Podcasts about innovation bay

In this episode of 'The Wisdom Of' Show, host Simon Bowen engages with David Kenney, founder of StartGrowth and veteran startup advisor, about the art of capital allocation, building investable businesses, and the fundamental principles that drive entrepreneurial success. From his early days selling orange juice subscriptions at 14 to helping raise billions in capital, David shares profound insights on what makes entrepreneurs and businesses truly successful.Ready to unlock your leadership potential and drive real change? Join Simon's exclusive masterclass on The Models Method. Learn how to articulate your unique value and create scalable impact: https://thesimonbowen.com/masterclassEpisode Breakdown: 00:00 Introduction and background 08:15 Understanding capital allocation 15:23 Communication and influence in business 22:47 What makes founders investable 31:16 The role of mental models 38:42 Entrepreneurship accessibility 45:15 Rapid-fire questions and conclusionAbout David KenneyFounder of Start Growth, David Kenney, is a key figure in Australian business and is respected for impacting the nation's most promising entrepreneurs and CEO's over the last two decades. His genuine, down-to-earth approach to mentorship and advisory has made him an indispensable ally to business founders, investors, and leaders, navigating them through growth, strategy, and innovation complexities.A sought-after speaker, David has graced the stages of events like The Sunrise, StartCon, B2B Rocks, Innovation Bay and Business Mastery, captivating audiences with his insights into achievable entrepreneurship for everyone, not just those traditionally seen as 'business people.' His role as host for Sydney's Startup Grind further underscores his commitment to fostering a dynamic entrepreneurial community. David's passion for mentoring shines through, inspiring a new generation of leaders.Connect with DavidLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidkenneyofficial/About Simon Bowen Simon has spent over two decades working with some of the most influential leaders across many complex industries and circumstances. His very clear finding is that thinking is valued less than doing in almost every situation in our modern world. However, Simon has conversely observed that the power and success of any business, project or organization will be in direct proportion to the level and quality of thinking of the people and the quality of the idea or ideas on which it is built. As such, Simon is leading the renaissance of thinking.Connect with SimonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonbowen-mm/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialsimonbowen/Website: https://thesimonbowen.com/Get Simon Bowen's Personal Newsletter for Leaders, Thinkers, and Entrepreneurs!

Join us for part 2 of our “studio on the road” at Sunrise, Blackbird's annual festival of the startup ecosystem.   Armed with his roving podcast mic, Innovation Bay's Co-Founder and podcast host, Ian Gardiner, was lucky enough to tap the mind's of some of Sunrise's stellar speakers.    During this ep, you'll hear from:  

Our guest this week is Leah Kaplan, APAC Sustainability Business Lead at Google Cloud. Leah's passion for sustainability stems from her deep love of nature. Leah held a number of consulting technology roles before her dream job came up at Google Cloud - where she now sits at the nexus of technology and sustainability.    Sustainability has been a core value at Google for 25 years who are looking to minimise their impact on the planet while helping others to do the same. In 2007, Google became the first major company to become carbon neutral. In 2017 Google was the first company to achieve a 100% renewable energy match - this means purchasing renewable energy that covers all energy usage for all of Google which they've done every year since. Google has data centres running 24/7 solely on carbon free energy. One of their key goals by 2030 is to have every data centre around the world run on carbon free energy. Google is forecast to spend $10B on renewable energy this year alone!    As  the whole world struggles with climate change, how do businesses begin to understand the impact climate change is going to have on them in the future? Leah's role as Sustainability Business Lead for APAC at Google is fascinating and impactful, with an emphasis on encouraging and helping corporate customers to achieve their sustainability goals via the Google Cloud platform. There are myriad sustainability areas to focus on - not just gas emissions. These include water stewardship, waste reduction, circulatory in products, optimisation - all areas that technology can help with - particularly AI.    One of the pressures Leah observes with the customers she engages with is that many of those in younger generations are willing to pay more for products that are sustainably sourced and will show loyalty to brands that have a sustainability mission. Leah helps companies tackle these challenges by working with them to assess a measurement framework and benchmark, help them to become compliant against regulation, assist companies to make data-driven critical business decisions, guide them in optimising with what they do have, and help to seek out aligned sustainability growth opportunities. She also emphasises that companies with strong sustainability initiatives attract top talent.   This hugely educational and fascinating discussion cover so much more... take a listen.   Interested in learning more about how Google Cloud can assist you to reach sustainability goals? Head to Google Cloud's website, sign up for free and receive $300 in credit, or reach out to your Google rep or Innovation Bay who will put you in touch.     Book: Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen and Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie Podcast: The Energy Gang and Stuff You Should Know  News Source: The Guardian  Productivity Tool: Calendar and Kanban Board  CEO: Melanie Perkins, Canva  App: Signal  TV Show: The Wire  TEDTalk Topic: Geospatial analytics and its impact on sustainabilitySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Proud Canberran and past North Carolina coleslaw wrestling competitor, Olympia Yarger is an incredibly resilient, dedicated, inspiring and super hands-on Founder & CEO of Goterra, a waste management technology company that uses autonomous robotic systems to process food waste using insects. The company enables a circular economy by creating agricultural commodities from the waste stream.    Goterra is paving the way for a circular economy by transforming waste into agricultural commodities, all while significantly reducing truck movement and processing costs. Learn about the remarkable environmental impact of Goterra's technology, which eliminates noxious gasses and slashes emissions by an impressive 97%.   Having spoken to her on the podcast 3 years ago, it was our pleasure to touch base with Olympia again on her fascinating journey from sheep farmer to maggot farmer, the incredible growth Goterra has had over the past 3 years while being incredibly efficient with the capital they have raised (just $20M since 2019) all with a laser focus on Goterra's mission to redefine waste management for a more sustainable future.    On the topic of mental health, Olympia has been working from home more frequently to limit distractions and, after a tough year personally in 2023, has made a commitment to ride her horse at least 5 times a week. As part of Innovation Bay's Summit community, Olympia has had some of her most meaningful experiences at Summit events. Though it can be difficult to get to the events amongst the day to day commitments of running the business, each time she's gone she mentions it refills the bucket and gains perspective from other founders doing the same thing.     Olympia and Ian also spend some time unravelling the State of Australian Startup Funding report, particularly around the pressing issues of gender inequality and diversity in the ecosystem that the report reveals. Olmypia says, “It's disgusting and we should be ashamed.” She calls out that as an industry we shouldn't be using any female founder as an example because the number of female founders receiving funding is still far too low and this needs to change. With deeptech, an even more polarising sector of the industry, Olympia adds: “The sheer limited number of women “making it” are an anomaly, not an attribute and we've got to change something.”   Quickfire Round:  Book: Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés Podcast: Agtech So What  News Source: Al-Jazeera Productivity Tool: Notion  CEO: Tom Loeffler or Keaton Okkonen  App: Instagram  TV Show: Yellowstone, Vikings  TEDTalk Topic: What building climate tech means    Connect with Olympia Yarger and visit https://goterra.au/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Human beings have an innate need to belong to a group or tribe. Large parts of our brain are dedicated to engaging and interacting with others. Belonging triggers the release of chemicals in our brain that promote trust, empathy, and social bonding. Building belonging is essential in a fractured world and requires understanding and addressing our default setting. During this very special episode recorded during the Innovation Bay panel at SXSW Sydney's inaugural event in October 2023, an all star panel featuring Phil Morle (Main Sequence Ventures), Jenny Li (Scarlare Partners), Joel Connelly (Blackbird), and Skye Riggs (Ripple Opportunities) join moderator and guest Open The Pod Bay Doors host, Cameron Webb (Innovation Bay) to share insights on how to build belonging at speed and scale. They share strategies for welcoming new members and creating meaningful connections that keep people engaged over the long term. This episode is proudly brought to you by propodcast.com.au See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our guest this week is Dan Sturrock, Investment Director at Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). With a decade of experience at ARENA, Dan has witnessed the organisation's remarkable evolution and growth. As an ARENA board observer representative, he provides invaluable insights into the exciting work of propelling startups towards solving colossal challenges - companies like Sundrive and RayGen, who are making huge strides in the solar energy sector.   ARENA's mandate is to accelerate decarbonisation with a focus on renewable energy. By providing grant funding for groundbreaking projects in renewable energy, energy storage, and electric vehicles, they are taking the battle against climate change to a whole new level. The monumental task of decarbonisation requires an all-encompassing approach across various sectors, and both the government and corporate giants are stepping up to the plate. ARENA's core focus is reducing risks and igniting innovation in renewable energy generation.   The fourth installment of the Innovation Bay & ARENA Renewables Startup Showcase for 2023 happens next week on Wednesday 1 November at Melbourne's Cargo Hall. This event brings together 100+ of the country's leading angel investor, VC, PE and CVC community. Get ready to be blown away by four of the most remarkable founder pitches from the renewables, cleantech, and climatetech sectors. It's not just an event; it's a spark for networking and an education in the latest developments in the renewable startup universe. This year's stars include Renewable Metals, Hysata, Sicona, and Novalith.    Tickets are limited and available now https://innovationbay.com/event/arena-november/    Quickfire Round:  Book: Love Stories, Trent Dalton Podcast: Positive Climate News Source: New York Times  Productivity Tool: turning off notifications and avoiding distractions Favourite CEO: Allan Moss, Nick Moore Favourite App: Spotify  TV Show: Alone Australia TEDTalk Topic: Alternative approaches to creativity in children and challenging some of the accepted paradigms around education   Connect with Dan Sturrock via LinkedIn or email.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of the WFLS podcast, we chat with ⁠Jodie Imam

This week's very special episode was recorded at our recent full community event. The Globe, hosted by Macquarie, brought together our four communities of early and later stage founders and CEOs, VCs and angel investors, to connect, learn, discuss and shape the future of our industry. Ian sat down with five of our incredible members for this all star line up featuring: Yash Varma, Founder & Partner, Empress Capital (Aurora & Horizon member) Phil Morle, Partner, Main Sequence (Aurora member) Georgia Barkell, Managing Partner, Sprint Ventures (Aurora member) Lisa Vincent, CEO & Founder, HowToo (Summit member) Alon Greenspan, Partner, Mind Ventures (Aurora member) Cameron Webb, SVP of Member Experience and Managing Partner, Innovation Bay (Innovation Bay team) With the taste of celebratory champagne at our cocktail party on their lips, Ian and our members discuss (among plenty more): Their own background, progressions and evolution in the ecosystem Some of the recent challenges they've faced Their pulse on the current market and focuses in their respective roles Their experiences and takeaways from this year's incredible The Globe event The benefits and why being a part of the Innovation Bay community is awesome For more information on our events, or to apply for membership, visit innovationbay.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

