Speakers
Chief Executive Officer Cicada Innovations
Co-Founder, Managing Director Blackbird Ventures
General Partner Telstra Ventures
Operating Partner DCVC
Team Member Yale University
Co-founder & Co-CEO Atlassian
Co-founder and Managing Partner Reinventure
Co-Founder and Managing Partner FPV Ventures
Partner Carthona Capital
Co-founder & Managing Partner BBG Ventures
Investment Director Jelix Ventures
Managing Partner Electric Capital
Managing Partner Jungle Ventures
Co-founder and Chairman Power Ledger
Founder & GP Delta Blockchain Fund
Co-Founder TechSydney
Founder and Joint CEO Prospa
Co-founder & CEO Canva
Founder, Partner AirTree Ventures
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer AutopilotHQ
Committee Member Australian Venture Capital Association Ltd – AVCAL
General Partner, SOSV & Managing Director, HAX SOSV
Founder Flamingo AI
Investment Manager Rampersand
General Partner SeaPoint Ventures
General Partner Blackbird Ventures
Petra Andrén is CEO of Cicada Innovations (www.cicadainnovations.com), Australia’s only deep technology “super incubator” for Australia’s largest collection of 70+ advanced technology entrepreneurs across the medical, engineering, and IT web sciences. Petra is an ambassador for global non-profit, InBIA, working with sustainable entrepreneur support programs in every industry and demographic around the globe. She lectures on entrepreneurship at the University of Sydney, the University of Technology, and the Australian National University. She holds a MA (University of Uppsala, Sweden/exchange for thesis work University of Salzburg and University of Vienna, Austria) and an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management (UNSW, and USYD), and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD).
Bill Bartee is a co-founder and Managing Director of Blackbird Ventures and of Southern Cross Venture Partners. He has co-founded several successful companies. At Southern Cross Bill focuses on early-stage software, security, and internet companies. From 1997 to 2001, he helped build and lead the early stage investing for Macquarie Technology Ventures (MTV), a balanced venture fund focused on software, telecommunications, internet and life sciences. At MTV, Bill led investments in several market leaders including Altium (ASX: ALU), LookSmart (NASDAQ: LOOK), Seek (ASX: SEK), Telera (acquired by Alcatel), and onebox (NASDAQ: OPWV). At Southern Cross Bill has led investments and is a Board Member or Observer in Mocana, Bislr, Mantara, Liaise, and Shoes of Prey. Before co-founding Southern Cross, Bill was the start-up CEO of Mantara, a company that makes high performance, content-based message routing systems. Prior to moving to Australia, Bill had 12 years of research, operational, and entrepreneurial experience in the United States. Bill earned a Bachelor of Science, MBA and Juris Doctorate degree (University of Richmond).
Marcus is a founding Partner of Telstra Ventures. Telstra Ventures was setup with a mission to invest in market leading, high growth companies that are strategically aligned with Telstra. Since inception Telstra Ventures has invested $300M+ in capital, with 7 exits and 38 active portfolio companies across USA, Australia, and Asia. Marcus’s investment interests are broadly across the telecom and enterprise software sector with a focus on cyber-security. Marcus’s active portfolio companies include Crowdstrike, PhishMe, Auth0, VArmour, Zimperium, AttackIQ, IPScape, Cohere Technology, and Headspin.
Dr. Chris Boshuizen is an Operating Partner at DCVC (Data Collective) leading investment in space (Capella Space, Rocket Lab) and other deep tech companies. Chris was co-founder of Planet Labs, a DCVC company providing unprecedented daily, global mapping of our changing planet from space. As the company’s CTO for 5 years, he took the company from the drawing board to having launched more satellites into space than any other company in history, completely transforming the space industry along the way. Chris was previously a Space Mission Architect at NASA Ames Research Center. After working on a number of traditional spacecraft programs at NASA, Chris co-created Phonesat, a spacecraft built solely out of a regular smartphone. Chris received his Ph.D. in Physics (with honors) and a BSc. in Physics and Mathematics, both from the University of Sydney.
