The History of the Australian Startup Ecosystem: Interview Series

Chad Renando is director of Startup Status, a not-for-profit which aims to help organisations that support entrepreneurs by mapping and measuring the innovation ecosystem across Australia. He is also Managing Director of Global Entrepreneur Network, and Research Fellow at University of Southern Queensland, where he’s working on a PhD on the topic of the role of innovation hubs in developing resili...

Annie Parker is a startup investor and advisor with 20+ years experience in the digital startup, technology and consulting sectors. Currently, Annie is the Executive Director for Tech Central, a community for tech startups which is part of the Greater Sydney Commission, an organisation overseen by the NSW Government. Annie sees her role at Tech Central as helping to put Sydney on the global map as...

Brendan Hill is an angel investor and startup mentor and advisor. He is Syndicate Lead at Logan and Wayne, a firm that invest in early stage tech startups. Before becoming an investor, Brendan founded and ran an online football marketplace, which was acquired in 2016. In his conversation with Adam, Brendan discusses how Australian technology startups often struggle to hire talented engineers due t...

Lucinda Hartley is an urban strategist and serial entrepreneur. She is the co-founder of Neighbourlytics, a social analytics platform for neighbourhoods that aims to solve the human data gap for the property sector by providing access to information and insights about urban life. She also co-founded CoDesign Studio, a not-for-profit with the mission of improving social connection and resilience ac...

Baden U’Ren is an entrepreneurship educator and innovation professional who has worked in a variety of roles within the Australian startup ecosystem. He is the co-founder of both The Unconventional Group and Script-Ed, and had a nearly 20 year career as an academic as the head of entrepreneurship at Bond University. In his conversation with Adam, he discusses the importance of the education sector...

Daniel Flynn is co-founder of Thankyou, a social enterprise that was founded in 2008 and sells consumer products to help end extreme poverty. In 2015 Daniel’s book, Chapter One, became a bestseller and generated $1.4 million in sales in its first month using an unorthodox “pay-what-you-want” model. In his conversation with Adam, Daniel discusses his belief that “leaders are learners”, and how work...

Aaron Birkby is the co-founder of The Unconventional Group, and has over two decades experience working as a founder, advisor, board member, investor and facilitator in the Australian startup ecosystem. He has worked in a variety of roles building and supporting technology startups to grow into global companies, including as CEO of Startup Catalyst, and Entrepreneur In Residence at Queensland Univ...

Mark Pesce is the host of This Week In Startups Australia (TWISTA), a podcast which has charted the growth and maturity of Australia’s startup ecosystem since 2014. Born in the US, Mark first worked for a startup in 1982, and in the years since has worked in a variety of roles, including co-inventing VRML, which became a foundational format for displaying 3d graphics on the internet, founding Ono-...

Malcolm Turnbull was the 29th Prime Minister of Australia between 2015 - 2018, in which time he launched the National Innovation and Science Agenda (NISA), which aimed to drive innovation and Australia’s startup ecosystem. Malcolm also has a long history of investing in and founding companies, having established an investment banking firm in 1987, as well as becoming a partner of Goldman Sachs in...

Jodie Fox co-founded Shoes of Prey, an innovative shoe retail company which at its peak was a global business, with more than 200 staff, six million shoes designed and US $27 million in funding raised. After Shoes of Prey ceased trading in 2018, Jodie wrote a memoir, Reboot. In her conversation with Adam, Jodie discusses what the startup ecosystem looked like when she founded Shoes of Prey in 2009...

James Alexander is the co-founder of Galileo Ventures, which focuses on investing in young, first time startup founders. Prior to this, James founded Incubate, an accelerator program run out of the University of Sydney. An experienced investor and advisor, James has supported over 200 founders launch tech startups across various industries in the previous decade. In his conversation with guest hos...

An Angel Investor and co-founder of multiple startup ventures, Susan Oliver has also served as a board member on over a dozen organisations in her long and rich career, including The Wheeler Centre, Fishermans Bend, The Smith Family and Fusion Retail Brands. Susan is a co-founder and recently retired Chair of Scale Investors, Australia’s first network of Angel Investors committed to investing in a...

