Connect to Capital

Our guest this week is Jonathan Hannam, the co-founder of real estate technology investor Taronga Ventures. Jonathan was introduced to Scale Investors by one of our most successful female founders, whose property technology company was funded by Taronga. She raved about working with Jonathan and his team because of their intelligence, ambition and deep property expertise. But importantly she also loved the firms’ genuine commitment to positive impact, both socially and environmentally.

My guess is that part of the success in building a specialist venture firm like Taronga that great entrepreneurs love to work with, is Jonathan’s very global outlook. He truly is a citizen of the world, having held senior roles in Sweden, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, New Zealand, Malaysia and Australia. He is fluent in Mandarin and Swedish and as an entrepreneur himself, he is also an expert in the language of founders and business builders.

Links

Johnathan Hannam on LinkedIn

Taronga Ventures

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The best thing about working with Scale Investors, is that I am regularly introduced to someone who completely smashes my perception of what is possible. That’s how I felt when I met Tristen Langley, who could be described as one of the original gangsters of Australian technology and venture capital investing and I was amazed that I had never heard of her.

Originally from Sydney, having secured first class honours in science and the university medal from the University of NSW, Tristen spread her wings initially completing graduate studies in software engineering in Germany and then an MBA from Stanford delivering her straight into the heart of Silicon Valley as the late 1990’s tech revolution was in full swing.

Over the following nearly 2 decades, Tristen has had a front row seat to the highs and lows of technology and venture, and has sourced, led or been operationally involved with private investments that have returned over $8 billion to investors.

Tristen seems to be able to live life completely to the beat of her own drum, now splitting her time between her home in California and her exquisite eco-friendly wellness retreat in Peru, situated between Machu Picchu and the Incan capital of Cusco.

Generous with her time and oozing with enthusiasm, the most striking thing about Tristen is how evidently she lives her values of integrity, excellence and diligence. Her story really is perception shattering!

Links

Tristan Langley on LinkedIn 

Wilka T'ika, Tristen’s yoga retreat in Peru https://willkatika.com/

Shaman healing Peru https://www.samadihealing.com/

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Kylie Frazer is a co-founder of Flying Fox Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm, which makes it easy for private investors to build their own diversified technology investment portfolios. Flying Fox has invested in more than 30 great Australian startups including Fresh Equities, Jig Space, Goterra and Mr Yum, making material capital contributions to their growth journeys. Flying Fox’s model is designed to focus exclusively on early stage tech investments, long recognised as one of the most prospective yet neglected segments of the Australian venture capital market.

Passionate about introducing more investors to the joys of early stage tech investing, Kylie is a regular contributor at Australia’s leading investor education providers: Wade Institute’s VC Catalyst; The Australian Graduate School of Management’s Angel Education Program and Scale Investors’ very own InvestEd platform.

Kylie brings empathy to the founder experience, having founded two technology businesses herself. She has almost two decades experience as a corporate transactions lawyer, and just as I could have nerded out with her about tax law and web 3 all day, there is almost no topic about which she does not have a thoughtful and well considered opinion.

Links

Not Boring by Patrick Mccormick (@Packy McCormick)

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Rachael Neumann is Founding Partner at Flying Fox Ventures, but she is so much more than that. In fact it feels like Rachael Neumann is at the epicentre of the Australian startup ecosystem and has been instrumental in bringing some of the secrets of silicon valley’s success to our shores to enable both Australian companies and investors to thrive.

Rachael was enticed here to be Managing Director of Eventbrite Australia, growing the tech business in our region, having previously been a consultant at Bain & Company in Silicon Valley and throughout Australia, advising Technology, Private Equity, Consumer Products and Retail businesses.

Her love of early stage companies was evident in her choice to head up Startups in Australia & New Zealand for Amazon Web Services, responsible for driving both quantity and quality of startups in our region. Along the way Rachael became an invaluable strategic advisor and investor and a Partner in Startmate, Australia’s most ambitious accelerator. She’s passionate about helping companies scale and increase their impact through differentiated customer experiences and new product development.

Rachael also works to create the right policy environment that’s conducive to a thriving sector, and served as Chair of the Board for StartupAus - Australia's national startup advocacy and lobby group - with a federal ministerial appointment distributing commercialisation and acceleration funding on behalf of the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science.

Educated in the States with an undergraduate degree from Stanford University and two Masters degrees from Columbia University, Rachael has bounced between Australia and the US for the last ten years and now proudly calls Melbourne home, alongside her partner and two children.

Links

https://www.flyingfox.vc/about

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachaelneumann/

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You will be hard pressed to meet anyone more genuine and keen to help than Michael Da Gama Pinto, the CEO and Founder of The Foundry Group. When we talked about recording a podcast together, rather than wanting to focus on the two exceptional Australian brands he helped achieve international success in Aēsop and Swisse or the operational expertise he brings to his portfolio companies, helping management teams with the right capital structure and resourcing to take advantage of favourable industry conditions, he wanted to share a couple of very personal stories which he thinks really demonstrate essential learnings from his journey. He wanted to share not because they would cast him in the most favourable light, quite the opposite. But because Michael is always thinking of the most effective way to help founders truly absorb the learnings which will underpin their success.

Michael is focused on the Health, Wellness and Beauty space, believing a passionate believer in the multiplier effect of taking care of body and mind, and leaving a positive mark on the world.

The majority of profits made from the investments by Michael and his family are donated to charities supporting health, employment and education initiatives.