Mike Cannon-Brookes is the Co-founder and Co-CEO of Atlassian, a collaboration software company that helps teams organize, discuss and complete shared work. More than 160,000 large and small organisations across the world, including companies like Spotify, NASA, Mercy Ships, Sotheby’s and Visa use Atlassian’s collaboration products to help their teams work better together. Outside Atlassian, Mike is a technology investor in the areas of software, fintech, agriculture and energy and sits on the board of Zoox. He also cares deeply about giving back and is a board member of Room to Read. A passionate clean-energy evangelist, Mike was a driving force behind Australia getting the world’s biggest lithium ion battery and the “Fair Dinkum Power” movement. He serves as an adjunct professor at the University of New South Wales’ School of Computer Science and Engineering and holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Information Technology from the University of New South Wales, Australia.
Simon Cant is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Reinventure. Founded in 2013, Reinventure is a corporate venture fund with $100m under management bringing together the best of independent venture capital and corporate venturing with Westpac as the primary investor. To date, the portfolio has 16 ventures which are focused on Fintech and adjacent areas. Simon is also the founding President of FinTech Australia, the industry’s peak representative body, and a member of the Australian Treasurer’s FinTech Advisory Group. Simon has built his career in venture and innovation including advising leadership and innovation teams at Westpac, NAB, Suncorp, Fairfax, News, APN and Tennis Australia as well as being a founding team member at Social Ventures Australia, Tinshed Angel Group, ninemsn and Austlii, where he was involved in pioneering legal expert systems. Prior to joining Austii, Simon was a solicitor with Allens.
Wesley Chan is an early investor in five $10B+ Decacorns and 20+ $1B+ Unicorns, including Canva, Guild, Dialpad, & AngelList. He was first check into Flexport, Robinhood, Plaid, & Gusto. Founders want to work with Wesley given his product-led growth expertise that he developed when he founded Google Analytics and Google Voice during his 14 year career at Google. He also holds 17 patents for his work on building Google’s early Ads system.
Dean Dorrell has a B.A. (Hons.) in Economics and had a successful initial career as a bond trader, arbitrageur and proprietary trader. He was a coder from very early days and used those skills whilst trading to formulate some of the earliest proprietary models, quant trading systems and statistical arbitrage methods in the 1990’s that led to him becoming Head of Bond Trading at Paribas in London and later joining Greenwich Capital and Greenwich Natwest. Dean made his first angel investment in 1998 and during the mid-2000’s transitioned into a VC/private equity/operating executive role with Redbus Group in London which had successful exits such as RFD to Lionsgate and Lovefilm (which was the merged entity that the Redbus founded Video Island became part of) to Amazon and was named winner of the Richard Branson sponsored Sunday Times Virgin Atlantic Fast Track 100. Dean moved to Australia in 2010 and became the Managing Director and an Investment Committee Member of M.H. Carnegie & Co. in 2011, primarily leading the deal team in early stage venture investments and private equity deals (largely focused on distressed real assets such as marinas and pubs). Dean co-founded Carthona Capital in 2014 which has become one of Australia’s leading early stage venture capital companies with over $200m of FUM.
Nisha Dua is a Managing Partner at BBG Ventures, which she co-founded in 2014. BBGV is an NYC-based, early-stage fund leading investments in companies built by female and diverse founders that are solving the needs of consumers, workers and employers. BBGV invests in big categories that require new thinking such as Health & Wellbeing; The Future of Work & Ed; FinTech; Climate; and solutions for Overlooked Consumers. At BBGV Nisha has invested in over 100 female-led start-ups including Spring Health, Real, Fiveable, KiwiCo, Blueland and The Mom Project. Nisha has spent over a decade working in media, tech, strategy and law. She was the General Manager of AOL’s millennial site, Cambio, which she grew 4X in less than a year. She founded BUILT BY GIRLS, a software platform which has connected over 20,000 girls or non-binary talent with professionals in technology. Nisha was previously Chief of Staff for the AOL Brand Group, working on strategy, operations and special projects. She cut her teeth as a management consultant for Bain & Company and an M&A lawyer at Australian law firm Blake Dawson.