Phil Morle is a Partner at Main Sequence Ventures, a venture capital firm founded by the CSIRO which invests in early stage technology companies with science at their core. Prior to this role Phil co-founded and was CEO of Pollenizer, one of Australia’s earliest startup incubators. In his conversation with Adam, Phil discusses how the experiences in a previous career as a theatre director have hel...

Dr Silvia Pfeiffer is CEO of Coviu, a video telehealth company which provides software to healthcare providers. Originally from Germany, Silvia moved to Australia and worked for CSIRO exploring video technology applications before developing the idea that would become Coviu, which became an organisation independent of CSIRO in 2018  and grew rapidly during the pandemic. In her conversation with Ad...

Murray Hurps is the Director of Entrepeneurship at UTS, tasked with growing the number of student-founded startups coming out of the university. With a long list of credentials in the Australian startup ecosystem, including former CEO of Fishburners, Co-founder of Startup Muster, and founder of Ad Muncher, Murray strongly believes that Australia’s future relies on innovation and entrepreneurship....

With a background in management consulting and corporate finance, Rachel Yang is a partner at Giant Leap, Australia’s first venture capital fund which exclusively backs founders using business as a force for good in the areas of health and wellbeing, sustainable living and empowering people. Rachel is also the Co-Chair of Startup Victoria, a non-profit, grassroots organisation supporting startup f...

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 He...

Nicole O’Brien is CEO of Fishburners, a not-for-profit co-working space and community hub for tech startup founders with a rich history of supporting Australian tech companies since its inception in 2011. For over a decade Nicole has also been the Director of Corporate Services for ACON, a community health organisation. In her conversation with Will Tjo, Nicole discusses why her outlook on the Aus...

Dean McEvoy is a seasoned startup founder and angel investor, having founded three startups including Spreets.com, Australia’s first group buying site, which launched in February 2010 and sold only 11 months later for around $40 million. A founding mentor and investor at Startmate, Dean has advised and invested in over 96 startups. In his conversation with Adam, Dean discusses the origin story of...

Georgie Turner is Principal at Tidal Ventures, a seed-stage focused venture capital investment firm which is based in Australia and has an office in the US. Tidal Ventures invest primarily in B2B software startups. Georgie also acts as Board Director or Advisor for multiple startups, including Operata, Socialsuite and Shippit. In her conversation with Adam, Georgie discusses what the Australian st...

Colin Kinner is founder and CEO of Startup Onramp, a training and mentoring program for first time startup founders. With a long history of entrepreneurship, Colin has supported countless startups in a variety of roles, including as Entrepeneur-In-Residence at both Slingshot and The Studio Au, and as an Advisory Board Member at Surepact, Hoops CRM and Explorate. In his conversation with Adam, Coli...

With experience founding and co-founding tech startups since 1995, Alan Jones is a veteran of Australia’s startup ecosystem. An angel investor and advisor, Alan has supported Australian startups independently and through BlueChilli, Blackbird Ventures, Pollenizer Ventures and Startmate. In his conversation with Adam, Alan discusses how the internet’s disruption of media companies made possible Aus...

After practicing as a lawyer for six years, Paul Bassat co-founded Seek with his brother Andrew in 1997, which in 2005 was floated on the Australian Securities Exchange with a market cap of $587 million. Paul moved on from Seek in 2011, and in 2012 co-founded Square Peg, a global investment firm which today has over US $1 billion in assets and has offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Tel Aviv and Singapo...

Melissa Widner is the CEO of Lighter Capital, an investment firm that is based in the US and launched in Australia in 2020. Their novel model involves lending to early stage startups and linking repayments to revenue, without requiring founders to relinquish equity. Melissa has a long history in the startup world, having been CEO or board member of many companies. In her conversation with Adam, sh...

Hamish Hawthorn has been deeply involved in the development of the Australian startup ecosystem. A qualified mechanical engineer with postgraduate training in business and technology, Hamish is particularly focused on supporting founders of technology startups. Currently the Chief Operating Officer of Curious Things AI, a voice-based conversational AI company, Hamish co-founded Sydney Angels, a Sy...