Connect to Capital

You know you are doing a good job as a venture investor when your portfolio companies rave about the value you add to their company completely independently of the capital you have provided. That’s certainly the case with this week’s guest Scott Gunther, General Partner of IAG’s Firemark Ventures. Scott describes Firemark as a strategic rather than a financial corporate venture investor, investing...

Steve Baxter says it like it is. He is not shy about being controversial and he is comfortable with the discomfort of disagreement. But as one of Australia’s most visible tech entrepreneurs, active investor and mentor to numerous startups, he has done more than almost anyone in the country to popularise early stage technology investment. He also provides some of the most useful and easy to remembe...

This week’s guest, Matt Allen, knows Startups are hard. He knows because he has founded 4 tech startups, invested in more than 26 and advised countless others over the past 20 years.  A couple of years ago leading VC firm Airtree recognised Matt and his wife Aprill as some of the best angel investors in Australia noting that at the time of writing they had: $533k  invested into 26 compan...

I have confession to make – I have been wanting to meet this week’s guest Dan Phillips for years. Ever since I started my career as a graduate at Macquarie bank in the 1990’s, the founder of Macquarie’s Technology Venture Capital Business has seemed like the stuff of myth and legend. Over his more than 30 year career at Macquarie, Dan has not only build arguably the most successful corporate ventu...

Nicole Small knows that growth-stage technology businesses need more than just money to succeed. They need partners who understand the pace, challenges and opportunities of the startup process. As investment director at rampersand, Nicole knows that an injection of funds into a business will make a difference financially, it’s the support with sales & marketing, communication, exposure to our...

Our guest this week is Jonathan Hannam, the co-founder of real estate technology investor Taronga Ventures. Jonathan was introduced to Scale Investors by one of our most successful female founders, whose property technology company was funded by Taronga. She raved about working with Jonathan and his team because of their intelligence, ambition and deep property expertise. But importantly she also...

The best thing about working with Scale Investors, is that I am regularly introduced to someone who completely smashes my perception of what is possible. That’s how I felt when I met Tristen Langley, who could be described as one of the original gangsters of Australian technology and venture capital investing and I was amazed that I had never heard of her. Originally from Sydney, having secured fi...

Kylie Frazer is a co-founder of Flying Fox Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm, which makes it easy for private investors to build their own diversified technology investment portfolios. Flying Fox has invested in more than 30 great Australian startups including Fresh Equities , Jig Space , Goterra and Mr Yum , making material capital contributions to their growth journeys. Flying Fox’s...

Rachael Neumann is Founding Partner at Flying Fox Ventures, but she is so much more than that. In fact it feels like Rachael Neumann is at the epicentre of the Australian startup ecosystem and has been instrumental in bringing some of the secrets of silicon valley’s success to our shores to enable both Australian companies and investors to thrive. Rachael was enticed here to be Managing Director o...

You will be hard pressed to meet anyone more genuine and keen to help than Michael Da Gama Pinto , the CEO and Founder of The Foundry Group. When we talked about recording a podcast together, rather than wanting to focus on the two exceptional Australian brands he helped achieve international success in Aēsop and Swisse or the operational expertise he brings to his portfolio companies, helping man...

We are lucky enough to be joined this week by Jana Bobosikova the founder and CEO of EPIC Brands – the health and beauty venture studio based in California. Jana has a fascinating background, describing herself as being Czech by birth, global by choice. She has lived and worked in Europe , the UK and the US and has studied areas as diverse as EU financial markets, monetary policy, and theology and...

Our guest on Connect to Capital this week is Mike Zimmerman , a partner at Main Sequence Ventures , the Innovation Fund of the CSIRO, the Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research. Mike has adopted Australia as his home, after more than 20 years as a founder, executive or investor in a wide range of technology companies both here and the US. Mike is a committed deep tech inv...

