The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal

Ben Grabiner is a Partner at Side Stage Ventures, a newly formed Venture Capital firm in Australia. Previously he co-founded Platoon which was acquired by Apple. Platoon was created during Ben's time working at Local Globe, as an early employee at the firm. (Local Globe is now recognised as a leading seed stage VC fund in Europe).  It’s now time to explore your curiosity. Please enjoy! (Timestamps...

In this very special and rare episode, we're joined by Amy Waite and Sheetal Cicutto, the private equity managers for two of Australia’s premier superannuation funds in Telstra Super and Australian Super respectively, to discuss how super funds are powering your retirement growth through venture capital and driving innovation for the world. Please note: This podcast is general in nature and any ge...

 Tom Humphrey is an Investor with Blackbird Ventures, a globally top ranked venture capital fund supercharging the most ambitious founders. Prior to Blackbird, Tom was a partner with Access Ventures based in Denver USA and was on the management / founding teams of two successful startups. Tom was COO of OurDeal, a “group-buying” ecommerce website in Australia that over 12 months scaled to a team o...

Michael Traill was the founding CEO of Social Ventures Australia from 2002 -14. Prior to this role, Michael spent 15 years as a Co-Founder and Executive Director of Macquarie Bank's private equity arm, Macquarie Direct Investment. In his time there, the Macquarie Direct Investment team invested in 43 businesses generating a gross rate of return of 32.3%. Michael chairs Australia’s largest charitab...

Founded in 2017 by Zoe Milgrom and Kunal Kalro, Eugene offers medical-grade genetic testing and counselling services to people anywhere at any time. With a few drops of saliva, Eugene can identify variations in genes that may lead to disease, allowing you to proactively take control of your own health. Eugene was the first company in Australia to make medical grade genetic testing available to con...

James Alcorn is a partner at Zetta Venture Partners, one of the world's leading AI focused VC investors, serving technical founders building AI-native companies. Zetta has partnered with the founders of Kaggle, Domino Data Lab, Nabla Bio, and other leading franchises. In this episode #135 w James Alcorn, learn about: Given the extensive focus on AI and it’s exponential mainstream growth, I wanted...

This is a special episode and the 2nd in our "guest host" series. This time, with Jax Vullinghs from Airtree Ventures interviewing Kim Randle, Co-Founder and CEO of FairSupply about her early influences, how she fell into law and being inspired by a movie, what led to co-founding Fair Supply and problem they’re tackling, tireless enthusiasm and being a founder + parent. In this special episode #13...

Bec is Executive Director at Tripple, a 100% Impact private investment company that works across all asset classes and incorporates both investing and grant-making to use capital as a force for good. Outside of Tripple. Bec has extensive experience in marketing and strategy in the start-up and not for profit sectors and is a current board member of the Centre for Australian Progress, a not for pro...

Osher Gunsberg is one of the most recognisable media personalities. He first came to attention as the face of Australian Idol and the voice of Australia's largest weekly radio countdown, Take 40 Australia.  He continues to be the host of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette on Channel Ten.  Until recently, Osher was also part of the Breakfast Team and co-host of Hit105's radio brekky show alongside A...

Michael Kim is the Founder and Managing Partner of Cendana Capital, a globally renowned "fund of funds", aka the investors behind Venture Capital funds. Cendana Capital are investors in many of the funds of our previous guests including Blackbird VC, Better Tomorrow Ventures and many more well-known funds in the US, Israel, Australia and India. Prior to Cendana, Michael was one of the original par...

Paul Bassat is the Co-Founder of the Venture Capital firm, Square Peg with operations in Australia, Singapore and Israel. Previously, he co-founded the success story that is the online recruitment website, Seek. He was born and lives in Melbourne, Australia. In this episode #130 w Paul Bassat , learn about: Paul’s sunrise in Melbourne, Australia with European heritage with his parents coming to Au...

Sam Wong is a General Partner at Blackbird Ventures, who exist to supercharge Australia's and New Zealand's most ambitious founders. She was the first hire in their Australia fund and has since invested in companies including Vow, Halter, Harrison AI and led the raising of their inaugural $59M New Zealand Fund, and $80M New Zealand Fund II (2022) + heads up their New Zealand office. Sam was born i...

Peter Huynh is the Chief Strategy Officer at Harrison AI, and previously spent over a decade as a VC investor in Asia, UK and Australia with Singtel and Qualgro Partners. He was born in Vietnam, and lives in Sydney, Australia.  In this episode #128 w Peter Huynh , learn about: Peter’s Vietnamese heritage, especially how his family moved to Sydney, Australia in the late 1970’s and the early challen...