E163 - Clément Aglietta, Co-Founder & CEO, Edda    Our guest this week is Clément Aglietta, Co-Founder & CEO of Edda, a collaborative tool for private equity investors. Edda is an all-in-one solution for deal flow, portfolio management, and LP's relationship management. The tool is designed to be user-centric and integrates with external databases and other tools. Edda has recently launched into the ANZ market via a partnership with Innovation Bay's VC community, Aurora.    Clément began his career at CERN, the biggest physics laboratory in Europe, where he learned about quantum physics. He then went on to study design. This gave him the opportunity to join the dots between physics and design and discover a new method of solving problems - a passion that led to the creation of Edda.    Clément's desire to be an entrepreneur led him to attend conferences and meet investors. He worked at Rebag, a luxury handbag marketplace, and was later invited to join LG Labs as a VC. As a designer turned VC, he noticed the lack of advanced technology in the industry and decided to create Edda. Edda raised the first funding round after building a team and creating the first version of the product.    Edda helps investors manage their deals and portfolio companies by capturing information from emails, synchronizing data, and providing collaboration tools. It provides statistics and creates profiles for companies, while allowing users visibility on the true value of investments and the impact they create, in real time. With a team of 33 (growing to 40 imminently), Edda now has 130 clients in 26 countries and manages around $30 billion in assets across the private and public equity markets. With lofty ambitions to be the global industry leader, and a passion to make a positive impact on people, society and the planet, Edda has big plans for the future.    Quickfire Round: Book: Build by Tony Fidel, Civilizations by Laurent Binet Podcast: audio books News Source: VC news via LinkedIn Productivity App: Turning off phone notifications  Favourite CEO: Demis Hassabis from DeepMind  TV Show: n/a TEDTalk Topic: Financing impact Get in touch with Clèment via LinkedIn and learn more about Edda here https://edda.co/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our first guest of 2023 is Adam Theobald, CoFounder & CEO of Ordermentum, a double sided marketplace and platform for hospitality suppliers and venues to make orders and payments.    Despite a potentially promising career in cricket and a desire to become a physio, Adam studied Computer Science at university going on to complete a Master degree in Commerce. Beginning his career as a stockbroker focusing on technology stocks, Adam moved into roles with voiceover IP company Freshtell (comparable to Skype) and web-based video conferencing company Parkslide (akin to Zoom). With a love of coffee, Adam founded order ahead app Beat The Queue (since rebranded to Hey You who have recently merged with delivery app Yello).    Ordermentum was born in 2014 with 10 customers signed up - the first being Lion Nathan. Despite the COVID curveball that threatened to all but completely wipe out the entire hospitality industry, the company became a savior to locked down dog walkers ordering coffees.    Ordermentum now boast a hugely profitable business that caters to 35,000 venues (or half of the venues in the country), have 650 suppliers signed up, move over $1billion in G&V and process $4million in payments.    Ian and Adam cover topics including:  Raises (one of which occurred during the pandemic!) Cricket (of course) Why he supports in-office in a remote moving world The importance of noticing emotional burnout in staff Plans to double his workforce in the next 12 months  The network effect  How important being part of a community is - Adam is a member of Innovation Bay's Summit (Series A+ Founder Community)  And so much more…    Quickfire Round  Book: Radical Focus, Christina R. Wodtke + Working Backwards (Amazon)  Podcast: Serial  News Source: Sydney Morning Herald  App: Hey You Tech CEO: The Hard Thing About Hard Things  Productivity Tool: Woop  TV Show: Yellowstone, Line Of Duty  Ted Talk Topic: Ability to think on three trajectories - running the right balance between a short, medium and long term success trajectory  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On November 10 and 11, Sunrise, Australia's leading ideas and innovation festival run by our friends at Blackbird, returned to Sydney for their most ambitious event since its inception in 2014. Taking over Sydney's iconic Carriageworks, Sunrise opened its doors, inviting around 1,000 of its closest pals, all primed to explore the optimism and wonder of human achievement. Armed with a microphone, and less a wisdom tooth (which was removed around halfway through the festival - by a professional dentist), Innovation Bay's Co-Founder and familiar host of Open The Pod Bay Doors, Ian Gardiner, tapped 21 people on the shoulder for series of pow wows about business, innovation, a retrospective at what has got them to now, a fast forward of what's to come for our industry and what's exciting them, and of course…what they're hearing, seeing and feeling at Sunrise. Part 3 features an admirable group of people including Flavia Tata Nardini (Fleet Space Technologies), Andy Tsao (Silicon Valley Bank), Matthew Pearson (Fleet Space Technologies & Airspeeder), Lucy Wark (Normal), Tim Moore (Investor), Matt Allen (Tractor Ventures), Alex McCauley (Tech Council of Australia).   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On November 10 and 11, Sunrise, Australia's leading ideas and innovation festival run by our friends at Blackbird, returned to Sydney for their most ambitious event since its inception in 2014. Taking over Sydney's iconic Carriageworks, Sunrise opened its doors, inviting around 1,000 of its closest pals, all primed to explore the optimism and wonder of human achievement. Armed with a microphone, and less a wisdom tooth (which was removed around halfway through the festival - by a professional dentist), Innovation Bay's Co-Founder and familiar host of Open The Pod Bay Doors, Ian Gardiner, tapped 21 people on the shoulder for series of pow wows about business, innovation, a retrospective at what has got them to now, a fast forward of what's to come for our industry and what's exciting them, and of course…what they're hearing, seeing and feeling at Sunrise. Part 2 features a bunch of incredible humans including Joel Connolly (Blackbird), Alex Apoifis (Blackbird), Jekaterina Viktorova (Syenta), Andrea Gardiner (Jelix), Damon Klotz (Culture Amp), Mick Liubinskas (Climate Salad), and Kate Glazebrook (Blackbird).   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On November 10 and 11, Sunrise, Australia's leading ideas and innovation festival run by our friends at Blackbird, returned to Sydney for their most ambitious event since its inception in 2014. Taking over Sydney's iconic Carriageworks, Sunrise opened its doors, inviting around 1,000 of its closest pals, all primed to explore the optimism and wonder of human achievement.    Armed with a microphone, and less a wisdom tooth (which was removed around halfway through the festival - by a professional dentist), Innovation Bay's Co-Founder and familiar host of Open The Pod Bay Doors, Ian Gardiner, tapped 21 people on the shoulder for series of pow wows about business, innovation, a retrospective at what has got them to now, a fast forward of what's to come for our industry and what's exciting them, and of course…what they're hearing, seeing and feeling at Sunrise.    Part 1 features a bevy of incredible humans including:  - Matt Fairhurst (Skedulo)- Al Coleman (Folklore)- Kristen Durham (Zendesk)- Mary Minas (Sense of Self)- Mark Dombkins (Forever Projects)- Jason Neave (Punt Club)- Nan Ransohoff (Stripe)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joining us for Episode 148 is the fascinating George Peppou, Founder and CEO of Vow Food, a cultivated meat company, founded and operated in Sydney. Vow is made up of a multidisciplinary team of scientists, technologists and designers, working together in the relentless pursuit of better food.By making meat with animal cells, and not the animals themselves, Vow is creating the world's most tantalising and unique culinary experiences without compromising on ethics or our planet along the way. Ian and George dive into George's career path so far, from studying Biochemistry and Immunobiology at Sydney University to Founder and CEO of Vow Food. Tune in to hear more on: The effects of the meat industry and food production on the Global greenhouse gas emissions  How Vow as a product is produced and when it will first go to market The investment and growth stages of Vow  Georges business and personal challenges Quick fire round: Book: Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Handbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell, By: Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, Alan Eagle Podcast: Lex Fridman and The Constant News Source: ABC/AFR for local news and The Atlantic App: Vimcal - Lightning-fast calendar for remote work Tech CEO: Elon Musk TV Show: Jerrfey Dahmer on Netflix Ted Talk: Woodwork and a mindfulness practice. George is a member of Summit Community at Innovation Bay.  You can find more at VowFood.com, Twitter or Linkedin. Vow Food is hiring so be sure to keep an eye out on their careers page. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joining us for E147 is Angela Clark, Co Founder of Wallet Nation. Angela is a specialist in business transformation, customer experience, innovation and digital platforms. Angela's experience spans multiple industries, customer segments and services, across education, media, payments and financial services. Angela has previously led companies as a CEO and Managing Director, founded her own start-ups and led transformation of divisions and customer strategy within larger companies.Tune in to hear Ian deep dive into Angela's fascinating career journey plus so much more as the pair cover off topics such as: The transition from corporate to start up Wallet Nation - How was it founded, where is it at currently and what is the vision Crypto Winter and the evolution of blockchain and web3 The benefits of being apart of a community Quickfire Round Book - Cloudstreet by Tim Winton News source - NY Times Tech CEO - Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia Best productivity tool -  Weeding tools for the garden TV show - ESP News Tedx talk - Importance of citizens taking active interest in media and how it affects society.   Angela is also an Innovation Bay member and part of the Canopy Community. You can reach Angela via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelaclarkaustralia/?originalSubdomain=au See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After a two year hiatus, Innovation Bay and ARENA teamed up once more for the ARENA Renewable Energy Founder Forum.    Across the course of the evening, four promising founders from a pool of 40 applications in the renewables space were invited to pitched their business to a room of experts and enthusiasts in the industry.    We heard from ARENA's Darren Miller, past alumni 5B's Dr Nicole Kuepper-Russell and an expert panel, recorded the night, featured Renate Egan from the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics, Kate Vidgen of Macquarie Group and Kristin Vaughan from Virescent Ventures.   Today we're thrilled to share the panel discussion with you for this week's episode. Across this educational and eye-opening conversation, Innovation Bay's own Ian Gardiner alongside renewables experts Renate Egan, Kate Vidgen and Kristin Vaughan cover a range of topics.    We investigate the renewable energy industry shifts across the last 12-18 months, Australia's evolution relative to other international markets in relation to EVs and hydrogen and where Australia is going to win within the emerging technology space. We also discuss how the world is recognising the need to globalise the supply chain, export opportunities for Australia's energy commodity or IP and the increasing need for negative omissions. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