When Andrea Gardiner first saw an image of pioneering female rock climber Louise Shepherd hanging off the side of a sheer rock face, it was like a punch in the chest. It was the realisation for Andrea that if one woman could climb some of the most challenging rock faces in the world, there was no reason that she could not do the same. So began a life of adventure, including skiing in world champio...

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 culm...

Ben Armstrong is a co-founder of Archangel , an early stage venture fund and investment syndicate. He and his partners work with great technology founders to build game changing companies together. They are industry agnostic and have backed over a dozen companies including Bardee, Fresh Equities, Pearler, Sendle and Shipeezi. Ben seems to have the perfect background for venture with degrees in bot...

Marisa Warren has more than 20 years experience in tech as a venture capital investor, advisor and operator working for companies like SAP, Microsoft and Workday. After an award studded career, Marisa left big corporate in 2015 to pursue her passion for early-stage businesses. Whilst living in New York, Marisa founded ELEVACAO a global pre-accelerator for women tech founders. Fast forward to today...

Daniel Madhavan is passionately curious about how business and finance can be utilised as tools for building a sustainable and equitable future. Through his business Ecotone Partners he looks for ways that capital can play a significant positive role in shaping the future for people and the planet. Before Ecotone Partners, Dan was CEO of Impact Investment Group, one of Australia’s largest impact f...

Kate Vale founded ALIAVIA Ventures in 2020 with Marisa Warren, on a mission to invest in the highest potential female founders in Australia and the US, and help them achieve outsized success.  And Kate knows plenty about fast paced scaling, having established Google in Australia and New Zealand, growing revenues from zero to more than $500 million over a six year period. She then moved on to...

Our guest this week is Nick Crocker who is a General Partner at Blackbird Ventures , one of Australia’s largest and most successful venture firms. He is an investor in a string of flourishing startups including Culture Amp, Applied, Eucalyptus, Dovetail, and Beyond Ag. Nick knows the world of venture capital well, having co-founded one of the first companies that Blackbird funded called Sessions....

This week, Catherine Robson speaks with Michael Batko and the word she would use to describe him is prolific.  Not only is Michael the CEO of Startmate , the accelerator whose aim is to be the epicentre of startup ambition across Australia and New Zealand, he speaks multiple languages, creates incredible weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual content, and is so captivated by the energy of star...

This week, Catherine Robson speaks with to Federica Nicolao. Known to just about everyone as Fed, she is a partner at The Foundry, a team of health and wellness brand experts who partner with motivated founders to accelerate the creation of enduring global brands. As a female leader, Fed is passionate about empowering women entrepreneurs. Having faced numerous roadblocks in her own career, Fed has...

This week, Catherine Robson speaks with Alister Coleman, the founder and Managing Partner of Folklore Ventures. Folklore is an Australian venture capital firm which invests over the full start up journey, right from the first cheque to later stage growth funding. A trajectory he knows well, he is a co-founder of ShippingEasy (acquired by Stamps.com). The first time Catherine met Alister, she was s...

This week, Catherine Robson talks with Paul Naphtali who is the cofounder o f Rampersand VC , the early stage Australian technology fund established in 2013 to help close the funding gap for Australian and NZ startup founders. Paul returned to Australia after working in Silicon Valley and the UK to sprinkle some of the magic he learned as a marketing and strategic communications guru for a number...

This week, Catherine Robson talks with the amazing Rachel Yang. Rachel is a partner at Giant Leap , Australia's first 100% impact venture capital fund backing founders who are using business as a force for good.  Rachel escaped the clutches of a traditional corporate path in management consulting and corporate finance, since then, her career in venture has flourished. She's admired across the...

Is the secret to raising capital really all about who you know? At Scale Investors, Australia’s leading gender diverse investment network, we believe that access to investors, advice and education is the crucial missing piece of the capital-raising puzzle. For too long it’s been limited to an exclusive club. We believe it's time to open access. It’s time to Connect to Capital. Hosted by Catherine...