ben Reid) and one engineer, to a team of almost 50 people, they launched the platform in 2017, have over 1800 user, and have processed around 3 million tonnes of grain through the platform.In early 2018, Square Peg Capital invested $5.5 million Series A funding round to help expansion pl

We're back with our second ‘Sunrise Island’ special of Open The Pod Bay Doors. A few weeks ago, the Innovation Bay team along with over 1000 founders, investors, students & enthusiasts, set-sail for the infamous Cockatoo Island, also known as, Sunrise Island.Blackbird Ventures annual conference was back, bigger and better than ever. The day long event featured inspiring keynote speakers, an abundance of workshops (powered by Zambesi), mentor sessions with Startmate, and plenty of opportunities to network. You could feel a real buzz on the island as the best of #startupaus caught up with old and new faces in the ecosystem.Sunrise is the celebration of Australian startup founders. Sunrise organiser and Blackbird Head of Community, Joel Connolly said it best. “It’s time to start celebrating startup founders in the same way we celebrate artists, sports heroes, and politicians.”In that same vein, these two episode strive to highlight and share the successes and learnings of founders and others within the vibra

This week is the first of two ‘Sunrise Island’ special episodes of Open The Pod Bay Doors. A few weeks ago, the Innovation Bay team along with over 1000 founders, investors, students & enthusiasts, set-sail for the infamous Cockatoo Island, also known as, Sunrise Island.Blackbird Ventures annual conference was back, bigger and better than ever. The day long event featured inspiring keynote speakers, an abundance of workshops (powered by Zambesi), mentor sessions with Startmate, and plenty of opportunities to network. You could feel a real buzz on the island as the best of #startupaus caught up with old and new faces in the ecosystem.Sunrise is the celebration of Australian startup founders. Sunrise organiser and Blackbird Head of Community, Joel Connolly said it best. “It’s time to start celebrating startup founders in the same way we celebrate artists, sports heroes, and politicians.”In that same vein, in the next two episodes we strive to highlight and share the successes and learnings of founders and o

This week, we ‘Open The Pod Bay Doors’ with Craig Blair, cofounder and managing partner of AirTree Ventures – a startup venture fund on a mission to invest in ambitious founders who are looking to transform industry’s with software.AirTree like to be on the journey with founder from the beginning, often writing the first cheque. The first fund in 2014 was $60M which they deployed in 2 years, making 24 investments; this included early cheques in some of Australia’s startup darlings, like Prospa and Canva. The fund is tracking well with all 24 businesses still operating.The second fund increased five-times to an incredible $250M in 2016, with 15 investments made so far. The larger fund has given AirTree more operating capital to deploy into support services like a talent function to service their portfolio companies to help them build great teams for growth. This model is common in the US and UK, but in Australia it’s still a novel concept due to the limited number of funds and their size. 60% of fund two has b

Last month, we visited the thriving ecosystem in Adelaide, and were lucky enough to sit down with two cofounders of one of the best local startups, Noelle and Ben Smit from Teamgage.A positive company culture is an undeniable asset for any successful business, but monitoring and tracking corporate culture is hard to do. Step in Teamgage, which offers actionable and elegant workplace analytics in real-time for companies that want to make evidence-based decisions.Husband and wife team Noelle and Ben Smit are passionate about solving this problem with technology and data analytics that helps energise and motivate teams to do their best work.Their solution uses a unique 20 second interface and machine learning to help organisations embed a culture of continuous improvement. It allows employees to make evidence-based decisions, and creates an environment in which everyone can do their best work.Teamgage was part of the Adelaide Techstars 2017 cohort and is already being used by some major organisations like Micros

This week on the pod we're turning our focus to the importance of founder health and wellbeing.We invited Aaron Birkby, CEO Startup Catalyst and Co-founder of Peak Persona, and welcomed back Amanda Price Head of High Growth Ventures to the pod discuss this topic.KPMG Australia’s High Growth Ventures just released the findings from their Startup Founder Survey, supported by Blackbird Ventures, AirTree Ventures, Square Peg Capital, Reinventure and Right Click Capital, which polled founders of 70 Australian venture-backed startups.The report validates a lot of assumptions about startup founders; they work longer hours than average workers, two-third are very or extremely stressed, and 57 percent said that their stress has a large impact on the ability of their startup to succeed. Amanda explains they commissioned the research to shine a spotlight on some of the “unspoken challenges” founders face and highlight the link between founder wellbeing and business performance.Read the full report: //home.kpmg.com/au/en

This week on the pod we're discussing the role of Government in helping to build sustained tech ecosystems with Dr Kate Cornick, CEO of LaunchVic.LaunchVic is an independent agency established by the Victorian Government with a $60M fund to support and grow the state's startup ecosystem, increase investment and create jobs.Rather than investing in startups directly, they've made over 50 investments through grand funding rounds to support accelerators, education programs, mentoring and startup events that directly help entrepreneurs.And it's working, there have been over 510 investment deals in Victoria across the last 10 years in tech startups, there are over 107 different coworking spaces across the region, and with 1 in 5 startups in the Health space, they want to make Victoria known as the global HeathTech hub.But there is still work to be done, Kate discusses fixing the 457 visa, the skills gap within Product, product management, product design, the need for more later stage investment (Series A +), and h

This week we open the pod bay doors with Jane Lu, founder & CEO of Showpo, an Australian online fashion retailer.Jane is a remarkable woman with a remarkable story. The only child of Chinese immigrants she moved to Australia when she was 8 years old. Like many immigrant families, her parents provided her with every encouragement and opportunity to be a success in her now native Australia. She aced her HSC's with a 99.5% ATAR and went on to what many would see as a dream career with KPMG and Ernst & Young. However this path was a little dull for intrepid entrepreneur Jane, so after returning from travel abroad, decided to sacrifice everything to venture into the fashion retail industry.Most entrepreneurs have their fair share of setbacks and challenges on their way to a successful outcome.Jane was no different with her Showpo story. The setbacks kept her motivated and she preserved to build a brilliant business that she owns 100% of, has never taken a dime of outside investment, that is well on track t

James Cuda is the CEO and Founder of Savage Interactive. Based in Hobart Tasmania, Savage Interactive, http://savage.si/ is the creator of the number one creativity app for ipad globally, Procreate.   James started life as an artist in Sydney, taught himself multimedia design, started a consulting firm, which he shut down to focus 100% on building Procreate.  His vision and passion was to build the best creativity tool in the world. He works as the CEO & Founder and also Head of Product.  Procreate has won an Apple Design Award (one of only a very few Aussie companies to have achieved this), which saw him being flown over to Apple in CA.  He is now a frequent visitor to the Apple campus in Cupertino. James started the company in Hobart and now has over 20 people based in the Hobart HQ.  He has resisted the pressure of hiring people outside of Hobart, as he believes that proximity is important to building a strong working culture.  The app is exclusive to the ipad, which is now being used by professional a