IT'S OUR BIRTHDAY! Today, Innovation Bay's Open The Pod Bay Doors turns 5! To celebrate, we've taken it way back to our very first guest. Daniel Petre is the Godfather of the ecosystem and has arguably been around longer and had more success than anyone else in the sector. In 2014, Daniel founded Airtree alongside Craig Blair but a year ago, made the move out of VC and into the philanthropy space.Daniel felt the need to step away from VC for a number of reasons - to make way for the next generation to shine, the business model of VC started to lose it's shine for where he wanted to focus his energies, and he became a grandfather - a milestone that has seen him appreciate so clearly how short life is.His move into philanthropy was initially driven by his time working with Bill Gates in the US whose mother's greatest value has resonated with Daniel over the years - that if you've been fortunate in life, it's your responsibility to give back, not your choice. Inspired, Daniel has founded StartupGiving - a concierge of sorts with a goal to inspire founders and tech execs (with upwards of $20m net wealth) to start up their own charitable foundations - to give back.During their chat on this very special anniversary podcast, Ian and Daniel cover:The transformation of the ecosystem since 2016 (including the positive impact both the ESVCLP Legislation and Canva have had on the industry at large)The most important sectors in the industry - Web3, AI, computer vision, the metaverse (though he's not hugely excited about it), drug discovery and creation using AIHow Australia needs to dramatically increase research fundingThat there is no reason we shouldn't be a renewable superpower, and that we shouldn't close minds to small scale nuclear, andDaniel lends some incredible insight into current market conditionsQuickfire Round:Book: 'Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World' by Anand GiridharadasPodcast: Open The Pod Bay Doors, Sam Harris' ‘Making Sense'News Source: The EconomistTech CEO: Impact over last 5 years - Elon Musk, Melanie Perkins (Canva) - will go down as one of the greatest tech CEOs of our timeTV Show: The Liar, (new version of) The Staircase, Ozark

Darren Miller is the CEO of Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) - whose purpose it is to support the transition to net zero emissions by accelerating the pace of pre-commercial innovation.Darren is deeply committed to net zero and improving our chances on planet earth. He believes we have all the technologies we need between now and 2030 - from solar, wind, lithium batteries, electric vehicles, rooftop solar, and household energy management - and if we can deploy these things at scale quickly in the economy, we'll overshoot what we need to do by 2030 in order to reach net zero.ARENA does this by utilising federal funding to invest and support renewable energy startups and projects for the Australian economy. ARENA and Innovation Bay have teamed up for the third year running for the ARENA Renewable Energy Founder Forum on 28 July. The event showcases Australia's most exciting early stage renewable technology startups and pairs them with Australia's leading venture capitalists and angel investors - to supercharge their growth through funding, connections, and advice.Founders in the renewable space are encouraged to pitch to apply (closing 31 May). Applicants will be considered from a broad scope including technology, software digitisation, and consumer behaviour - essentially anyone working on the transition. He states that trillions of dollars needs to be invested in this space and that we need the best people working on the problem. If this sounds like you, jump on and apply to pitch here https://bit.ly/ARENAapps.Mini Quickfire RoundBook: The Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley RobinsonPodcast: Rewired (ARENA podcast)App: Snap Send SolveFounder: Michael LiebreichTV Show: InsidersConnect with Darren Miller:https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenhmillerhttps://twitter.com/darrenhmiller

For the past 14 years, Tech23 has showcased and amplified the emerging deeptech talent coming out of Australia that have the potential to create new industries and smarter solutions. Tech23 is a national forum whereby 23 early stage companies are chosen to tell their story and speak about their innovation on stage to an audience of industry leaders, investors, potential enterprise customers and other up and coming founders.At the 2021 badge in November last year, Innovation Bay attended and flagged five of our favourites. In episode 133 of Open The Pod Bay Doors, we have invited these five companies to come onto the podcasts to tell us a bit about their business, their technology and what their future plans look like.The episode begins with Rachel Slattery, the mastermind behind Tech23, who explains a little about the forum's history and purpose. We then go on to meet the incredible humans behind our chosen five companies from last year's event.Josh Ismin is Co-Founder & CEO of Psylo - a psychedelic biotech business focusing on Psychedelic-inspired medicine to treat mental illness.Paula Burton is Co-Founder of Mass Dynamics - a company that has been helping global life scientists transform mass spectrometry data to knowledge since 2019 by integrating modern practices in business, software engineering, computational biology, machine intelligence, biostatics, product design and analytical chemistry.Warren McKenzie is the Managing Director and Ellen Gorissen is GM Commercial of HB11 - a company that aims to create a new source of clean, safe and reliable energy using laser technology to fuse Hydrogen and Boron-11.Steven Vassiloudis is the CEO and Founder of Novalith - a company that uses carbon dioxide to simply lithium chemicals refining for an electric era.Nancy Schellhorn is CEO and Founder of RapidAIM - a precision pest management tool for farmers to accurately pinpoint the location of pests in real time.Learn more & connect with our guests:Rachel Slattery - Tech23https://tech23.com.au/2021/https://au.linkedin.com/in/rachel-slattery-11209017?trk=public_post_share-update_actor-textJoshua Ismin - Psylohttps://psylo.bio/https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-ismin/Paula Burton - Mass Dynamicshttps://www.massdynamics.com/https://au.linkedin.com/in/paulaburtonngovWarren McKenzie & Ellen Gorissen - HB11https://hb11.energy/https://www.linkedin.com/in/warren-mckenzie-03b84614/https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellengorissen/Steven Vassiloudis - Novalithhttps://www.novalith.com.au/https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenvassiloudis/?originalSubdomain=auNancy Schellhorn - RapidAIMhttps://rapidaim.io/https://au.linkedin.com/in/nancy-schel

Ian Gardiner is an Investment Partner at Jelix Ventures, a firm which invests in early stage tech startups in Australia and New Zealand, and a co-founder of Innovation Bay, which works to create and nurture supportive communities for investors and founders. Originally from Scotland, Ian previously founded and acted as CEO in his own startup, Viocorp, for over a decade, before taking the role of Head of Startups for Amazon Web Service (AWS) Australia and New Zealand where he was responsible for establishing and managing AWS's relationship with the startup communities in Australia and New Zealand. In his conversation with Adam, he discusses his time with AWS, and how he discovered his passion for growing and nurturing communities. See full show notes https://w2d1.com/ian-gardiner

When Ian Gardiner was 10 years old, he was the fastest kid in his class to solve the rubix cube. He was also quick enough to sense a business opportunity so he sold the solution to his classmates. Despite the modest circumstances of his childhood in Glasgow, he went on to secure a place at St Peter's College Oxford and row not once, but twice in the prestigious Oxford Cambridge boat race, the culmination of 6 hours of training 6 days per week for 7 months on top of demanding Oxford academic expectations. What becomes of a man who has the sort of innate smarts and stamina? Surprisingly he has found himself halfway around the world, and together with his wife Andrea Gardiner one half of the possibly the most dynamic couple in the Australian startup eco-system with their firm Jelix ventures. Ian is also the co-founder of the wonderfully expansive network of technology and investment enthusiasts Innovation Bay and for good measure the host of probably my favourite Australian startup podcast Open the Podbay doors. Along the way Ian became a Member of YPO, had a stint as the Head of Startups at AWS in Australia/NZ, has won the Pearcy award for IT Entrepreneur of the year. He is a Passionate startup mentor, Cyclist, gamer, skier, husband, geek, and father (but not necessarily in that order). Links and resources Ian Gardiner on LinkedIn Jelix Ventures Podcasts Open the Pod Bay Doors Other Oxford Cambridge boat race For more information about Scale: Scale Investors Scale Educated

Welcome to another edition of the OTPBD News Special, our fortnightly series which analyses the news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.Meet this week's panel...Melissa Widner, Lighter CapitalPeter Dunne, Herbert Smith Freehills & Safety CultureBarnaby Marshall, Icehouse VenturesTopics we discuss:Our panel kicks off with a discussion of the recent call from leading Australian tech investors and founders for a plan to end the lockdown crisis and then transitions to talk about funds, raises, and acquisitions from the Australian and New Zealand startup ecosystem. Some major headlines we cover: new funds from ANZ, Tennis Australia, Our Innovation Fund, and Tractor Ventures and raises and exits by Go1, Rokt, Sweat, Invoice2go, and Employment Hero._______Horizon, Innovation Bay's angel investor community, is hosting a number of upcoming pitch events. Apply to pitch here.

Welcome to another edition of the OTPBD News Special, our fortnightly series which analyses the news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.Meet this week's panel...Holly Cardew, CartedHugh Stevens, Galileo VenturesTopics we discuss:Our panel discusses how border closures and lockdowns are holding back Australian startups, as well as recent raises by Gilmour Space, Fl0, Skedulo, and Currus Biologics. We also touch on Wise's debut on the London Stock Exchange and Nextdoor's SPAC.__________________Horizon is Innovation Bay's community of passionate, experienced angel investors. Horizon has a number of pitch opportunities for startups coming up this October. For the opportunity to connect 1-on-1 with an impactful group of angel investors, apply to pitch here.

Federico Collarte is the co-founder and CEO of Baraja, a rapily growing startup creating LiDAR technology for self-driving cars. Baraja recently closed a $40m Series B, is scaling globally and is quickly approaching a headcount of 200. Prior to co-founding Baraja, Federico worked in product development and systems engineering, with experience spanning the industrialisation of high volume telecommunication devices at Finisar, to the end-to-end systems engineering of an implantable hearing solution at Cochlear.In this chat with Phaedon, Federico discusses:The ins and outs of Baraja's most recent raiseAdvice for founders who are fundraisingBalancing the urgency of hiring with finding the right personLessons from building out overseas teamsCreating a culture that attracts problem solversManaging the co-founder relationship...and more!Quickfire Recommendations:Book: From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne & The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben HorowitzPodcast: Lex Fridman Podcast & The Joe Rogan ExperienceNews source: The Information & TechCrunchTech CEO: Elon MuskProductivity tool: DaylioTed Talk topic: Resilience vs. Going All In_____________Baraja is hiring! And so are many other fast-growing Australian tech companies. Find the hottest jobs in #startupaus on Innovation Bay's new job board.