Michael Stocks is Head of Strategy & Operations at "FL0", previously he joined the global success story Linktree as one of their earliest hires, scaling the startup to a billion dollar business. He was born and lives in Sydney, Australia.  In this episode #127 w Michael Stocks , learn about: Michael’s sunrise, a mix of the Blue Mountains in Sydney and Malaysia — his parents met bush walking (how g...

Dan Fitzgerald is the Managing Partner at ReGen Ventures, has been investing in climate-tech for over 10 years across early-stage, growth and real assets. Dan was previously the co-founder of a quant hedge fund and an Options Trader at UBS and Macquarie Bank. In this episode #126 w Dan Fitzgerald , learn about: His early influences with his sunrise in Brisbane, Australia when his mum was just 18!...

Eytan Lenko is CEO at Boundless , on a mission to make Australia a renewable energy superpower by 2030, backed by Atlassian Co-founder, Mike Cannon Brookes. He previously was a software engineer and co-founded 2 companies including Outware Mobile. In this episode #125 w Eytan Lenko , learn about: Think of this in two parts, with the first half being a deep dive into Eytan’s life influences and car...

Featuring two of the co-founders, Jess Richmond & Lindsay Ellis, building from Tasmania for the world!  Welcome to installment #23 of the Investment Memo series and episode #124 on the show.  Submit this EOI for your company to be considered in future episodes of this special series!   This exciting startup Sumday , is empowering accountants to re-define how the world measures and reports on envir...

In this episode #123 w David Shein , learn about: David’s memories of growing up in South Africa during a divided time for the country, the influences of his father, a businessman and mother, a piano teacher — and his 2 older brothers. I asked Dave about his move to Australia in the 80’s or “gods country” as he calls it. You may be aware that he founded ComTech, Australia’s first unicorn but what...

In this episode #122 w Sheel Mohnot , learn about: 02:15  - Where were you born and live now? 02:30 - What was your first job and now? 03:20  - High Flyer in Sheel’s life 04:12 - Indian family influences 05:19 - High school impressions 06:09 - Connecting with Indian / American identity 06:51 - Grandfather’s inspiration 07:44 - Multi dimensional career interests 09:00 - A year living in India on a...

Global tech investor Squarepeg announces investment in Chronicle. Hear from James Tynan and Mayuresh Patole!  In this special episode #121, learn about: ▪️ 02:09 - James’ memories of first meeting with Mayuresh @ Chronicle ▪️04:04 - Mayuresh’ memories of early interactions with Squarepeg  ▪️06:15 - Where was Mayuresh born and lives now? ▪️07:20 - Most profound experience in childhood ▪️10:38 - Ult...

New series! In this episode #120 w Alex Badran and Tim Doyle ,  learn about: 02:36 - Alex and Tim’s memories of meeting each other 03:30 - Opportunity in marketing from capital allocation and media management 04:10 - Probabilities and thinking in frameworks 04:57 - Alex’s memories of winning competitions watching cricket 06:56 - Grounding first principles in a logical framework from mathematics 08...

In this episode #119 w Wyatt Roy , learn about: Sunrise in regional Queensland and working on the family strawberry farm Influence of high school teacher to enter politics at age 20 specifics of how he become a member of parliament Similarities between politicians and startup founders (yep stick with us and hear the answer) Overcoming age bias, and why it exists not just in politics but in areas l...

In this epsiode #118 w Anil Sabharwal learn about: Sunrise in Canada with Indian roots Reflections on his early influences and leaving home at age 17 Highlights / Learnings from 10-15 year career prior to joining Google Moving to Australia in 2006 Achieving momentum in early days at Google Unlocking skills working across new markets, segments and industries in building billion user products and be...

We're joined by Ben Simai , the program led for Startmate’s first believers and Jess Walker , the program lead for Airtree’s explorers in their first joint appearance for this episode #117 and installment #22 of the special Curiosity series.  Explore your curiosity about: Quick intro on Ben and Jess and how they made they way into startups and investing What is an Angel Investor? Surprises about t...

We're joined by Co-Founders and Co-Ceo’s of Different, Mina Radhakrishnan and Ruwin Perera in their first joint appearance on a podcast for this episode #116 and installment #21 of the special Curiosity series.  Explore your curiosity about: Mina and Ruwin growing up 200km's away from each other in Zambia without knowing it How they met in San Fransisco many years later Learnings from Uber, Google...