The History of the Australian Startup Ecosystem: Interview Series

Serina Bird is the author of The Joyful Frugalista, a personal finance guide, and runs online courses on money and finance. She also founded The Joyful Business Club which aims to support women pursue their career goals through mentoring, networking and training, and is the author of The Joyful Startup Guide. In her conversation with Adam, Serina discusses being inspired by witnessing the innovati...

Moira Were has been involved in many endeavors in the Australian startup ecosystem throughout her long career, with a focus on projects striving for social good. Moira is the founder of the Hen House Co-Op, an initiative with the goal of closing the gender investment gap, and co founder of Collab4Good, a social enterprise working towards a just economy based on participation, equity, access and ri...

Tim Boyle is Director of Innovation & Commercialisation at ANSTO, Australia’s Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. Tim is also the director and founder of Nandin Innovation Centre, ANSTO’s centre for commercialisation, design innovation and entrepreneurship, which oversees a growing ecosystem of more than 30 startups. In his conversation with Adam, Tim discusses his belief that there i...

Bill Tai is a global venture capitalist who is based in Silicon Valley and spends part of the year in Perth. Bill has been funding startups as a Venture Capitalist since 1991, and has had 23 of his startups become listed companies. Bill is also an Adjunct Professor at Curtin University, where his focus is innovation and economic development. In his conversation with Adam, Bill discusses how he bec...

Rohan McDougall is the director of commercialisation at Curtin University, where his team work to identify business opportunities for new products and services that arise research conducted at the university. Rohan has over a decade of experience working as company director or chairman of a variety of technology startups, including Renergi, a renewable energy technologies company, and Icetana, a c...

Kate Jones is the former Minister for Innovation in the Queensland government, and has spent the last 20 years of her life working in politics. Currently she is an executive director with the Tech Council of Australia, as well as working for the tech entrepreneur Bevan Slattery who has built a number of businesses that handle data and telecommunications. In her conversation with Adam, Kate discuss...

Kylie Frazer is co-founder and partner of Flying Fox Ventures, an Australian investment firm with a focus on early stage tech companies. Flying Fox is notable for being a rolling fund, a business model aims to optimise for flexibility with investors not locked into long term commitments. In her conversation with Adam, Kylie discusses her belief that in order for Australia to have more female found...

James Tynan is Principal at Square Peg, which is currently Australia’s largest independent Venture Capital firm with $1.6 billion under management and offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore and Tel Aviv. Prior to taking this role, James was CEO at Startmate, an organisation of investors and mentors that runs two accelerator cohorts a year. In his conversation with Adam, James discusses his experi...

Pete Horsley is the founder of Remarkable, a tech accelerator for early stage startups in the disability tech space. Starting his career as a landscape architect, Pete now has more than 10 years’ experience working in the not-for-profit sector. In his conversation with Adam, Pete discusses how an idea for a solar powered wheelchair led to the founding of Remarkable, and why diversity within Austra...

Mick Liubinskas is the founder of Climate Salad, an organisation that aims to boost climate tech companies in Australia and New Zealand by providing tools, programs and community support. Mick has a long history working within the startup ecosystem both in Australia and overseas, and notably was co-founder of Pollenizer, one of Australia’s first startup incubators. This is a special episode featur...

Pete Lead is former Head of Programs at tech startup accelerator BlueChilli, the author of the The Startup Guide, a toolkit designed for startup founders, and GM of Learning and Growth at social enterprise Young Change Agents. With a background in improv comedy, Pete joined BlueChilli in 2018 as a relative outsider to the startups. In his conversation with Adam, Pete discusses his motto, “You have...

Alan Noble is the founder of AusOcean, a not-for-profit organisation with the mission of helping the world’s oceans through technology. Alan also worked for 11 years as the Engineering Director of Google Australia, during which time he oversaw the hiring of hundreds of engineers to Google Australia’s team and got to know many of the people working within Australia’s startup ecosystem. In his conve...

Terry Hilsberg is a co-owner and partner in Fork Ventures, an investment firm that primarily focuses its investments in crypto projects. Terry is also a Venture Partner in InnoHub Capital, a global innovation acceleration services organisation based in China. Terry has decades of experience working within the startup ecosystem both in Australia and globally, and in his conversation with Adam discu...