Darren Miller is the CEO of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). Darren Miller has more than 25 years' experience across a range of sectors including renewable energy, electricity retail, technology, finance, media and entertainment. Prior to joining ARENA Darren was the co-founder and CEO of Mojo Power, an innovative electricity retailer.In this conversation with Phaedon about Australia's renewable energy future, Darren discusses:ARENA's investment track recordThe future role of hydrogen in Australia's energy infrastructureThe rise of electric vehicles and the challenges of the charging networkHow startups contribute to the energy systemARENA is co-hosting the upcoming Renewable Energy Founder Forum with Innovation Bay this October. This event brings together clean energy startups, investors and industry stakeholders, opening up future pathways to funding and partnerships. Pitch applications for the event close Friday 25 June. If your renewable energy startup is shaping Australia's clean energy future, apply to pitch here.

Welcome to another edition of the OTPBD News Special, our fortnightly series which analyses the news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.Meet this week's panel...Hannah Field, Folklore VenturesAndrew Coppin, FarmbotTopics we discuss:Our panel discusses the newest COVID lockdown in Victoria, Artesian's new report about the growth of Australian VC over the last decade, workplace comms startup Pyn's $8m seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz (the firm's first Aussie investment), and what Anil Sabharwal, Google's Australia-based star product leader, is up to next.__________________Innovation Bay is hosting the Renewable Energy Founder Forum this October in partnership with ARENA. This forum provides a unique opportunity for renewable energy startups to pitch to the Australian investment community and key industry stakeholders. If your startup is shaping Australia's clean energy future, apply to pitch here.

Talking Points Radio Toni – Every Day Business with – Briony Schadegg Briony Schadegg HCI Founder, Director & Secretary (Human Computer Interaction) Briony Shadegg, during her time as a police officer has over 15 years of lived experience in dealing with trauma and challenges to wellbeing. Together with Ben Fink, Danny Connery and Joesph Cassar founded HCI Insights, an Australian developed and owned company based in SA in 2017. Their Mission “To empower users and organizations to positively and actively manage their wellbeing for improved ability to meet positive individual and organizational goals” Welcome to Radio Toni we are so privileged to talk to you tonight Briony First lets quickly talk about how the trauma of policing changed the way you thought about wellbeing? This experience drove your desire for better and that led to the new app Frank. 1. Briony can you tell me about why you and the team developed FRANK? - was developed around concepts and research findings described in The General Theory of Crime, Social Learning Theories, the Dunedin Longitudinal Multidisciplinary Study and others like it, during Briony's Policing Studies. Protection of privacy & user information 2. How is Frank meant to be used? - Franks is designed for installation on personal devices. It analyses the user's natural language using our cutting-edge machine learning algorithms to provide mood and emotional feedback, patterns and trends for individuals and organizations. 3. How do you protect a user's privacy whilst using this app? Our user's right to privacy has been at the forefront of every design decision we have made. Not breaching the trust of our users and setting the highest standard of integrity is paramount to us. 4. What sort of positive investment to you hope to achieve for organization? For organizations seeking competitive advantage, an investment in employee wellbeing is crucial in meeting organizational goals. Frank will do this by providing insights to empower your organization to act in a timely manner to achieve positive outcomes. Frank aims to facilitate: - Reduced absenteeism and presenteeism - Improved organizational loyalty - Improved employee & recruit perception as an employer of choice 5. What sort of positive investment to you hope to achieve for organizations? According to WHO, there is a 4:1 positive return on investment in wellbeing for individuals, organizations, the community and government. 6. How will the FRANK measure its success? Frank provides a unique measure of success that previously was not captured other than by way of anecdotal or survey evidence which can be unreliable. 7. What is behind naming the app FRANK? 8. What are some of the achievements for Frank so far? Our current shareholders are all South Australian based or ex-South Australians. We are an organization of choice for Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) internship program, mainly for machine learning. Our pilot is being independently run by Dr Miranda Van Hooff, Ex Director of Military and Emergency Services Health Australia. We have started securing foundation customer organizations such as Police Health and in final stages of negotiations and approvals with SA Department of Treasury and Finance, Scotch College and Gallagher Bassett. We have regularly seek the advice of our Advisory Board Chair Leesa Chesser, former SA Minister for Disability, Mental Health and Substance Abuse. We also periodically seek advise from; Professor Alexander McFarlane Dr Paula Dabovich Raymond Spencer Glen Rosie David Knox 9. What's next for the team behind Frank? Pilot The first phase of Frank's pilot is being facilitated by Dr Miranda van Hooff and her team at MESHA. The pilot is open to Australian Android users and over 200 people have been onboard so far. With the pilot still active, we have sent some data to MESHA for preliminary analysis, with an assessment to be provided in the next couple of weeks. Early feedback regarding the open-source keyboard, utilized solely for phase one pilot, was consistent with our assumptions, and has presented some challenges for pilot users, but is providing HCI with the necessary data to make an informed and objective assessment on our hypothesis. We have secured three pilot organizations for the 2nd Phase Pilot and have generated interest from other organizations, which we are exploring. Just a reminder, please “like” us on Facebook and LinkedIn Capital Raise Our capital raise round is open with the round closing on 30 June. Thank you to those who have reinvested and welcome to our new investors. Just a reminder that we have applied for a grant through the South Australian Government's Research and Commercialisation Startup Fund (RCSF). The RCSF grant will provide significant leverage for investors, with the grant (if approved) making up 44% of our investment round. Matching the funding dollar-for-dollar is a requirement of our application, so we appreciate anyone who can make a financial commitment. The due date is 30 April 2021 to demonstrate matched funding ($350,000). Failure to do so will require HCI to restart the RCSF application process again. While not preferable, it's certainly not catastrophic. We have all of the documentation from the EOI stage, as well as the final application, and should be able to progress through quite quickly, with the results from phase one pilot in hand as well. We have submitted an application to a few VC and Angel funds. In addition to investor dinners/presentations through CoVentured and Innovation Bay, to help boost the raise. Results of some of our applications are still pending. However, our Impaqt Fund application is looking promising and we will have a result in early June. We have been selected as a finalist for Innovation Bay's Startup Showcase at Southstart and will pitch on the 4th May in Adelaide. Our Southern Angels application has also been successful and we will be presenting to them on 3rd May. We are also exploring the 2:1:1 matched funding opportunity with the Digital Health CRC after recently speaking with CEO, Dr Terry Sweeney. Briony's SheEO membership and involvement in SheEO and Chooks SA continues to be fruitful, providing great exposure and presenting some of our current opportunities and new investment. Our Social Lights Podcast interview took place last week and we are waiting for it to be published online. We presented at Australian Healthcare Week Pitchfest, after being selected as one of eight finalists from over 65 startups throughout Australia. We didn't win but were honoured to be selected amongst some very high calibre (and well-funded) startups, gained some terrific exposure, received some excellent feedback and made some great connections. Special Announcement As mentioned briefly above…. We have been selected as a finalist for Innovation Bay's Startup Showcase at Southstart in May. We have been advised by the Events Manager that the event attracted a high number of applicants resulting in a highly competitive selection process. As you can imagine, we're really excited about this opportunity. Our Southern Angels application has also been successful and we will be presenting to them in May as well. 10 How can people be part of the development?

Talking Points Radio Toni – Every Day Business with – Briony Schadegg Briony Schadegg HCI Founder, Director & Secretary (Human Computer Interaction) Briony Shadegg, during her time as a police officer has over 15 years of lived experience in dealing with trauma and challenges to wellbeing. Together with Ben Fink, Danny Connery and Joesph Cassar founded HCI Insights, an Australian developed and owned company based in SA in 2017. Their Mission “To empower users and organizations to positively and actively manage their wellbeing for improved ability to meet positive individual and organizational goals” Welcome to Radio Toni we are so privileged to talk to you tonight Briony First lets quickly talk about how the trauma of policing changed the way you thought about wellbeing? This experience drove your desire for better and that led to the new app Frank. 1. Briony can you tell me about why you and the team developed FRANK? - was developed around concepts and research findings described in The General Theory of Crime, Social Learning Theories, the Dunedin Longitudinal Multidisciplinary Study and others like it, during Briony's Policing Studies. Protection of privacy & user information 2. How is Frank meant to be used? - Franks is designed for installation on personal devices. It analyses the user's natural language using our cutting-edge machine learning algorithms to provide mood and emotional feedback, patterns and trends for individuals and organizations. 3. How do you protect a user’s privacy whilst using this app? Our user’s right to privacy has been at the forefront of every design decision we have made. Not breaching the trust of our users and setting the highest standard of integrity is paramount to us. 4. What sort of positive investment to you hope to achieve for organization? For organizations seeking competitive advantage, an investment in employee wellbeing is crucial in meeting organizational goals. Frank will do this by providing insights to empower your organization to act in a timely manner to achieve positive outcomes. Frank aims to facilitate: - Reduced absenteeism and presenteeism - Improved organizational loyalty - Improved employee & recruit perception as an employer of choice 5. What sort of positive investment to you hope to achieve for organizations? According to WHO, there is a 4:1 positive return on investment in wellbeing for individuals, organizations, the community and government. 6. How will the FRANK measure its success? Frank provides a unique measure of success that previously was not captured other than by way of anecdotal or survey evidence which can be unreliable. 7. What is behind naming the app FRANK? 8. What are some of the achievements for Frank so far? Our current shareholders are all South Australian based or ex-South Australians. We are an organization of choice for Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) internship program, mainly for machine learning. Our pilot is being independently run by Dr Miranda Van Hooff, Ex Director of Military and Emergency Services Health Australia. We have started securing foundation customer organizations such as Police Health and in final stages of negotiations and approvals with SA Department of Treasury and Finance, Scotch College and Gallagher Bassett. We have regularly seek the advice of our Advisory Board Chair Leesa Chesser, former SA Minister for Disability, Mental Health and Substance Abuse. We also periodically seek advise from; Professor Alexander McFarlane Dr Paula Dabovich Raymond Spencer Glen Rosie David Knox 9. What’s next for the team behind Frank? Pilot The first phase of Frank’s pilot is being facilitated by Dr Miranda van Hooff and her team at MESHA. The pilot is open to Australian Android users and over 200 people have been onboard so far. With the pilot still active, we have sent some data to MESHA for preliminary analysis, with an assessment to be provided in the next couple of weeks. Early feedback regarding the open-source keyboard, utilized solely for phase one pilot, was consistent with our assumptions, and has presented some challenges for pilot users, but is providing HCI with the necessary data to make an informed and objective assessment on our hypothesis. We have secured three pilot organizations for the 2nd Phase Pilot and have generated interest from other organizations, which we are exploring. Just a reminder, please “like” us on Facebook and LinkedIn Capital Raise Our capital raise round is open with the round closing on 30 June. Thank you to those who have reinvested and welcome to our new investors. Just a reminder that we have applied for a grant through the South Australian Government’s Research and Commercialisation Startup Fund (RCSF). The RCSF grant will provide significant leverage for investors, with the grant (if approved) making up 44% of our investment round. Matching the funding dollar-for-dollar is a requirement of our application, so we appreciate anyone who can make a financial commitment. The due date is 30 April 2021 to demonstrate matched funding ($350,000). Failure to do so will require HCI to restart the RCSF application process again. While not preferable, it’s certainly not catastrophic. We have all of the documentation from the EOI stage, as well as the final application, and should be able to progress through quite quickly, with the results from phase one pilot in hand as well. We have submitted an application to a few VC and Angel funds. In addition to investor dinners/presentations through CoVentured and Innovation Bay, to help boost the raise. Results of some of our applications are still pending. However, our Impaqt Fund application is looking promising and we will have a result in early June. We have been selected as a finalist for Innovation Bay’s Startup Showcase at Southstart and will pitch on the 4th May in Adelaide. Our Southern Angels application has also been successful and we will be presenting to them on 3rd May. We are also exploring the 2:1:1 matched funding opportunity with the Digital Health CRC after recently speaking with CEO, Dr Terry Sweeney. Briony’s SheEO membership and involvement in SheEO and Chooks SA continues to be fruitful, providing great exposure and presenting some of our current opportunities and new investment. Our Social Lights Podcast interview took place last week and we are waiting for it to be published online. We presented at Australian Healthcare Week Pitchfest, after being selected as one of eight finalists from over 65 startups throughout Australia. We didn’t win but were honoured to be selected amongst some very high calibre (and well-funded) startups, gained some terrific exposure, received some excellent feedback and made some great connections. Special Announcement As mentioned briefly above…. We have been selected as a finalist for Innovation Bay’s Startup Showcase at Southstart in May. We have been advised by the Events Manager that the event attracted a high number of applicants resulting in a highly competitive selection process. As you can imagine, we’re really excited about this opportunity. Our Southern Angels application has also been successful and we will be presenting to them in May as well. 10 How can people be part of the development?