Ian is a technology entrepreneur working to grow the technology startup ecosystem in Australia and New Zealand. He is a co-founder and investor at Jelix Ventures. Previously he was Head of Startups for ANZ at Amazon Web Services. He also co-founded and helps to run Innovation Bay, a networking and angel investment group for technology startups. Ian is a winner of the NSW Pearcey award for Technology Entrepreneur of the Year. Ian has an Engineering degree from the University of Oxford where he also won two rowing blues in the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race. When he has time he is also a competitive cyclist, an avid computer gamer, husband and father of two boys (not in that order).
Avichal is Managing Partner at Electric Capital. He is a serial entrepreneur and technology executive. Avichal sold two companies and was most recently Director of Product at Facebook, which acquired his company Spool in 2012. He previously worked at Google on search ranking and ads ranking, is part-time at YCombinator, and an active angel investor. Avichal’s firm, Electric Capital, focuses on cryptocurrencies that are rooted in technological utility. Electric performs deep technological diligence, such as compiling code, profiling nodes, and analyzing blockchains with in-house software. The founders of Electric have started and sold five companies, have been investing in cryptocurrencies since 2013, and are investors in Anchor, Bitwise, Chia, Coda, dYdX, Dfinity, Oasis, Thunder and many other crypto projects.
David is currently a Managing Partner at Jungle Ventures, a Singapore based venture capital firm focused on internet and technology investments in South Asia. Prior to Jungle, David spent 3.5 years at TPG Capital where he led internet investments outside of the US within the TPG Growth fund. Prior to TPG, David spent 12 years at Yahoo! Inc where he was the Head of International M&A on the Corporate Development team. In this role, he was responsible for driving all transaction activity and the investment strategy for Yahoo! outside of North America, including their expansion in to new markets, such as Russia, Turkey, Middle East, Africa and SE Asia. In 2011, David was also the Managing Partner at Xplorer Capital, a growth equity venture capital firm which spun out from Yahoo! to focus on internet and digital media opportunities in the emerging markets. David continues to be an Advisor to TPG Capital and represents them as a non-executive director on the board of Propertyguru, the largest online real estate platform in SE Asia. He has been working and investing in the Asia tech sector for over 20 years and living in Singapore for the last 10 years.
Dr Jemma Green was born in Perth and raised in the eastern hills. At age 22, and armed with a bachelor of Commerce in Finance from Murdoch University in Perth, she started a career in banking at JP Morgan in London. Here her work involved bringing sustainability and corporate social responsibility to the task of lending big money. This often involved persuading industries like mining to clean up their act, a challenge she relishes despite its complexity. In 2013, Jemma left banking and returned to Australia to complete a PhD in disruptive innovation. Here she started to look at citizen utilities and the way apartment buildings could use solar and batteries in combination. It was a short step from this to setting up Power Ledger with her cofounders in 2016, a blockchain energy company. In 2017, Power Ledger undertook Australia’s first initial coin offering and raised $34 million. Jemma has become a goto person on matters of blockchain, cities, energy and transport in and has made hundreds of appearances in the media commenting on related topics. She also finds time to be an independent councillor at the City of Perth, a board member of the Water Corp and advisor to Carbon Tracker, wife and a mother of one.