But what Michael feels is his most important and proudest achievement, is being the father of three beautiful children.

Contact Michael via LinkedIn 

Book – The Art of Stillness 

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We are lucky enough to be joined this week by Jana Bobosikova the founder and CEO of EPIC Brands – the health and beauty venture studio based in California.

Jana has a fascinating background, describing herself as being Czech by birth, global by choice. She has lived and worked in Europe , the UK and the US and has studied areas as diverse as EU financial markets, monetary policy, and theology and religious studies with an honours thesis on The South Korean Economic Miracle and the Spirit of Protestantism.

These dates Jana is Focused on driving high-growth tech-enabled consumer brands with multi-platform revenue, relevancy, innovation, and impact. She really is EPIC!

More about Jana:

Jana Bobosikova on LinkedIn 

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Our guest on Connect to Capital this week is Mike Zimmerman, a partner at Main Sequence Ventures, the Innovation Fund of the CSIRO, the Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research.

Mike has adopted Australia as his home, after more than 20 years as a founder, executive or investor in a wide range of technology companies both here and the US.

Mike is a committed deep tech investor passionate about working with Founders to help them achieve their ambitions and working with companies that are bringing a step change in new value to existing industries.

At Main Sequence, Mike leads the Supercharge Industrial Productivity Challenge, and also invests in the Feed 10 Billion People challenge and Next Intelligence Leap Challenge. 

Mike also sits on the Board of the Australian Investment Council, the Investment Committee for the State of Queensland’s Business Development Fund, and the Global Board of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Alumni Association.

Earlier in his career, he worked with Bain & Company and Goldman Sachs. He has an MBA from Stanford University and a BA from Amherst College. You will be hard-pressed to find anyone who has the combination of Mike’s experience, intelligence, insight all while being super generous with his time.

Links

Mike Zimmerman on LinkedIn

Inspirational portfolio founder Jamila Gordon 

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When Andrea Gardiner first saw an image of pioneering female rock climber Louise Shepherd hanging off the side of a sheer rock face, it was like a punch in the chest. It was the realisation for Andrea that if one woman could climb some of the most challenging rock faces in the world, there was no reason that she could not do the same.

So began a life of adventure, including skiing in world championships and climbing most of the cliffs depicted on the apple screen saver.  

Along the way, Andrea has herself become a role model, blazing the trail as one of the very few professional women venture capital investors as the founder, CEO and chief investment officer of Jelix Ventures.

Andrea is convinced that disruptive, scalable, technology businesses are critical for the future economic prosperity of Australia and is passionate about backing daring technology founders to make the world better.

Her experience as a corporate lawyer, investment banker and a natural entrepreneur, enable Andrea to meticulously select, execute & manage investments all with an eye to mitigating risk. Because you learn some good habits as a world class rock climber and your life depends on excellent preparation!

Links and resources

Andrea Gardiner on LinkedIn

Jelix Ventures 

Podcasts and books

Origins 

Secrets of Sandhill Road by Scott Kupor

Venture Deals by Brad Feld

Other

Louise Shepherd

For more information about Scale: Scale Investors Scale Educated

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When Ian Gardiner was 10 years old, he was the fastest kid in his class to solve the rubix cube. He was also quick enough to sense a business opportunity so he sold the solution to his classmates. Despite the modest circumstances of his childhood in Glasgow, he went on to secure a place at St Peter’s College Oxford and row not once, but twice in the prestigious Oxford Cambridge boat race, the culmination of 6 hours of training 6 days per week for 7 months on top of demanding Oxford academic expectations.

What becomes of a man who has the sort of innate smarts and stamina?

Surprisingly he has found himself halfway around the world, and together with his wife Andrea Gardiner one half of the possibly the most dynamic couple in the Australian startup eco-system with their firm Jelix ventures. Ian is also the co-founder of the wonderfully expansive network of technology and investment enthusiasts Innovation Bay and for good measure the host of probably my favourite Australian startup podcast Open the Podbay doors.

Along the way Ian became a Member of YPO, had a stint as the Head of Startups at AWS in Australia/NZ, has won the Pearcy award for IT Entrepreneur of the year. He is a Passionate startup mentor, Cyclist, gamer, skier, husband, geek, and father (but not necessarily in that order).

Links and resources

Ian Gardiner on LinkedIn

Jelix Ventures 

Podcasts

Open the Pod Bay Doors 

Other

Oxford Cambridge boat race

For more information about Scale:
Scale Investors
Scale Educated

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Ben Armstrong is a co-founder of Archangel, an early stage venture fund and investment syndicate. He and his partners work with great technology founders to build game changing companies together. They are industry agnostic and have backed over a dozen companies including Bardee, Fresh Equities, Pearler, Sendle and Shipeezi.

Ben seems to have the perfect background for venture with degrees in both computer science and law and deep experience working with other talented people to change industries including SaaS, e-commerce, health care and fintech. He has been a product manager, strategist, people leader, investor and board director, in addition to spending 6 years at Telstra Ventures.

While Ben has enjoyed lots of success launching new businesses, bringing new products to market, built new $100M+ business units, he has the humility to admit that he has also learnt a lot from what didn't work and dealt with the consequences of failed initiatives including his own start up.

Links and resources

Ben at Archangel

Podcasts

The Twenty Minute VC

Companies

Bardee
Fresh Equities
Pearler
Shipeezi

For more information about Scale:
Scale Investors
Scale Educated

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