Welcome to another edition of the OTPBD News Special, our fortnightly series analysing the news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.Meet this week's panel...Danny Kennedy, New Energy NexusImogen Baxter, Square Peg CapitalMatt Pearson. AirspeederTopics we discuss:Our panel discusses the open letter regarding climate change Aussie tech leaders penned to the government, whether or not founders should heed Scott Farquhar warning against bootstrapping, the recent plunge in Bitcoin and SafetyCulture's latest funding round.__________________Innovation Bay is hosting the Renewable Energy Founder Forum this October in partnership with ARENA. This forum provides a unique opportunity for renewable energy startups to pitch to the Australian investment community and key industry stakeholders. If your startup is shaping Australia's clean energy future, apply to pitch here.

Welcome to another edition of the OTPBD News Special, our fortnightly series analysing the news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.Meet this week's panel...Mike Zimmerman, Partner at Main Sequence VenturesAndrew Horsley, Co-founder & CEO at Quantum BrillianceSarah Nolet, Partner at Tenacious VenturesTopics we discuss:Our panel discusses Main Sequence Ventures' new $250m deep tech fund, the huge $221m raise by Brisbane-based Octopus Deploy, a $34m raise by seaweed livestock feed supplement maker Sea Forest and the Ingenuity helicopter flight on Mars.__________________If you are a prospective angel investor based in Adelaide interested in joining Horizon Six Degrees, Innovation Bay's new community for angels, email membership@innovationbay.com to discuss your potential candidacy as a founding member. More info here.

Peter Dunne is one of Australia’s leading venture capital and private equity lawyers, specialising in private capital raisings and M&A. Peter has advised on multibillion-dollar transactions, including acquisitions, buy-outs, disposals, joint ventures and recapitalisations, involving some of Australia’s largest public and private organisations; his clients include Atlassian, Canva, Deputy, Culture Amp, Linktree, BigCommerce, Campaign Monitor, Expert 360, SafteyCulture, Tyro, Zoox...the list goes on.In this conversation with Ian, Peter talks about...Why he became a lawyer and how early experiences shaped his careerWhy he's more interested in people than the size of dealsKey differences between private equity and venture capitalHow he got involved in Atlassian's first capital raiseHis approach to building a tech practice and choosing clientsHis advice for startup founders who are fundraisingWhat "legal debt" is and how to avoid itQuickfire recommendationsBooks: 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez & To the Lighthouse by Virginia WoolfPodcast: This American LifeNews source: The Economist or The GuardianTech founder: Luke Anear of SafetyCultureProductivity tool: Atomic HabitsTV show: Dr. WhoTed Talk topic: How we can inspire and help eachother____________________If you are a prospective angel investor based in Adelaide interested in joining Horizon Six Degrees, Innovation Bay's new community for angels, email membership@innovationbay.com to discuss your potential candidacy as a founding member. More info here.

David Warren is a co-founder and non-executive director of ASX200 software company Altium. David grew up in the suburbs of Launceston, Tasmania and attended the University of Tasmania (UTAS) where he studied physics and astronomy as an undergraduate, honours and postgraduate student in the late 1970s and early 80s. David recently gifted $2.6 million to UTAS to set up an endowed chair in the field of astrophysics.David co-founded Altium in Hobart in 1987, developing software to design circuit boards. He spent a year developing the business in Silicon Valley before Altium floated on the ASX in 1999. Altium's market cap currently sits around $4B. David also has a passion for flying, batteries and renewables. He has been a pilot since he was 17, helped build and fly the first electronic aircraft in the Southern Hemisphere and is an investor in Electro.Aero, an electric aviation company.In this chat with Phaedon, David discusses:What it was like growing up and studying in TasmaniaHis passion for electric aviationHow he and his co-founders started AltiumWhat he learned about building a sales engineHis experiences in Silicon ValleyWhat he looks for when he invests in businessesShifting roles of executives throughout Alitum's journeyQuickfire recommendationsBook: Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About The World - And Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans RoslingPodcast: The Science ShowNews source: ABCFounder/CEO: Elon Musk & Bill GatesProductivity tool: Excel_____________________________________Horizon, Innovation Bay's community for experienced angel investors, is accepting applications from AI and health tech startups for two pitch events this May. Applications close Friday the 2nd of April. Apply here: https://bit.ly/PitchHorizonMay

Welcome to another edition of the OTPBD News Special, our fortnightly series analysing the news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.Meet this week's panel...Alicia Garden, Goanna AgCara Waters, The Age & SMHJohn Henderson, AirTree VenturesTopics we discuss:In this edition, we talk about recently-announced funds in Australia, including LaunchVic's $10m sidecar fund to support women-led startups and Investible's new $50m fund. Piggybacking off of the announcement of LaunchVic's fund, the panel deep dives into the lack of funding for women-led startups in Australia and what needs to be done to address it. The panel also discusses the Roblox IPO, Vend acquisition by Lightspeed, CBA launching a BNPL competitor to AfterPay, Stripe's doubling of their valuation. Lastly, NFTs are on the table again as we discuss a $23m raise by OpenSea from Andreessen Horowitz.__________________Innovation Bay is holding AI and health tech-focused pitch events this May for Horizon, our community of experienced angel investors. If you are the founder of an AI or health tech startup looking to network with angels who can offer advice, connections and capital, apply to pitch here: https://bit.ly/PitchHorizonMayWomen-led startups in Victoria, apply to connect with Horizon: https://bit.ly/VictorianFemaleFounders

Welcome to another edition of the OTPBD News Special, our fortnightly series analysing the news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.Meet this week's panel...Roshan Ghadamian​, VC Catalyst Program Director at Wade InstituteEmma Weston, AgriDigitalAnnie Parker, MicrosoftTopics we discuss:In this edition, launched on International Women's Day, the panel starts by talking about the state of gender diversity within the Australian startup ecosystem and venture industry, where gaps exist and the work that needs to be done. The discussion then shifts to cover major headlines in tech; key topics include how blockchain and non-fungible tokens (NFT) will be applied in the future and what can be learned from SpaceX dreaming big and publicly failing fast.Ian also gives a rundown of the major fundraising rounds from within Australia and around the world, including Lexer, Bond Capital and Hopin, as well as some big steps from Aussie startups like Fireball International and Swoop Aero.__________________Innovation Bay is holding AI and health tech-focused pitch events this May for Horizon, our community of experienced angel investors. If you are the founder of an AI or health tech startup looking to network with angels who can offer advice, connections and capital, apply to pitch here: https://bit.ly/PitchHorizonMay

Angus Hervey is a political economist and a journalist specialising in the impact of disruptive technologies on society. Angus is a champion of "intelligent optimism" and co-founder of Future Crunch, a Melbourne-based think tank of sorts dedicated to informed, optimistic thinking about tech and the opportunities that it presents. Before co-founding Future Crunch, Angus was the founding community manager of Random Hacks of Kindness and was the first editorial manager for Global Policy, one of the world's leading international policy journals. He also holds a PhD in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics.In this wide-ranging chat with Phaedon, Angus discusses the three pillars of intelligent optimism, why he considers social media a drug, what the emergence of "the passion economy" means for online businesses, and why the media can't portray what life is like for the average person. Angus also talks about the key transformative technologies he thinks will drive the next industrial revolution, diving into topics like the distinction between machine learning and artificial intelligence, the valley of death that exists for Australian biotech and the barriers and opportunities for clean energy technologies.For a regular dose of science, tech and intelligent optimism, subscribe to the weekly Future Crunch newsletter here.Quickfire RecommendationsBook: The Biggest Bluff by Maria KonnikovaPodcast: a16zNews source: Reddit and The Whippet newsletter by McKinley ValentineFavourite holiday: Anywhere in South AfricaProductivity tool: Cold Turkey (it's a powerful website blocker)Favourite founder/CEO: The founders of Tritium and Conflux TechnologyTed Talk topic: "It's Never as Bad or as Good as You Think It Is"

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.

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.

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.

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.

