Connect to Capital

Marisa Warren has more than 20 years experience in tech as a venture capital investor, advisor and operator working for companies like SAP, Microsoft and Workday. After an award studded career, Marisa left big corporate in 2015 to pursue her passion for early-stage businesses. Whilst living in New York, Marisa founded ELEVACAO a global pre-accelerator for women tech founders. Fast forward to today and ELEVACAO has empowered over 175 women across the U.S. and Australia to raise significant capital and achieve 3 successful Exits.

In 2020 Marisa turned her first hand understanding of the difficulty women founders face raising capital into an opportunity, co-founding ALIAVIA Ventures with previous podcast guest Kate Vale. Based in LA, ALIAVIA invests early stage venture capital in female founders who are building world-changing enterprise and consumer tech businesses. Together Marisa and Kate have amassed angel investments with a valuation of $1.2 billion including investments in Vurbl, HowToo, Wakefully, Requipper and Eugene.

While very much at home in Silicon Valley, Marisa still sometimes longs for an Australian coffee!

Links and resources

Marisa Warren on LinkedIn

Books

Good to Great

Podcasts

Techcrunch Equity Podcast

Companies mentioned in the episode:

Wakefully
Vurbl
How Too
Requipper

For more information about Scale:
Scale Investors
Scale Educated

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Daniel Madhavan is passionately curious about how business and finance can be utilised as tools for building a sustainable and equitable future. Through his business Ecotone Partners he looks for ways that capital can play a significant positive role in shaping the future for people and the planet.

Before Ecotone Partners, Dan was CEO of Impact Investment Group, one of Australia’s largest impact fund managers, with a special love of venture investing. Dan joined IIG following three years as the inaugural CEO of Impact Investing Australia. Dan began his career at Goldman Sachs JBWere across numerous finance and investment roles, culminating in his appointment as chief operating officer and then Acting CEO.

Despite all the success of his career, Dan admits that he has been in a constant war with self-doubt. Dan’s ability to extend and grow both personally and professionally is a reflection of his very deliberate practice of collecting ideas and then using extended annual reflection to determine what he wants to embrace and what he wants to leave behind. I think there is something for all of us in Dan’s very thoughtful approach to life.

Links and resources:

Dan Madhavan at Ecotone Partners

Companies mentioned in the episode:
Flowhive
Ability Made

Books mentioned in the episode:
Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

For more information about Scale:
Scale Investors
Scale Educated

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Kate Vale founded ALIAVIA Ventures in 2020 with Marisa Warren, on a mission to invest in the highest potential female founders in Australia and the US, and help them achieve outsized success. 

And Kate knows plenty about fast paced scaling, having established Google in Australia and New Zealand, growing revenues from zero to more than $500 million over a six year period. She then moved on to head up Spotify in the region, being their first Australian employee and managing all aspects of the business.

After years of angel investing, Kate brings her wealth of experience as an operator and investor to the ALIAVIA portfolio companies, with a unique vantage point from her home in California to help Australian startups tackle the highly prized US market.

Links and resources
ALIAVIA

The CMO Podcast

For more information about Scale:
Scale Investors
Scale Educated

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Our guest this week is Nick Crocker who is a General Partner at Blackbird Ventures, one of Australia’s largest and most successful venture firms.

He is an investor in a string of flourishing startups including Culture Amp, Applied, Eucalyptus, Dovetail, and Beyond Ag.

Nick knows the world of venture capital well, having co-founded one of the first companies that Blackbird funded called Sessions. As co-founder and CEO of Sessions, Nick was dedicated to creating technology to help people live better, healthier lives. Sessions was acquired by MyFitnessPal 2013 which itself was acquired by Under Armour in 2015, with Nick proceeding into the role of Chief of Staff for their entire Connected Fitness business.

On the side, Nick co-founded We Are Hunted which was acquired by Twitter in 2013. Returning to Australia from Silicon Valley, Nick was the inaugural CEO of accelerator Startmate before handing the CEO baton to our previous podcast guest Michael Batko.  

Nick is endlessly curious and while studying Political Science and Law at the University of Queensland, he worked as a journalist with News Ltd. His love of writing if evident in his fascinating substack newsletter and while he knows lots about integrated hardware/software products, he never wants to limit the types of founders he connects with in case he misses the next one who absolutely inspires him.  And somehow, he manages to do all this while being a role model as a husband and father.

Links and resources

Nick Crocker's Substack

For more information about Scale:
Scale Investors
Scale Educated 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Catherine Robson speaks with Michael Batko and the word she would use to describe him is prolific.  Not only is Michael the CEO of Startmate, the accelerator whose aim is to be the epicentre of startup ambition across Australia and New Zealand, he speaks multiple languages, creates incredible weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual content, and is so captivated by the energy of startups that rather than confine himself to working with just one, he wants to cultivate as many as he can.

Michael has Polish heritage but grew up in Austria and calls Australia home.

