First Cheque with Cheryl Mack & Maxine Minter

Side Stage Ventures and Dealroom have just released the 2026 edition of their landmark report on Australian venture. Grab your copy of the Australia Venture & Startup Report 2026 here: https://www.sidestage.vc/outliers-report-2026 Australia has created more unicorns per dollar of VC invested than anywhere else in the world — and Ben Grabiner has the data to prove it. In this replay, Cheryl and...

Episode Summary Alex Feldman is the founder of Tiger and Bear, an M&A advisory focused on tech and services businesses. Before that, he was Chief Strategy Officer and General Counsel at Amaysim, where he ran three acquisitions simultaneously during full lockdown in 2020 and 2021 to build a dominant player that was ultimately sold. In this episode, Cheryl and Maxine unpack how to buy and sell b...

Episode Summary Alexey Mitko is a partner at Co-Ventures, the architect behind Eucalyptus' ESOP plan, and widely known in the Australian ecosystem as "ESOP Guy." He was around employee number twenty at Canva and one of the early employees at Koala, giving him a front-row seat to three of Australia's biggest consumer tech outcomes. In this episode, Cheryl and Maxine unpack how Alexey designed the E...

Episode Summary In this 101 episode, Cheryl and Maxine go deep on the fundamentals of pre-seed investing, from how the stage came to exist to why the perceived risk gap between pre-seed and seed is much smaller than most investors think. They break down the history of how venture stages evolved from single rounds to alphabetized series, how seed investors eventually got pushed up the stack, and wh...

Episode Summary Noga Edelstein is the lead of the Equity Clear initiative, a not-for-profit effort to get Australian investors tracking pipeline diversity data with a common standard. She's also a former General Counsel at Yahoo, a multi-time founder, and has had her fingerprints across the Australian startup ecosystem for over a decade. In this episode, Cheryl and Maxine unpack why pre-seed fundi...

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey Episode Summary Elizabeth Yin is the co-founder and General Partner of Hustle Fund, a pre-seed venture fund now on its fourth fund that backs companies globally. Before Hustle Fund, she was a partner at 500 Global, founded adtech company LaunchBit, and was an early employee at Google...

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey Episode Summary In this episode of First Cheque, Cheryl and Maxine sit down with Laura Chambers, CEO of @Mozilla to dive into the transformative power of open source technology and its role in shaping the future of the internet and artificial intelligence. Laura shares insights on Mo...

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey Episode Summary Frontline’s Brennan O’Donnell has spent two decades helping companies expand across borders, first as an operator at Google and later as a growth investor backing Series B to D businesses. In this episode, Cheryl and Maxine unpack what’s shifted at growth stage in the...

Episode Summary As 2026 kicks off, Cheryl and Maxine open the year with their annual First Cheque wrap, a grounded, opinionated take on what actually shifted in Australian tech and venture, and what that means for the year ahead. They break down why 2025 marked a genuine inflection point for the ecosystem, from Canva’s secondary and a surge in M&A to fresh signals that long-awaited liquidity i...

Episode Summary Max Kausman is the founder and solo GP of Advance VC, Australia's first dedicated fund-of-funds with a focus on secondaries. Advance VC buys existing positions in Australian and New Zealand VC funds—acquiring stakes from investors seeking liquidity and giving new LPs diversified access to mature, validated portfolios across multiple vintages dating back to 2012. In this conversatio...

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey Episode Summary Matt Browne is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of Black Nova Venture Partners, one of Australia’s most active early-stage funds. Before becoming an investor, Matt founded multiple companies, including enterprise software firm Dunsafe, which sold to global corporat...

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey Episode Summary What happens when hundreds of the world’s biggest capital allocators get together behind closed doors to talk about venture, private equity, and where the next $30B is going? Maxine found out firsthand at Super Returns Asia, where she chaired the LP–GP relations stage...

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey Episode Summary Sachin Bhanot leads Southeast Asia & ANZ investments at Prosus Ventures, a global fund with $100B+ in assets. Though based in Singapore, Sachin has become an “honorary Australian fund manager”, with nearly half of Prosus’s regional portfolio now in Australia and N...

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey Episode Summary Tom Humphrey, Partner at Blackbird and former operator, joins Cheryl and Maxine to reframe the conversation around Australia’s AI ecosystem. While headlines paint a picture of Australia falling behind, Tom argues we’re quietly sitting on world-class talent, global-fir...

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey Episode Summary In this crossover episode of First Cheque and In The Blink of AI, Cheryl Mack (Aussie Angels) and Maxine Minter (Co Ventures) team up with host Georgie Healy to unpack how investors are thinking about AI, beyond the hype. From pitch decks to product demos, they reveal...

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey Episode Summary Some investor phrases sound helpful. Others feel like a riddle. In this episode, Cheryl and Maxine crack open the language investors use when talking to founders, and translate what’s actually being said behind phrases like “not a fit,” “too early,” or “let’s have one...

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey Episode Summary Charles Hudson is the Founder and Managing Partner at Precursor Ventures, a solo GP fund that has backed over 450 startups across five funds, including dozens of category-defining companies led by underrepresented founders. In this episode, Maxine and Cheryl sit down...

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey Grab your copy of the Dealroom and SideStage Ventures report we talked about on the show with Cheryl Mack and Maxine Minter here - https://www.sidestage.vc/outliers-report-2025 Episode Summary Ben Grabiner is the Co-founder and General Partner at Side Stage Ventures, and the author o...

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey Episode Summary Nnamdi Okike is the Co-founder and Managing Partner at 645 Ventures, known for his early, contrarian bets on overlooked verticals and non-obvious industries. In this episode, Nnamdi shares how he leveraged a data-driven sourcing model to identify breakout companies li...

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey Episode Summary Pocket Sun is the Founding Partner at SoGal Ventures, the first female-led, millennial VC firm investing in the future of living, working, and staying healthy. In this episode, she shares how she made her first angel investment at just 24, and how her early bets like...

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey What drives bold decisions, intentional leadership, and the courage to create something entirely new? In Perspective X , host Pauline Fetaui dives deep into conversations with extraordinary entrepreneurs and leading innovators to explore not just their successes—but the overlooked de...

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey Episode Summary Monique Woodard is the Founder and Solo GP of Cake Ventures, a venture fund focused on the enormous opportunities created by demographic shifts such as aging populations, rising female spending power, and America's transition to a majority-minority population. She exp...

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey Episode Summary: In this episode of First Cheque, Cheryl and Maxine sit down with James Tynan of Square Peg to explore why EdTech might be one of the most misunderstood (and underinvested) sectors in venture capital. James recounts his early days bootstrapping a startup in Australia’...

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey Episode Summary: Having a clear investment thesis helps you make better decisions, improve your deal flow, and maximise your returns. Cheryl and Maxine break down exactly what an investment thesis is, why it matters, and how to structure one that fits your risk appetite, interests, a...

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey Episode Summary: Understanding how to invest in startups requires more than just writing a cheque. Cheryl and Maxine break down the legal structures behind startup investing, covering SAFE notes, convertible notes, and priced rounds. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just startin...