In this episode, I interview Phaedon Stough, the Co-Founder of Innovation Bay, the longest-running networking group for tech founders, startups, and investors in Australia. He’s also the founder and non-executive director of MitchelLake Global Executive Search and Talent Acquisition, an executive recruitment firm he started back in 2001 with a fellow university friend, focusing on the tech startup space. Surviving a tech crack within their first year and the global financial crisis in 2008, it was the second global recession which formed the foundation for their fast growth. From 2 full-time employees in 2001 to more than 90 within fifteen years, and $80 Million in annual revenues across six cities in Australia, UK, Singapore, and the USA, Phaedon admits that they grew their number of international offices too quickly. Apart from an investor’s $50,000 then another small injection for growth from their new chairperson, they have so far grown organically from profits. Phaedon exited the business operationally a few years ago but he’s still a shareholder. They had a big focus on mental and professional development, helping them learn corners of the business they weren’t strong in. He says he wouldn’t go back into the industry or any other service-based business, and would instead begin a recurring revenue model like a software as a service (SaaS) product. Phaedon believes the hardest thing in growing a small business is finding product-market fit, and the advice he would give himself on day one is, “Keep it simple”, and pricing before anything else. Stay tuned to find out more about his fascinating entrepreneurial journey. This Cast Covers: Starting and growing MitchelLake global executive search and talent acquisition. How focusing on their core clients helped them navigate the tech wreck in 2001-2002. From two full-time employees to 90 within a fifteen-year period, and 6 offices in different geographical locations. Making money, building a team, and getting approached by clients.  Being able to pick projects to do and receiving referral clients from the top five VC firms. How they raised startup funding and achieved organic financial growth. Avoiding service businesses and going more into a SaaS business. The stresses of having to downsize the business and focus on cash during the 2008 global financial crisis. Their quick expansion into different international markets and how he would have done it differently. The interesting challenge of managing people and his struggles with financials. The importance of an entrepreneur understanding why they want to go into a certain business. The impact of keeping really close to the customer and working with them. The difficulty for recruitment companies in recruiting their own staff. Building a kickass culture for all their six locations. The golden rule of startup businesses and how Phaedon invested in his own personal development. How he exited the business and the advice he would give anyone who is looking to exit their business. The value in using a project management platform and keeping it simple when starting a small business. Additional Resources: eBoys By Randall E. Stross Profit First By Mike Michalowicz Small Giants By Bo Burlingham Principles By Ray Dalio Music from https://filmmusic.io "Cold Funk" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com). License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Shelley Laslett is the CEO and Co-Founder of Vitae.Coach (Vitae) - a startup that takes neuroscience out of the lab and into life to help people grow themselves and their businesses. Using the latest neuroscience, Vitae helps businesses improve performance by empowering people, teams and leaders with practical neurological knowledge, tailored learning programs, brain based coaching and advisory services. Shelley is a Social Scientist and Neuroscience Coach. She is currently completing her Masters in Applied Neuroscience at King's College in London. As well, as being the CEO of Vitae, Shelley is also a startup advisor, startup mentor startup board member and international speaker. Previously, Shelley was the General Manager of YBF Ventures - a startup incubator and VC fund. Prior to entering the startup world, Shelley was an international strategy and innovation consultant with Accenture UK. She has helped a number of companies evolve, change and bring their new ideas to life. Some of the companies Shelley has worked with include; The Walt Disney, Company, LinkedIn, Salesforce, NASDAQ, Techstars, Deloitte, Westpac, Diageo, AgriDigital, WeWork Labs, Founders Factory, marie claire, Qantas, Cover Genius, SKY Plc, Optus, Lloyds Banking Group, OMD, Commonwealth Bank, Tank Stream Labs, Body Image Movement, the projects*, Verizon, Springboard Enterprises, ANZ Bank, Sunculture, Bupa, VMware, Qantas, Dentsu Aegis Network, Innovation Bay, Fonterra, IBM, Royal Dutch Shell, Tech Ready Women and EY. Poppy Renegade describes Shelley as; "...unlike anyone you've ever met before. She has an infectious, yet calming energy, a brilliant mind and a powerful presence. Shelley is blazing her own trail and lifting others to new heights along the way." We discuss a wide variety of topics from Meta cognition Social Pain and how it actually does affect us Male and Female differences or indifferences Shelley references a number of scientists Naomi Eisenberger The Flynn Effect Shelley can be reached at any of the links below: Company Website: https://www.vitae.coach/ Instagram: @shelley.vitae LinkedIn: Shelley Laslett & Vitae.Coach Facebook: Shelley Charnley-Laslett & Vitae.Coach If you're interested in coming on a Flow States Retreats offering head to the link for more info on our Byron Bay 2020 offerings. Instagram: @flowstatesretreats Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/flowstatesretreats/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/tyson-venables/message

This week we are releasing #Ep71 of #OTPBD with Lucy Liu, President and Co-founder of Airwallex. Airwallex is building global financial infrastructure to help modern internet companies grow, by offering end-to-end solutions for businesses to move money programmatically at a large scale. Lucy is an incredibly successful and inspiring founder who was selected for the Forbes 30 Under 30 in Asia, in 2017. Airwallex was founded to solve the problems surrounding global payments. Lucy shares Airwallex's founding story - from a coffee shop to Australia’s fastest growing billion dollar startup. Airwallex also recently achieved unicorn status in March and is the third Australian company to do so (after Atlassian and Canva).In this pod, Lucy discusses Airwallex’s commendable competitive strategy. It is quite impressive how they worked around partnering and competing with banks at the same time by liasioning with different departments within the banks. Having already launched Airwallex globally, Lucy shares great insight and parallels within different markets. Lucy states, “In general, South East Asia is quite protective because they’re promoting innovation domestically.” Lucy also thinks that the UK and US markets are highly standardized and mature in comparison. Among other things, the conversation also ventures into startup culture and contrasts amongst the passion of Co-founders and employees. We found Lucy’s perspective on startup - investor dynamics refreshing and agreeable - they don’t tend to perceive that VCs are obligated to volunteer to help.We absolutely enjoyed this talk with this brilliant founder and we hope you do too! Tune in now to discover an exciting founder journey and get inspired.

Participated in an event hosted by Innovation Bay in which Susan Wu discussed her history in technology investing, thoughts on humane and human progress. Asked her for her thoughts on Oculus as a company, VR as a technology to provide happiness, and advice for someone looking to move to Silicon Valley. Innovation Bay: https://innovationbay.com/ Susan Wu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanwu1/ Launch Vic: https://launchvic.org/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/virtuallyhq/message

My guest for Episode 98 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is the Investment Partner at Jelix Ventures, Ian Gardiner. Ian is best known for his role at Amazon Web Services as the Head of Business Development for Startups in Australia and New Zealand, but prior to this he was the founder of several startups himself. Ian was the Founder and Managing Director of “Last Orders”, a UK based startup that raised GBP2.5M but as Ian describes it himself, they built the supply but the expected demand never came through. Ian then moved to Australia and along with his co-founder Ron Mcullough launched Viocorp, run-in the company for the next 12 years as it's co-founder and CEO. He is now an Investment Partner at Jelix Ventures, a fund that he setup with his wife Andrea, after they had both spent spending several years successfully identifying and investing in early-stage high technology companies. Alongside his role at Jelix, Ian is also the Co-founder of Innovation Bay, a community and networking group for businesses, entrepreneurs and investors and he also hosts the highly successful Open The Pod Bay Doors podcast. I was really excited to speak with someone who had spent so much of his time and energy in building the ecosystem here as well as seeing first hand a range of successful and unsuccessful companies being built from the ground up across his various ventures. In this interview we spoke about: Breeding success from implementing cultureHow Amazon approaches hiring “A players”How to stay consistentThe foundations of building successful ecosystems3 key ingredients shared by successful founders This podcast was produced by the awesome team at Playbook Media. If you would like to launch your own personal or business podcast, say hello to Rohit@playbookmedia.com.au. Show notes:- Open The Pod Bay Doors Podcast- 2001 Space Odyssey- Innovation Bay- Andrea Gardiner- Viocorp- AWS- Phaedon Stough- Jelix Ventures- Cap Table- Liquidity Preference- Fuckup Nights- Ron McCullough- 14 Leadership Principles (Amazon)- Malcolm Turnbull- Paul Bassat- Daniel Petre- Wyatt Roy- LaunchVic- Square Peg Capital- Blackbird VC- Airtree VC- AVCAL- Startup Muster- Venture Downunder- Postie- StorReduce- Pollenizer- Pure Storage- Stone & Chalk- Alon Greenspan- Whooshkaa- Ian Gardiner (email) Check out my new video series on Youtube! Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams Other channels:Don't have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & StitcherAudio Player The post Ep098 – Ian Gardiner (Jelix Ventures) on building success through culture appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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 vibrant community. And so, with mics-in-hand, Ian and Phaedon set out to speak with as many people as they could, interviewing the keynote speakers of the day and chatting with a bunch of Sunrise Island dwellers.In this episode we talked to main stage speakers:Sam Scilia: HostPlusPhaedon caught up with Sam Sicilia Chief Investment Officer at Super fund, Hostplus. Hostplus is Australia's biggest tech VC backer, Sam has almost deployed $1Billion into Australian venture capital, including Blackbird Ventures, Brandon Capital Carthona Capital, Main Sequence Ventures, and Square Peg Capital. Sam has developed a reputation as forward-thinking advocate focusing on tech-led innovation for the future prosperity of the Australian economy. Sam was kind enough to share Hostplus' ethos, his predictions for the market, particularly how we should expect to see more Super funds allocating funds to venture capital, as well as what Aussie startups are exciting him. On behalf of #startupaus we'd like to say thank you to Sam for the vote of confidence and for backing the industry!Tobi Pearce, SweatNow this is an incredible founder story. Ian grabbed Tobi Pearce before he hit the main stage to share his founder journey. Tobi and his fiancée Kayla Itsines are the founders of Sweat, a women's health and fitness content company. Tobi and Kayla were both personal trainers in Adelaide but they wanted to reach a larger audience all around the world. They have over 30 million dedicated users worldwide, have raised no external capital, over 100 employees, and are on track for $100 million in annual revenue! Tobi tells us about the tech systems they've built to help scale the business, how they are managing a much larger team, and the challenges of moving from 'hands-on founder' to strategic CEO. An amazing founder and business.Katherine McConnell, BrightKatherine is the founder and CEO of Brighte, Australia's leading on the spot finance platform for solar, batteries & your next home improvement. Brighte's growth and Katherine journey over the past 3 years is impressive, earlier in the year they announced a Series B funding round raised $18.5 million which included high profile investors AirTree, Grok Ventures and Skip Capital. Katherine talks candidly about the highs and lows of being a startup founder, does and don'ts when hiring, and how success changes as a business grows.We also stopped to chat familiar faces in the #startupaus community:Alex McCauley - StartupAusAndrea Gardiner - Jelix VenturesRhett Sampson - GT SystemsAdrian Mullen - NorbyWe hope you enjoy these special episodes from Sunrise Island. Thanks for having us Sunrise and we can't wait to return next year!

