Welcome to the OTPBD News Special, Innovation Bay's fortnightly podcast that analyses the news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.
Meet the panel...Founder: Lauren Hall, iVvyInvestor: Bede Moore, Antler Ecosystem Leader: Angus Hervey, FutureCrunch
Topics we discuss:In this episode our panel covers ANZ funding news, including raises by Jig Space, Pyn and XYSense, as well as relevant local and global news. Some key topics include Blackbird's new fund, the BigCommerce IPO, and the government's mandate that Google and Facebook pay for news. We also talk about COVID-related news such as Atlassian and Facebook's new WFH policies, some good COVID stories you might have missed, and the big dip in hotel transactions.

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Tom Humphrey is an experienced Aussie entrepreneur and Partner at Access Ventures, a venture capital fund based in Denver, Colorado that invests in early stage technology companies. Before joining Access, Tom helped grow two successful startups, OurDeal and Kanopy. He was COO of OurDeal, a “group-buying” ecommerce website in Australia and helped scale the business to a successful exit to News Corp. Tom was also COO/Director of Sales of Kanopy, a B2B video streaming platform that he saw through an exit to L2 Capital in 2018, delivering a 14x return to investors.
In Phaedon's conversation with Tom, the two cover:• The story of building Kanopy with his sister Olivia• How Tom managed rapid growth when OneDeal scaled from 8 employees to 80+ in a year• The segments and markets Tom is excited to invest in• Qualities Tom looks for in a founder• The value of partnering with a VC• Why he lives in Colorado instead of San Francisco

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Sarah Nolet is one of Australia's leading agriculture technology (agtech) experts. She's the founder and CEO of AgThentic, an agtech strategy and advisory firm, and the co-founder of Tenacious Ventures, Australia’s first dedicated agrifood tech VC firm. Sarah also hosts the podcast "Agtech - So What" which tells the story of innovators at the intersection of agriculture and technology.
In this episode, Sarah talks about her professional journey moving to Australia and growing the agtech ecosystem here, cofounding a new venture fund, and starting a podcast. She also shares the criteria her fund uses when evaluating food and agriculture startups, the first addition to the Tenacious Ventures portfolio, and some insights about sustainable farming.

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Welcome to the OTPBD News Special, our fortnightly podcast analysing the news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.
Meet the panel...Founder: Billy Tucker, OneFlareInvestor: Melissa Widner, NAB VenturesEcosystem Leader: Gavin Appel, Ignition Lane
Topics we discuss:In this episode our panel covers both ANZ happenings and global headlines. Some local topics covered include local funding news, people moves, the best Aussie employers of 2020 and TikTok scrutiny from the Australian government. We also talk about world news like the international boycott Facebook movement, Bitcoin scammers, and COVID app woes around the globe.

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Stephen Thompson is a founding partner and managing director of Brandon Capital Partners, the largest life science healthcare fund in Australasia. Brandon Capital raised their first fund in 2007 with the mission of commercializing Australian medical research. Stephen and his co-founder noticed that Australia was home to loads of world-class medical research but didn't have the weight of local capital to bring projects through to market, so they stepped in in to provide the funding and expertise to get ideas out of the lab and into the global market.
In this episode, Ian speaks with Stephen about...

• Shifting from technical work in product development and immunology research to investing
• The story of how Brandon Capital came to be
• An overview of the Brandon Capital portfolio
• The incubation model the firm uses to identify and commercialise research
• The process of building a highly trained team

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Hello and welcome to the 8th edition of the OTPBD News Special, our fortnightly podcast analysing the news that matters to Australian and Kiwi startups.
Meet this week's panel:VC: Alan Jones, M8 VenturesFounder: Kath Hamilton, Loop+Ecosystem: Annie Parker, Microsoft
Topics we discuss:This week we cover the latest funding news and discuss hot topics like the impact of the Victorian COVID-19 outbreak on the startup sector, India and potentially the US banning Tik Tok, venture reports on funding throughout the pandemic, and Tesla's surge in valuation. We also talk about Who Gives a Crap's $6M donation to charity in the wake of TP panic-buying, the government's investment in cybersecurity, toxic workplace culture, and the classification of Huawei and ZTE as "National security threats" by the US.

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We're joined this week by Vuki Vujasinovic, Founder & CEO of global PR and communications agency Sling & Stone. The agency has quite the rockstar client roster; some current clients in the US, AU and NZ include Twitter, Uber, Xero, Hubspot, CultureAmp, Slack, Stripe, CSIRO, Domain...the list goes on. The agency launched in 2010 and exclusively works with disrupters, challengers, and entrepreneurs, helping tell their story to the world with comms campaigns that blend tech and creativity.
In this chat with Ian, Vuki talks about...

• Launching the agency at the age of 23
• The process of slowly growing the business over the past 10 years
• Encouraging entrepreneurial instincts within his team
• The process of growing with startup clients
• How sometimes the job requires him to be like a VC when selecting early stage clients
• Advice for companies on how to alter communications in a crisis like COVID-19

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Welcome to the 7th edition of the OTPBD News Special! It’s our fortnightly podcast analysing news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.
Meet this week's panel:VC: Sarah Nolet, Tenacious Ventures & AgThenticFounder: Adam Theobald, OrdermentumEcosystem: Paul Smith, AFR
Topics we discuss:We cover funding news, the acquisition of self-driving startup ZOOX by Amazon, the federal government's big investment in cyber security, Atlassian's announcement of brand new headquarters at the Sydney Innovation and Technology Precinct, Canva's latest $8.6 billion valuation, the future of coworking, and Sydney's dropping in the startup ecosystem ranking.

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Sam Chandler is the Founder and CEO of Nitro, a software company developing commercial software used to create, edit, sign, and secure Portable Document Format files and digital documents. Nitro is Australian-founded and is now listed on the ASX and headquartered in downtown San Francisco, with offices in Melbourne, Australia; Dublin, Ireland; and London, England.
Sam grew up in Tasmania and started his first business at the age of 16. He started Nitro back in 2005 with a seed round of $1M and a $5M valuation after a few years of bootstrapping. The company went on to complete a Series A with Starfish Ventures and a Series B/C with Battery Ventures in San Francisco. Nitro launched in the US in 2008. The company has grown significantly in the past decade; Nitro has nearly 2 million licensed users in 144 countries and over 10,500 business customers, including over 65% of the Fortune 500 and two of the Fortune 10.
In this episode, Sam talks about

• The journey of building and growing Nitro form the ground up
• Adaptations Nitro has made in wake of COVID-19
• The process of designing a global team

..and more! Give this episode a listen for insights from a dynamic Aussie founder.

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Welcome to the 6th edition of the OTPBD News Special. It’s our fortnightly podcast that anaylses the news that matters for the Australian and Kiwi startup ecosystem.
Meet this week's panel:VC: Dean Dorrell, Carthona CapitalFounder: Gemma Lloyd, Work180Ecosystem: Mark Pesce, This Week In Startups
Topics we discuss:We cover the latest funding news and discuss the Black Lives Matter movement and how tech companies have responded, such as IBM's decision to stop selling facial recognition software to police. We also discuss startup job losses and revenue hits as reported by VC firms, what type of help startups will need post-Job Keeper, and the recent rapid progress of telehealth due to COVID.

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