SPEAKER BIO

Grant followed his passion for digital media into his first role at Yahoo in 1999 and stayed through to its investment in Alibaba. He has been investing at Seed for more than 15 years, in Asia and Australia. He is trusted by founders to see opportunities during product-market fit, think out-of-th...
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Grant McCarthy, Andrea Kowalski & Wendell Keuneman'S RECOMMENDATIONS
Book
Grant: "This Is a Call: The Life and Times of Dave Grohl" by Paul Brannigan
Wendell: "Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It" by Christopher Voss
Andrea: "Portrait of a Lady" by Henry James
Podcast
Grant: BUILD Podcast
Andrea: Desert Island Discs
Wendell: The Ringer NBA Show
News Source
Andrea: The Skimm
Gadget

App
Tandem: tool for remote teams
Notion: note-taking and collaboration application
Favourite Tech CEO / Founder
Grant: Jack Ma
Andrea: Coco Chanel
Wendell: Satya Nadella
If you could do a TedTalk on anything what would it be on?
Andrea: Once a night owl, never a morning person
Grant: Parents at kid sport
Wendell: Pre-testing scenarios and the concept of "pre-mortems"

This week on Ep72 of #OTPBD, we’re diving deep into seed investing with the founding team of Tidal Ventures. Founded by Grant McCarthy, Andrea Kowalski, and Wendell Keuneman, Tidal Ventures is a new institutional seed-focused VC firm hitting the Australian market, aiming to fill the void between Angel and Series A funding. The team has incredible collective experience working and investing in tech, with resume highlights of the founders including Yahoo, Bailador Capital, and Atlassian. Grant, Andrea, and Wendell use their respective commercial, investment, and product expertise to take the companies they invest in on the journey from seed to Series A funding.

This impressive trio share key insights about seed phase investments, as well as how they evaluate investment opportunities, and what they look for in a founder. Furthermore, the co-founders divulged their own team dynamics, preparing businesses for international expansion, differences between the Australian and American VC markets, and the venture platform they’re building to deliver value-adding services to founders.

The success of the venture industry has allowed VC firms to invest larger amounts of capital at later stages of companies. While we’re seeing an increase in the number of tech startups, with roughly 5,000 early-stage companies operating in Australia, we’re also seeing a decrease in the volume of capital being deployed at the seed stage. Tidal Ventures is filling this gap in the ecosystem, developing the companies they invest in to become investable by large VC firms at the next stage.
Tune in for an enriching talk with the Tidal team to learn a lot about seed phase investment and how VCs can deliver value to their founders.

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