Emily Rich is a co-founder and partner at M8 Ventures, a venture fund that focuses on investing in tech startups during their “pre-seed” stage. Emily is also Director of Startups for APAC, where she has been tasked with helping to drive startup growth in the Asia-Pacific region. This is a special episode featuring guest host Alan Jones, an investor and veteran of Australia’s startup ecosystem who...

Peter Bradd was the founding director and initial CEO of Fishburners, one of Australia’s first coworking spaces which has been home to a community of startups since its founding in 2011. Peter has also served as Board Member and Chair of StartupAUS, a not for profit organisation with the mission of transforming Australia through technology entrepreneurship. In his conversation with guest host Will...

Leslie is the Indigenous Entrepreneurship Director at Minderoo Foundation, an Australian not-for-profit organisation seeking effective, scalable solutions to persistent problems. Leslie’s role at Minderoo is part of their Generation One initiative, with the goal of creating employment parity with and for Indigenous Australians. Leslie also founded DreamSpark, a tech, investment and Web 3.0 enterpr...

Anthony Ferrier is an innovation and commercialisation specialist, primarily working within the intersection between startups and corporations. Anthony is the head of Innovation and Commercialisation at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, as well as working independently as an advisor and consultant. Before returning to Australia several years ago, Anthony spent two decades working in...

Colette Grgic is Head of Startup Ecosystem in Australia and New Zealand at AWS (Amazon Web Service), a role which sees her leading a team that works to enable founders to start and successfully scale startups in Australia and New Zealand. Before joining AWS, Colette was Chief Innovation Officer at BlueChilli, Australia’s largest startup accelerator. In her conversation with Adam she discusses her...

Zoe Piper has been working at the intersection of industry, research and government for two decades, with a diverse and lengthy résumé. She is the founder of Ethitrade, Delmata and Allaran, cofounder of Ecolour, and Chair or board member of multiple organisations including Young Change Agents and Canberra Business School Advisory Board. In her conversation with Adam, Zoe discusses that despite get...

Phil Hayes-St Clair is co-founder and CEO of Drop Bio, a digital health company with a mission of accelerating the world’s transition to personalised health by increasing consumers and clinicians’ access to data. Phil is also Adjunct Associate Professor at UNSW, and has worked with many startups over the years in roles including co-founder and board member. In his discussion with Adam, Phil discus...

Zrinka Tokic is the director of ThincLab, the University of Adelaide’s business incubator that has its headquarters in Adelaide but also has locations in Singapore and New Zealand. Zrinka is also director of the Australian eChallenge, a pre-accelerator program which aims to take a startup from initial idea to market ready or incubator ready. In her conversation with Adam, Zrinka discusses how her...

David Burt is the Director of Entrepreneurship at UNSW, where his team helps students, academics, staff and alumni turn their ideas into a startup. He also serves as Non-Executive Director for RapidAIM, an agriculture start up, Planet Ark, a not-for-profit environmental behaviour change organisation, and Cicada Innovations, an incubator for Australian science and engineering startups. In his conve...

Rachael Neumann is one of the founding partners of Flying Fox Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm backing startups in Australia and New Zealand. Prior to this Rachael has played many roles in the Australian startup ecosystem, including as Partner at Startmate, Head of Startups Australia & New Zealand at Amazon Web Services, board member at LaunchVic and Managing Director of Eventbrit...

Pete Cooper is a serial founder and mentor who has worked in a wide variety of roles in the technology startup space. He is Director of Cooper & Co, an early stage investment firm, founder of The Start Society, a grassroots industry body for Australian tech startup entrepreneurs, and has served as a mentor for many startup organisations including Muru-D, Startmate, and Founder Institute. In hi...

Anna Wright is the CEO and co-founder of BindiMaps, a smartphone app that helps anybody find their way around complicated indoor spaces such as shopping centres and hospitals. Their mission is to make every indoor space 100% accessible, with the early focus of the company on accessibility for people with vision impairment. In her conversation with Adam, Anna discusses how her rare retina condition...