In this edition, launched on International Women’s Day, the panel starts by talking about the state of gender diversity within the Australian startup ecosystem and venture industry, where gaps exist and the work that needs to be done. The discussion then shifts to cover major headlines in tech; key topics include how blockchain and non-fungible tokens (NFT) will be applied in the future and what can be learned from SpaceX dreaming big and publicly failing fast.

Kristin Vaughan is the Director of the Clean Energy Innovation Fund, the largest dedicated cleantech investor in Australia, created to invest $200 million in early-stage clean technology companies. Prior to joining CEFC, Kristin spent more than a decade in private equity. Kristin previously worked as a management consultant at AT Kearney and holds a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Sydney.

In this edition, our news panel dives deep into the showdown between Facebook and the Australian government and news outlets. We also discuss new funds from Artesian, Our Innovation Fund and Skip Capital, the status of the New South Wales tech precinct and Judo Bank’s massive $284 million funding round.

Colette Grgic is no stranger to startups. She is the Head of Startup Ecosystem in Australia & New Zealand for Amazon Web Services. In this role, Colette is responsible for the growth of the startup ecosystem at AWS and leads an excellent team who support startups with commercial and technical advice. She also serves as a Director of Heads Over Heels. Prior to her role at AWS, Colette was Chief Innovation Officer at BlueChilli. Colette also founded her own travel tech startup, Arribaa, and managed Autogenie, an internal startup for ASX-listed Smartgroup.

In this edition, we discuss local startup funding news, including raises by Fast, DesignCrowd and Adatree and NAB’s acquisition of Neobank 86 400. The panel also dives deep on cryptocurrency, the GameStop fiasco, what’s happening in fintech and the future of work.

Suse Reynolds is a pillar of the New Zealand startup ecosystem and a passionate believer in the power of angel investment. She is the Executive Chair of Angel Association New Zealand and sits on the board of Angel HQ, the Wellington region’s angel network which she founded in 2006. Since its founding, AngelHQ has invested over $30m in 100+ New Zealand companies.

Dan Krasnostein is an Investment Partner at Square Peg Capital. A Melbourne native, Dan spent the early days of his career working in strategy at Seek before joining Square Peg in 2012 as the first non-founder hire. He spent a few years working for Square Peg in Melbourne before relocating to Tel Aviv where he spent 6 years growing Square Peg’s business in Israel. Square Peg has deployed over $140M in Israel across 13 companies, including Fiverr, Aidoc, Feedvisor and Puresec.

In this edition, we discuss local startup news such as the tech stocks set to list on the ASX in 2021, Afterpay’s $42B valuation and recent raises by AgriWebb and Vow. There is also lots of global news to cover, including a boom in Bitcoin, the impeachment of Trump, the inauguration of Biden, and Elon Musk’s new spot atop the world rich list.

Angus Hervey is a political economist and a journalist specialising in the impact of disruptive technologies on society. Angus is a champion of “intelligent optimism” and co-founder of Future Crunch, a Melbourne-based think tank of sorts dedicated to informed, optimistic thinking about tech and the opportunities that it presents. Before co-founding Future Crunch, Angus was the founding community manager of Random Hacks of Kindness and was the first editorial manager for Global Policy, one of the world’s leading international policy journals. He also holds a PhD in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics.

Tim Power is a talented, passionate, resilient founder who has co-founded and created some of the world’s largest education communities including the World Education Games, World Maths Day, Mathletics and ClickView. He is currently the cofounder and CEO of Inquisitive, the Sydney-based education startup on a mission to simplify access to quality lessons for teachers.

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.