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 others within the vibrant community. And so, with mics-in-hand, Ian and Phaedon set out to speak with as many people as they could, interviewing the keynote speakers of the day and chatting with a bunch of Sunrise Island dwellers.In this episode we talked to main stage speakers:Laurie Yoler, Zoox:Phaedon caught up with Laurie (and the seagulls!) just before she hit the main stage. All the way from US, Laurie talked about how she became involved with Zoox, eventually joining their board of directors. She also discussed how she served as a founding board member of Tesla Motors, what it was like working with Elon, and shares some advice for founders on how to select their own board members. And most importantly tells us what makes a great founder.Cedar Anderson, FlowHive:With a unique solution to extracting honey, Cedar chatted with Phaedon about their one-of-a-kind beehive and how they’ve tackled their exponential growth and demand. Initially, Flowhive launched a campaign hoping to raise $70,000 for a custom injection mould. Instead, they ended up raising over $12 million and received nearly 25,000 orders from over 130 countries, and have already raised $14+ million for Flowhive 2. Cedar was kind enough to sit down with us for 20 minutes before he hit the main stage and share his amazing story and passion. Niki Scevak, Blackbird Ventures/Startmate:Ian chats with Niki Scevak, partner at Blackbird Ventures, the organisers of Sunrise Island. Blackbird invests in Australians with big ideas who want to be the best in the world. They provide equity capital for Seed, Series A and later stage. No cheque is too early. Hear from Niki how Sunrise is bigger and bolder than ever before, how the Startmate accelerator program was formed, and how the ecosystem is maturing. As well as great advice to all founders “The grander your ambition, the more likelier you are to succeed”.We also stopped to chat with a few favourites in the community:Joel Connolly - Blackbird VenturesRuby Jones - KPMG High Growth VenturesAndrew (teacher) - Mitchell High SchoolAndy Tsao - Silicon Valley BankNicola Farrell - muru-DKarthi Sepulohniam - Partners for GrowthMonica Wulf - Startup MusterJamie Pride - The Founder LabRohan Sood - ReinventureWe hope you enjoy this first episode of our Sunrise Island two-part special. Tune in for more next week.

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 artists around the world. Customers include companies like Pixar and Netflix. He has never raised external funding, and has grown the whole company organically. The company is run by James and his wife and his first engineering hire. James believes strongly in a a results orientated working culture, he provides the team with the autonomy and a very collaborative working environment.  Understanding the pressures of growing a small business, he also is a strong believer in rewards and takes the entire company and their families once a year to a retreat on Richard Branson's island in the Caribbean.  Which is a long way from Hobart!James has a vision for the business that is driven by a passion for art and a desire to build something better than anything else.  This comes across clearly in the podcast, James is driven by a very strong desire to build something truly exceptional.The company is now looking at a range of product enhancements, as it continually finds ways in which to better the app. 

This week on Open The Pod Bay Doors we chat to Sam Wong, Partner at Blackbird Ventures, an Australian venture fund who back exceptional founders with big ambitions to build global businesses. They provide equity capital for Seed, Series A and later stage - no cheque is too early. With a portfolio of over 40 companies, Blackbird has backed some of Australia’s startup powerhouses like Canva, Safety Culture, BugCrowd, Culture Amp.Sam and her parents emigrated to Perth from the UK in the 1980s, shortly after her mum started a computer sales business, and it wasn’t long until Sam and her dad were helping to run the business. Growing up with entrepreneurial parents instilled a drive and ambition in Sam from an early age.Sam went on to study law, this led to a summer clerkship and a graduate offer at top law firm. Sam loved the learning and analytical framework, however wanted to work on side projects (including learning French), and lawyer hours allowed no time to focus on these.One of these side projects was SurfStitch, a surf e-commerce company, so Sam left corporate world to help with their SEO and email marketing. A year later, she was in France hiring the team to run SurfStitch’s European operations - putting the French she’d learned to good use.After SurfStitch Sam knew she wanted to start her own thing, so she thought about a problem she faced working as a lawyer, working fewer hours, and CapacityHQ, an on-demand marketplace for legal talent was born. They were part of the Startmate cohort in 2015, the program accelerated their learning, and about halfway through realised they could build a small business but it wouldn’t meet their ambition.At the end of Startmate and after selling CapacityHQ, Sam became the first employee of the Blackbird team as Head of Operations, two years later Sam became a Partner.Blackbird is on its third fund of $250 million ($100M for new investments and $150M for follow on). They are focused on investing earlier and writing smaller cheques to back founders all along their journey. Outside the portfolio, Blackbird has been leading the charge adding value to the wider ecosystem with community initiatives like the Sunrise event, robotics clubs in universities and schools, and the partners regularly writing blog posts.     Sam has seen all sides of business, raised by entrepreneurs, working as a lawyer, a startup employee, founding her own business, and now an investor. In this episode she shares lots of her experiences and lesson learned along the way.  Enjoy.

This week on the pod, we have one of Australia’s most creative and well respected research commercialisation specialists. Dr. Steve Brodie talking everything innovation.Steve is passionate about all things science. Steve brings more than 20 years’ experience in research and development, commercialisation and open innovation with stints at major universities and now working with CSIRO.In his current role as Executive Manager for Innovation with CSIRO, Steve leads a fantastic team who design and delivery of innovation programs, including the ON program, Australia's innovation accelerator open to all Australian universities,  publicly funded research agencies and CSIRO. The program is designed to support and guide academia and research teams into viable, commercial businesses.On 9th April 2018 Innovation Bay will host the Deep Tech Founder Dinner that will feature teams from ON accelerator program.A curious inventor by trade, Steve co-founded ‘Thinking Thingamabob’, designed to solely help people be more creative. Prior to relocating to Australia Steve worked in space-tech and development of sensors for rockets and jets with Ferroperm Piezoceramics in Denmark.It’s a really fun conversation we hope you enjoy!

We welcome to the pod entrepreneur, investor, mentor and startup evangelist, Alan Jones.With a career spanning over 50 roles; from working for some of largest tech companies in the world, to mentoring with Australia’s leading tech incubators and accelerators, to investing in an amazing portfolio of early stage tech startups. Few people have impacted the local tech ecosystem like Alan.Alan's career started in PR and content, before founding his first business in 1995, and going on to help tech giants like Microsoft and Yahoo! in Australia. With a wealth of experience founding and co-founding web and mobile startups, Alan went on to advise and invest in Australian startups through BlueChilli, Blackbird Ventures, Startmate, Catalysr, and Pollenizer Ventures. He recently became entrepreneur-in-residence for our sponsor KPMG High Growth Ventures, working with growth-stage tech startups as they scale.He's also in the process of raising a new fund, M8 Ventures, which will focus on backing great product teams building the next generation of global tech companies from Australia and New Zealand.Phaedon sat down with Alan to discuss his career, what's changed in the startup industry, lessons learned along the way, what makes a good mentor, how he's advocating for a culture of entrepreneurship, the challenges the industry still faces, and his approach to investing and backing great companies.This episode is jam-packed with honest reflection, advice and insights. Enjoy!

After a little break we're back and ready to open the pod bay doors again.To kick off the year we thought we'd let our co-founders, Ian Gardiner and Phaedon Stough interview one another. This year Innovation Bay celebrates 15 years of supporting Australian founders and the startup ecosystem. It's been quite a ride from those initial gatherings of a few people in a dingy bar to a national community of over 3000 members spread across Australia.In case you don't know much about them, Ian Gardiner has a day job with Amazon Web Services, helping startups across Australia and New Zealand. Previously Ian was the CEO and founder of Viocorp, a software company supplying a video publishing platform for corporates and government. In 2009 Ian won the NSW Pearcey award for Technology Entrepreneur of the Year.Phaedon Stough, has worked with entrepreneurs and high growth tech start-up across APAC, EMEA and NA. Founding Mitchellake in 2001 to help entrepreneurs scale their companies via human capital solutions. Phaedon was the on board of Australia's first incubator, Pollenizer and later co-founded The Australian Founders Network in San Francisco to help Aussie entrepreneurs living overseas collaborate and support each other.Quite a dynamic duo we think you'll agree. Buckle up as these two 'veterans' cover everything from Innovation Bay's humble beginnings, their own personal journey's as startup founders, reflect on the changes in the Australian ecosystem over the past 15 years, share thoughts on the work that still needs to be done, and announce lots of new initiatives coming 2018.

Vanessa is the founder and CEO of Storreduce, an Australian deep-tech startup playing in the storage area. She moved the business to Silicon Valley a couple of years ago to be closer to her market. I caught up with her on a pretty noisy exhibition floor at AWS's re:Invent customer event in Vegas. 

Dr Michelle Perugini is an academic, entrepreneur, and an internationally renowned expert in health, medical research, advanced analytics, and cognitive AI. Her business, Life Whsiperer uses AI, computer vision and machine learning to better select healthy embryos for IVF, and ultimately improve outcomes for couples wanting to have children.Success rates for IVF are low, placing unnecessary financial and emotional burden on couples. Selecting the right embryo during IVF treatment is critical to ensuring a successful outcome. However, embryo selection is typically a manual and imprecise process. Life Whisperer's goal is to improve IVF success rates, and reduce cost and emotional burden on couples by selecting the best embryos.

Slight change in format this week. Ian is off in Hawaii cycling up a volcano, so has handed the microphone over to his Innovation Bay co-founder Phaedon Stough. He caught up with Patrick Llewellyn, the CEO of Accel-backed Aussie startup success story 99Designs. 99Designs is one of the world's largest graphic design marketplaces. There are few who have executed such rapid global growth as successfully as Patrick.To date, 99designs has hosted more than 245,000 graphic design contests and paid out more than $60 million to its community of 250,000 designers around the world. 

Katherine is the founder and CEO of Brighte, a Sydney-based fintech startup. Its proposition is to lend to households looking to buy big-ticket items like solar panels, batteries, air conditioners, etc. A former Macquarie banker, she launched the business in late 2016. She has shown incredible traction and progress, having recently landed $3.5m in seed funding, including from Mike Cannon-Brookes (Atlassian's co-CEO).