Kavita Gupta is the founder and General Partner of Delta Blockchain Fund. Kavita kicked off her career at the IFC trading floor where she built new products with the Liquid Asset Management team. She was a core member of the team that issued the first social impact bonds and the first green bonds. Kavita has experience with emerging market funds, investing across Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. She started her company WeMynd and then joined Eric Schmidt’s family office where she invested in various impact-driven technologies. She started Consensys Ventures as a General Partner (2017-2019), where she was an early investor into the Ethereum ecosystem and invested in various successful companies at the very early stage including some first checks, like BlockFi, Sorare, Starkware, Quantstamp, Bank Juno, PDAX, Coinhouse, and Unlock Protocol. Over the last six years she has invested in over 60 deals (Fund and personal) building long lasting personal relationships with some of the top founding team members of the blockchain space along the way. She is a visiting scholar at Stanford University where she co-lectured Blockchain 101, and is on the advisory board at the Center of Capital Markets and Competitiveness at the US Chamber of Commerce. She also sits on the board of International Emmys, Distributed Trust Initiative at Stanford University and advises the UNICEF GIGA project. Kavita is passionate about working with great founders and being a trusted partner throughout their journey. Kavita Gupta is the founder and General Partner of Delta Blockchain Fund. Kavita kicked off her career at the IFC trading floor where she built new products with the Liquid Asset Management team. She was a core member of the team that issued the first social impact bonds and the first green bonds. Kavita has experience with emerging market funds, investing across Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. She started her company WeMynd and then joined Eric Schmidt’s family office where she invested in various impact-driven technologies. She started Consensys Ventures as a General Partner (2017-2019), where she was an early investor into the Ethereum ecosystem and invested in various successful companies at the very early stage including some first checks, like BlockFi, Sorare, Starkware, Quantstamp, Bank Juno, PDAX, Coinhouse, and Unlock Protocol. Over the last six years she has invested in over 60 deals (Fund and personal) building long lasting personal relationships with some of the top founding team members of the blockchain space along the way. She is a visiting scholar at Stanford University where she co-lectured Blockchain 101, and is on the advisory board at the Center of Capital Markets and Competitiveness at the US Chamber of Commerce. She also sits on the board of International Emmys, Distributed Trust Initiative at Stanford University and advises the UNICEF GIGA project. Kavita is passionate about working with great founders and being a trusted partner throughout their journey.
Dean is a startup founder, advisor, and investor. A serial entrepreneur, he co-founded Australia’s first group buying platform, Spreets, in 2010 (it was later acquired by Yahoo!7 for $40M, one of the biggest sales in Australian tech startup history at the time) and recently launched his fourth startup, IconPark. Dean is evangelical about his hometown being the best place in the world to live – and committed to making Sydney the most desirable place on Earth to found and scale a high-growth tech company.
Greg is an entrepreneur who specialises in identifying and entering new markets. He made his first foray into business at the age of 16 and has since amassed 12 years of diverse experience, including ownership of a laundry chain, and serving as director of fashion fixit brand Hollywood Fashion Tape where he led expansion of the business throughout the Asia Pacific region. Greg knew firsthand the difficulties faced by small business owners in accessing the funds they need to grow. In 2012 he founded Prospa with Beau Bertoli to change the way people experience finance. Prospa is now Australia’s #1 online small business lender, delivering over $450m to thousands of small businesses in Australia. During Greg’s time as Joint CEO, the company has received numerous awards including Winner – 2015 Deloitte Tech Fast50, #1 Smart Company in Australia 2016, 3rd – 2015 Deloitte Asia Fast 500, and 31st on KPMGs list of established global innovators (and best Australian fintech). In May 2017 Moshal and Prospa co-founder Beau Bertoli were joint winners of the Fintech leader of the year award at Fintech Australia’s inaugural awards event, where Prospa also won best Fintech place to work. In July 2017 Prospa won Best Medium Business NSW in the Telstra Business Awards and were received AON Hewitt Best Employer Award for 2017. Prospa has to date raised over $200 million in debt and equity funding with investors including Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, Ironbridge Capital, Entrée Capital, Airtree Ventures, SquarePeg Capital, high profile private investor David Fite and a large local institutional investor. In February Prospa secured $25 million in funding led by AirTree Ventures, in what has been described as the biggest Fintech VC funding investment in Australia, and as a “coming of age” for Australian Fintech.