He had the chance to follow the traditional path into consulting and corporate life with jobs at Amex, PwC, and KPMG but he fell in love with the startup world. He more than doubling the team at Madpaws and was then part of the five-fold increase at expert360.com, including the $13M Series B capital raise.

In this episode Michael’s advice for founders who are thinking about raising capital might just be the best I have ever heard and his enthusiasm about building a city dedicated to startups is infectious.

There is no doubt he loves what he does and is always happy to help!

Links and resources

Everything you could want from the world of Michael Batko including his thoughts from Twitter, his newsletter on substack, resources, book and podcast summaries. 

The Australian 100 Innovators 2021 

The Courage to be Disliked: The Japanese phenomenon that shows you how to free yourself, change your life and achieve real happiness by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga 

Follow Michael on Medium - the list of books he has reviewed is incredible.

• The Ride of a Lifetime — Bob Iger’s story of becoming Disney’s CEO
• Let my people go surfing — all things Patagonia an environmental driven company
• Power of Moments — powerful moments in life
• Grit — power of passion & perseverance
• Leaders Eat Last — leadership qualities
• 15 Commitments for Conscious Leadership — leadership is binary
• Pre-suasion — behavioural psychology principles
• The Power of Habit — all things about habits

For more information about Scale:
Scale Investors - https://scaleinvestors.com.au/
Scale Educated - https://scaleinvestors.com.au/scale-educated

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Catherine Robson speaks with to Federica Nicolao. Known to just about everyone as Fed, she is a partner at The Foundry, a team of health and wellness brand experts who partner with motivated founders to accelerate the creation of enduring global brands.

As a female leader, Fed is passionate about empowering women entrepreneurs. Having faced numerous roadblocks in her own career, Fed has developed successful strategies to transform hurdles into opportunities for career advancement and business success.

Fed describes herself as a creative thinker, whose weakness is that she just can’t say no.

Links and resources

Fed and the Foundry

Books Fed recommends:

The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle

Podcasts Fed recommends:

Unfuck your brain by Kara Lowentheil

For more information about Scale:
Scale Investors - https://scaleinvestors.com.au/
Scale Educated - https://scaleinvestors.com.au/scale-educated

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Catherine Robson speaks with Alister Coleman, the founder and Managing Partner of Folklore Ventures. Folklore is an Australian venture capital firm which invests over the full start up journey, right from the first cheque to later stage growth funding. A trajectory he knows well, he is a co-founder of ShippingEasy (acquired by Stamps.com).

The first time Catherine met Alister, she was so impressed by the clarity and effectiveness of his mental frameworks. He seems to have a way of cutting through complexity by being able to structure information in a way that allows new connections to be made and insights to be gained. It was no surprise when Alister confirmed that he spends quite a lot of time thinking about how to think about things.

Links and resources

Alister at Folklore VC

Books Alister recommends:
Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation

The Universal Laws of Life and Death in Organisms, Cities and Companies by Geoffrey West

Poor Charlie's Almanack by Charlie Munger (Author), Bill Gates (Foreword), Warren Buffett (Introduction)

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High

Podcasts Alister recommends:
Capital Allocators with Ted Seides

The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish

For more information about Scale:
Scale Investors - https://scaleinvestors.com.au/
Scale Educated - https://scaleinvestors.com.au/scale-educated

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This week, Catherine Robson talks with Paul Naphtali who is the cofounder of Rampersand VC, the early stage Australian technology fund established in 2013 to help close the funding gap for Australian and NZ startup founders.

Paul returned to Australia after working in Silicon Valley and the UK to sprinkle some of the magic he learned as a marketing and strategic communications guru for a number of highly successful venture-backed tech companies.

Paul has had some fantastic investment wins, but is always looking for ways to make himself a better investor and the Australian ecosystem stronger.

Links and resources

Paul and Rampersand VC

Books Paul recommends:

The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis which explores the close partnership of Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky

Masters of Scale podcast with Reid Hoffman 

For more information about Scale:
Scale Investors - https://scaleinvestors.com.au/

Scale Educated - https://scaleinvestors.com.au/scale-educated

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This week, Catherine Robson talks with the amazing Rachel Yang. Rachel is a partner at Giant Leap, Australia's first 100% impact venture capital fund backing founders who are using business as a force for good. 

Rachel escaped the clutches of a traditional corporate path in management consulting and corporate finance, since then, her career in venture has flourished. She's admired across the startup sector for her integrity, intelligence and capacity to create value through collaboration, always ready to invest in making the ecosystem stronger. 

Rachel is the co-chair of Startup Victoria a nonprofit grassroots organization, which supports startup founders to thrive. And she's also a member of the Victorian State Governments innovation Task Force. Rachel is a fabulous person to spend some time with.

Links and resources

Scale Investors - https://scaleinvestors.com.au/

Scale Educated - https://scaleinvestors.com.au/scale-educated

Giant Leap - https://www.giantleapfund.vc/

Start Up Victoria - https://startupvictoria.com.au/

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.