Bill has had a long career in the startup and venture space. He was a co-founder at Blackbird Ventures (with Niki Scevak and Rick Baker). He has a huge passion for #DeepTechFounders and has now recently launched Main Sequence Ventures along with Phil Morle, Mike Zimmermann, Martin Duursma and Mike Nicholls. It's a $100m fund part funded by CSIRO and part funded by the federal goverment.Bill proved his geek chops and street cred by nominating Rick & Morty as his favourite TV show. Love it.

Al is one of the new generation of Aussie VCs.  Tempus Partners was formed after his successful exit from ShippingEasy. He's now launched a $40m fund investing in the best early stage and Series A opportunities.  It's an awesome story and great to hear the insights from one of the best "emerging" VCs in Australia.

Alison brings some unique insights to the podcast this week. She's done just about everything from early stage startups to a stint as a VC and now as a Director of Westpac and Cochlear (amongst other things!) She's an amazing thinker and problem solver. I enjoy all my interviews, but this is definitely up there as one of my favourites.

Dan Cohen is an Australian serial entrepreneur. He successfully built and sold his first business Park Assist after a 10 year journey. In 2015 he co-founded Flare, a business redefining the employer-employee relationship. Has raised almost $10m locally, mostly from local VC Reinventure. I've known Dan for years now and he is one of my favourite entrepreneurs. He seems to combine the essential entrepreneurial traits of tenacity, ambition and arrogance but with healthy dollops of humility. There are some extremely valuable insights in this interview.

I know you shouldn't have favourite children, or, I suppose, favourite startup CEOs. But Luke is definitely one of my favourite CEOs. Luke's story, and by extension the story of SafetyCulture is fascinating - the epitome of startup hustle. It was so inspiring that Luke produced and paid for a movie about it (along with his buddies from Canva and Vinomofo). It's appropriately called "The New Hustle" - if you haven't seen it check it out - you'll find it on YouTube.

Jason is a prinipal at Partners for Growth (PFG), a specialty lending company from Silicon Valley with an active presence in Australia. When it comes to financing high-growth companies, we tend to focus on equity deals - ie sell a percentage of your company shares to an investor. Debt is an instrument that is much less common. Why is this? Jason has a great story to tell. Listen in and find out how he went from a Phd in Ancient History from Oxford University via a few years with Silicon Valley Bank in San Francisco to PFG's man on the ground in Australia. And what exactly is venture debt?

For Episode 9 we’re talking to a man of many hats, Derek Gerrard. Some of his noteworthy achievements include: - Leading ChangeCorp, a large management consulting firm. - Co-founding and later selling a profitable tech startup called Greensense. - Co-founding Go Capital, a tech capital raising firm - Heading up Innovation Bay, a networking platform for innovation and investment in the tech space - He is a church pastor - He is chairman of Meridian Global Foundation, a not for profit that donates to high impact charities - He is a board member of my company, Alyka Our talking points with Derek: [1.25] Tell us your full business story from management consultant to executive of ChangeCorp, to startup founder of Greensense, to selling Greensense all the way to co-founder of Go Capital and Head of Innovation Bay? [7.55] Tell us a bit about your role as a pastor your role and your involvement as a Meridian Global ambassador? [11.55] What do you think are the biggest keys to success for you as a business man? Sales ability? Leadership ability? Negotiation ability? [17.11] What are the biggest reasons that startups fail? (Any stories?) [24.39] What are the biggest reasons that startups do well? (Any stories?) [29.21] What is the biggest startup success story you have been part of? [30.07] Do you have any funny/interesting Shark Tank stories? [33:30] Giving - you give a lot of money away. Care to share? If you have any questions, please hit us up on any of the following: www.facebook.com/Alykadigital/ www.instagram.com/alykadigital/ www.linkedin.com/in/zion-ong-40942817/ perth@alyka.com.au If you want to chat to Derek, his email address is derek@gocap.com.au.

Start-ups, raising capital and the importance of giving back. Rob speaks with Derek Gerrard from Go Capital about one of the greatest challenges that any innovator or entrepreneur can face – raising capital. In this interview, Derek shares his experiences through the Innovation Bay forum and the opportunities he sees for the thriving start up community in Perth. 

Amanda Price is the head of KPMG's High Growth Ventures team. Their aim is to help founders build successful startups by helping them with access to capital, customers and international connections.She returned from almost 10 years in Los Angeles in various startup roles and has been a pillar of the Aussie startup community for over three years now. She's smart and passionate about startups. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Flavia is my favourite rocket scientist. Passionate, driven, intelligent and with unbelievable amounts of tenacity, it seems there is nothing that Flavia can't do if she puts her mind (and talents) to it.Fleet is a space business providing free global satellite connectivity for the internet of things. Over the next few years they will be launching and managing a constellation of up to 100 nano-satellites operating in a low earth orbit and providing ubiquitous connectivity for the tens of billions of internet-connected devices around the world. They just raised $5m from Blackbird and Mike Cannon-Brooke's investment fund, Grok Ventures.Flavia has a great story of how she got to this point. And articulates well the remarkable ambition she still has for the business. 

Karen is the CEO of corporate startup accelerator Slingshot. She has spent most of her career in various tech roles, most recently as CEO of News-owned job site Career One. Slingshot has delivered programs for several major Australian corporates over the last 3 years, including NRMA, HCF, Qantas and Lion. It's an interesting model which seems to have carved out a good spot in a relatively competitive market.Karen and I cover a lot of ground in this (quite long) episode. She's an awesome lady - great fun to talk to with some great insights.

Niki Scevak is the founder of Australian accelerator program Startmate as well as a founding partner at VC Blackbird. He's been passionately involved in the Australian startup sector since 2008 when he returned home from the USA.Niki has done about as much as anyone I know to support and grow the startup ecosystem. Startmate is on its fifth (or sixth?) cohort. Blackbird has now made almost 40 investments across its two funds. Many of their most recent investments are in what one might call "non-standard" sectors such has self-driving cars and space. Niki is a deep thinker with a keen intellect. And a great guy too.

Nico Chu is a very accomplished senior executive from the global IT corporate ranks. He has held senior global roles with companies like Expedia and Orbitz. His last corporate role was successfully helping to navigate Orbitz through their $1.5bn acquisition by Expedia. His new venture, Sinorbis, is a software business helping western (well, non-Chinese) companies market themselves into the enormous Chinese market. China has 720m internet users, which is one quarter of the world's internet population. Broadly speaking they love western goods and services. However it's very difficult for those brands to get their message delivered behind the Great Chinese Firewall in a way that resonates. Sinorbis has built software and associated services that is helping with this.Nico has a great story. And is a shining example of someone coming from the corporate world to make a significant splash in the startup world. (Also, sorry for my Barry White voice - got whacked with a bug just before this was recorded.)

Gen is a remarkable young woman. Smart, driven, humble. She has demonstrated a remarkable ability in her short career so far to (ahem) "get shit done". She cut her teeth in understanding double sided-markets with recruitment marketplace OneShift. This was sold earlier this year to Programmed. Gen and her co-founder/CTO Jess Glenn have now embarked on Tamme, a service for micro-targeting both sides of marketplaces, at a hyper-local level. She has also co-founded (with Jane Lu from Showpo) "Like Minded Bitches Drinking Wine" which now has 46,000+ female members around the world who enjoy wine and business. We discussed this and more. Jump in and enjoy...

Rob is the CEO and founder of podcasting platform Whooshkaa. An accountant by background, Rob was formerly the CEO at Macquarie Radio Network before he left and threw himself into the startup world with Whooshkaa a couple of years ago. Whooshkaa as well as being the publishing platform for Open the Pod Bay Doors is also one of the best startups in Australia right now. Commercially and technically it is doing an amazing job. Rob is intelligent, focused, talented and super-humble. 

Jennifer Tejada is the CEO of Pagerduty, a company that provides (I'm quoting from their web site) - "full-stack visibility and actionable insights for better software and better customer experiences. " It might sound niche, but this is a huge and growing area, especially with the way software is currently being developed, deployed and managed. Just 7 years old and a graduate of Y-Combinator,  Pagerduty has raised over US$80m from investors including Accel, Bessemer and Andreessen Horowitz.  It has over 9,000 clients globally and around 330 staff.Pagerduty just launched in Australia and Jennifer was in town to get things kicked off. She has a strong link to Australia (Bondi in particular) having married an Aussie through their love of ocean-yacht-racing. She spent 10 years or so in Australia before heading back to San Francisco and eventually ending up at Pagerduty in 2016. She's a remarkable woman with a huge wealth of experiences and insights. One of my favourite guests so far. Enjoy.

We held an Innovation Bay event in Melbourne recently where we hosted Partners from three of the country's best VCs (Airtree, Reinventure and Squarepeg). Between them they represent almost $750m of Venture Capital and have made around 60 investments between them. Fascinating discussion covering the background of Australia's VC sector, where it has got to now, some of the upcoming trends and what the future holds. 

On Thursday 13 July 2017, Jobs NSW announced the creation of the "Sydney Startup Hub", a new, 17,000 sq m space dedicated to housing, and nurturing, much of Sydney's startup community. Anchor tenants of Fishburners, Tankstream, Stone & Chalk and The Studio. Scheduled to open later in 2017. David Thodey is the Chairman of Jobs NSW and managed to squeeze in this special episode of the podcast straight after the announcement. David was CEO at Telstra from 2009 to 2015. Under his tenure Telstra's market cap doubled and, according to Crikey, "not only restored its tattered reputation but improved it."He is currently Chair of CSIRO and JobsNSW, and has a wealth of experience as a technology industry executive.

Slightly different episode format this week. This was recorded at an Innovation Bay event in Sydney, so we had the fun of recording at a live event in front of a studio audience. Please forgive the audio challenges around the Q&A section. Apart from a mis-joke about Paul growing up in Liverpool (he didn't, but I actually thought he was serious when he said he did!) this is a great and fascinating chat with Paul.Paul has over a decade experience in investment, venture capital and startups. He started at Goldman Sachs before becoming the Investment Manager for the $400m Tulla Family Office. For the past 2.5 years, Paul has been a Venture Partner at AirTree Ventures, a $250M Venture Fund.Today, he's building Spaceship, a tech-focused Super Fund offering a diversified portfolio with tech at its core, built for those with long investment horizons. Spaceship is looking to completely change the future of Superannuation for young Australians.