In January, I started another company, Vital Software, with Dr. Justin Schrager of Emory University. Vital makes software for hospital emergency rooms. This includes a mobile patient check-in for patients, and the fastest, most usable electronic medical records you’ve seen for doctors and nurses. We use extensive machine learning and natural language processing to determine patient severity and anticipated actions. Our longer term goal is to cut ER wait times in half, as they are often 4-5 hours long. You might not know it, but there are 140M ER visits in the US alone each year. Medical / sales are in the US, while development is all in Auckland New Zealand. My long-time partner Rebecca, an architect, is a Kiwi and I am now a resident of New Zealand as well.
Melanie Perkins is the co-founder and CEO of Canva, an online platform making visual communication simple for everyone. Since launching in 2013, Canva has grown from strength to strength and is embraced by more than 55 million users every month, ranging from individual creators to small businesses and Fortune 500 enterprises using the platform to create everything from presentations and videos to t-shirts and social media posts. Today, Canva is valued at US$15 billion and making is one of the fastest-growing technology companies in the world.
Daniel has been a leading player in Australia’s software industry for more than 30 years, both as a founder of three successful venture firms and as a senior executive in operational roles in Australia and the U.S. Daniel’s roles have included Chairman of Netus, Founding Chairman of Ecorp (a venture capital fund), Director on the PBL Board and time with Microsoft Corporation, where he served as Vice President of the Workgroup Division, Director of Advanced Technology and Director of the Asia Pacific Region. Daniel is on the Board of OneView Limited (Advisory Board), Sydney Theatre Company, Innovation Science Australia, UNSW Business School (Advisory Board) and the UNSW Centre for Social Impact Sydney Advisory Council. He is also an Adjunct Professor of the University of NSW and University of Sydney. Daniel has a Doctorate in Business (Honoris Causa), a Bachelor of Science from the University of New South Wales and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Sydney. He also holds a Graduate Diploma in Counselling, and is a published author. He was made an Officer in the Order of Australia (AO), for distinguished service to Australia and is an author of four books.
Spencer Rascoff is an entrepreneur and company leader who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire and dot.LA, and who served as Zillow’s CEO for a decade. He is an active angel investor in over 50 companies, and serves as executive chairman of dot.LA, a news site covering the Los Angeles tech scene. He is also co-founder and chairman of a stealth startup, and incubating several other startup companies. Spencer is a former Board member of TripAdvisor (Nasdaq: TRIP), Zulily, Julep, and several other companies. In fall 2019 Spencer was a Visiting Executive Professor at Harvard Business School where he co-taught the “Managing Tech Ventures” course. In 2015, Spencer co-wrote and published the New York Times’ Best Seller “Zillow Talk: Rewriting the Rules of Real Estate.” Spencer is the host of “Office Hours,” a podcast on featuring candid conversations between prominent executives on leadership, diversity and inclusion, and startups. Before his consumer web career, Spencer worked in investment banking at Goldman Sachs and in private equity at TPG Capital. He is also a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization. Spencer graduated cum laude from Harvard University. Fortune and Forbes both listed Spencer as one of America’s most powerful CEOs under 40 and he is a recipient of Ernst and Young’s National Entrepreneur of the Year Award. In 2017, Spencer was named Swanepoel’s most powerful person in real estate. Spencer was also awarded Glassdoor’s Highest Rated CEO recognition for 2016.
Michael Sharkey co-founded Autopilot and is the CEO. Prior to founding Autopilot, Michael joined his brother Chris to grow start-up Stayz into a top Australian rental booking site (acquired by FairFax Digital in 2006 and again by HomeAway for $225M in 2013). He also co-founded Sharkey Media with his brother Chris, where he helped grow Australian startups, marketing programs, and websites.
Elaine is the Managing Director of Venture Capital and is responsible for the management of the Blue Sky venture capital fund and portfolio. Established in 2012, the venture capital division has expanded to bear its second fund, VC2014, and over $100 million in assets under management across a broad range of industry sectors. Elaine has worked for a number of years as a venture capitalist and management consultant to the venture and industry across Australia and the United States. Elaine has also worked in strategic management consulting, with both NASDAQ and ASX listed and private companies based in Australia and the US. Originally trained as a stem cell biologist, Elaine has since spent the last decade within the innovation and investment spectrum, initially in technology commercialisation assisting public institutions and founders translate and commercialise their technology across a broad range of industry sectors including agriculture, healthcare and IT. Elaine has a strong academic foundation holding a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Adelaide. She is actively involved in Australia’s professional venture capital community, as a member of AVCALs venture capital stakeholder committee and as a member of the investment committee of ANUConnect Venture Capital, the Australian National University’s venture capital fund.
