Today’s episode features one of Australia’s best and most prolific angel investors, Matt Allen. Matt’s portfolio includes companies like BuildKite, Practice Ignition, Spaceship, Kasada, Donesafe, Pin and Goterra. At one point or another Matt has been a software developer, founder, technical recruiter, investor and now, a CEO. Most recently, Matt launched Tractor Ventures, a new vehicle for investing that offers founders revenue-based financing. Matt and his team at Tractor Ventures are grounded in the belief that secure founders make better business decisions; venture capital money simply isn’t the right fit for every business, so Tractor Ventures is filling a funding gap for ambitious founders who want to grow their businesses at a pace that suits them.

In this news special, we discuss local fundraising news including the announcement of new funds from Square Peg, OneVentures, EVP and Tractor Ventures, as well as funding rounds from Coviu and Healthmatch. We also cover global news and deals like Doordash and Airbnb IPOs, the acquisition of Slack by Salesforce, and Uber’s sale of their autonomous driving unit.

This episode features Mike Kleine, the U.S. Consul General to Melbourne. Mike has spent over 20 years of his career working in the Foreign Service; he’s been posted across the globe including in Laos, Vietnam, South Korea, and Kosovo. Mike has a deep-seated interest in entrepreneurship, a fascination with innovation, and a passion for the U.S.-Australia relationship. These passions converged and led to the creation of his podcast series, 37 Degrees Latitude.

In this episode, Phaedon is joined by Clare O’Neil MP, the Shadow Minister for Innovation, Technology and the Future of Work and Federal Member for Hotham, Victoria. We don’t often feature politicians on the podcast but we believe that it is important to understand the view of government and how government policies impact the startup ecosystem. Clare speaks with candor and openness on the changes she wants to see in the future of politics.

In this news special, we discuss recent raises by Marketplacer, Morse Micro, Flare, Hypr and Diffuse Energy. There was lots of big news coming out of the Victorian startup ecosystem to cover, including the new budget which allocates $186m to startups and the establishment of a $25m Victorian venture fund. We also talk about the tech founders that made this year’s AFR Young Rich List, Andreessen Horowitz closing two mega funds, the spike in Bitcoin, Macquarie Telecom becoming a unicorn and lots more.

In this news special, we discuss the recent and upcoming IPOs of several Aussie companies including Hipages, Booktopia and Airtasker, as well as global and local funding news like Hopin’s recent $125m raise and Aussie accounting platform Bookipi’s $1.6m seed round. We also talk about how the recent positive vaccine news and the results of the US election might impact the Australian startup ecosystem.

Patrick Llewellyn is the CEO and President of 99designs, the global creative platform that makes it easy for designers and clients to work together. Patrick is Open the Pod Bay Door’s second ever two-time guest. Since we’ve last chatted with Patrick, a lot has happened for 99designs. 99designs now employs over 100 people, has a community of over 25,000 active freelance designers, and in October, was acquired by global printing giant Vistaprint.

Welcome to a very special milestone for Open the Pod Bay Doors — our 100th episode! To mark the occasion we brought back some of our favorite guests from the past 3 years of the podcast and asked them what they’re most looking forward to in the next 3 years.

In this news special we cover Adore Beauty’s ASX debut, lots of recent local raises from the likes of Linktree, Sundrive, Zero Co, v2food, and SafetyCulture and the downfall of Quibi. Elections are up for discussion, including how the outcome of the US election could affect local startups and the results of the Queensland election. We also discuss Antler Sydney’s hot streak and the arrival of the “no-code” generation.

As always, we cover recent local and global deals like 99designs being acquired by Vistaprint, an oversubscribed Epi Minder Series A, Hopin raising a new round at a valuation of as much as $2 billion, and two new deals from agtech-focused VC firm Tenacious Ventures.

Chris Hitchen is the Germany-based, Australian-born Founder and Managing Partner of Inventures. Inventures invests €100k – €500k globally in early stage tech companies and actively helps founders reach their first institutional VC Round.

Today’s guest is Melissa Widner, an experienced founder, CEO, investor and board member. She very recently left NAB Ventures to join Lighter Capital, one of NAB’s portfolio companies, as CEO. Lighter Capital is the pioneer and leading provider of revenue based financing to SAAS companies.