4 July, 2021

E117 – Federico Collarte, Baraja

Federico Collarte is the co-founder and CEO of Baraja, a rapidly growing startup creating LiDAR technology for self-driving cars. Baraja recently closed a $40m Series B, is scaling globally, and is quickly approaching a headcount of 200. Prior to co-founding Baraja, Federico worked in product development and systems engineering, with experience spanning the industrialisation of high volume telecommunication devices at Finisar, to the end-to-end systems engineering of an implantable hearing solution at Cochlear.
In this chat with Phaedon, Federico discusses:

• The ins and outs of Baraja’s most recent raise
• Advice for founders who are fundraising
• Balancing the urgency of hiring with finding the right person
• Lessons from building out overseas teams
• Creating a culture that attracts problem solvers
• Managing the co-founder relationship

…and more!
Quickfire Recommendations:

• Book: From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne & The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
• Podcast: Lex Fridman Podcast & The Joe Rogan Experience
• News source: The Information & TechCrunch
• Tech CEO: Elon Musk
• Productivity tool: Daylio
• Ted Talk topic: Resilience vs. Going All In

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Baraja is hiring! And so are many other fast-growing Australian tech companies. Find the hottest jobs in #startupaus on Innovation Bay’s new job board.