Duncan is a General Partner at SOSV, and the Global Managing Director of HAX, the world’s first and largest VC-backed program for hard tech. He has invested in over 100 hard tech companies and serves on multiple boards in the climate, industrial and healthcare sectors. Duncan has an extensive entrepreneurial background and deep experience fundraising and growing businesses across the globe. He has taken numerous technologies to market in various industries. Before joining SOSV, he led design and engineering strategy projects for Fortune 500 companies at the global innovation firm IDEO. Duncan obtained his Master’s from the Royal College of Art & Imperial College. His design and engineering work has won multiple awards and is included in the permanent collection at The Museum of Modern Art. He has a deep passion for new technologies and engineering breakthroughs that can benefit our planet.
Dr. Wallace is the Founder & CEO of high-profile Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning company, Flamingo, which provides Cognitive Virtual Assistants, ROSIE & MAGGIE, used by Financial Services companies to guide customers through their sales and service journeys, improving online sales conversion rates and customer experience. Based in NYC and Sydney, Dr. Catriona Wallace is one of the world’s most cited experts on the Future of Customer Experience, Artificial Intelligence and Bot Strategy. Catriona has a PhD in Organizational Behavior: Human Technology Interaction, is a well published author and is recognized as one of Top 4 Most Respected People globally in the Customer Experience sector. Catriona is a highly awarded business person having been inducted into the Australian Business Woman’s Hall of Fame, winning Advance Australia’s top prize for Technology & Innovation for Australian’s working abroad, winning Telstra Business Awards and is Alumni in the Springboard Enterprises Women Entrepreneur’s program. Catriona was also awarded a Pearcey Foundation award for tech entrepreneurs. Catriona is also a high profile philanthropist, human rights activist and mother of five.
Eloise is the Investment Manager of rampersand, an early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2013 that invests in the best Australian technology founders and surrounds them in the help they need to succeed. With $50m+ in FUM, rampersand has invested in over 15 companies including AssemblyPayments, Stackla and Expert360. Eloise is also currently the Chairman of Engage Education, a social enterprise she co-founded in 2010. Prior to rampersand, Eloise worked at Goldman Sachs, BCG and Booz & Co.
Melissa Widner is a general partner at NAB Ventures. Through direct experience, she has a deep understanding of both the entrepreneur’s journey and the role of a Venture Capitalist. As CEO she led two companies to successful acquisitions that provided over a 10X return to investors. She co-founded and was the CEO of Silicon Valley based enterprise software company, 7Software (acquired by Concur Technologies NASDAQ: CNQR, acquired by SAP). Melissa was a general partner at SeaPoint ventures, a US based venture capital firm focused on mobile technologies and SaaS enterprise software solutions. She has served as a director on several US and Australian based venture-backed technology companies. In 2009, Melissa relocated to Sydney with her Australian husband. She co-founded Heads Over Heels, an organisation that works with female entrepreneurs leading companies with high growth potential. She served on the Federal Government’s Venture Capital Committee and currently serves on the VCC of AVCAL, the Australian Venture Capital Association. Melissa holds a BA from the University of Washington and an MA from Stanford University. She is the proud mother of four boys.
Sam is a Partner at Blackbird Ventures, a technology venture capital fund with $230 million funds under management. She is also a Partner at Startmate, Australia’s pre-eminent early-stage technology accelerator. Prior to joining Blackbird, Sam co-founded a Startmate Company, CapacityHQ, a professional services marketplace. Sam started her career as a corporate lawyer at Minter Ellison before career-pivotting to lead Product teams at SurfStitch.com, a multi-national e-commerce startup.
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