s:Our panel kicks off with a discussion of the recent call from leading Australian tech investors and founders for a plan to end the lockdown crisis and then transitions to talk about funds, raises, and acquisitions from the Australian and New Zealand startup ecosystem. Some major headlines we cover: new funds from ANZ, Tennis Australia, Our Innovation Fund, and Tractor Ventures and raises and exits by Go1, Rokt, Sweat, Invoice2go, and Employment Hero.

James Ferguson is the CEO and co-founder of Immutable, a platform that provides scalable blockchain infrastructure for video games. James is a driven founder with a growth mindset that has led Immutable to build a staff of 100 and raise $20m. James and his brother/co-founder, Robbie Ferguson, have been featured on the ‘Forbes 30 under 30’ list for their impressive work in growing and scaling Immutable.

Topics we discuss:Our panel discusses how border closures and lockdowns are holding back Australian startups, as well as recent raises by Gilmour Space, Fl0, Skedulo, and Currus Biologics. We also touch on Wise’s debut on the London Stock Exchange and Nextdoor’s SPAC.

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.

Topics we discuss: Ian and the panel discuss the new Sydney lockdown, why Andreessen Horowitz is getting into publishing, a new early-stage fund, confusingly called “The Fund” is launched in Australia. Plus a few juicy deal announcements and some good news for employers with technology jobs being added to the government’s visa list. Plus much more.

Darren Miller is the CEO of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). Darren Miller has more than 25 years’ experience across a range of sectors including renewable energy, electricity retail, technology, finance, media and entertainment. Prior to joining ARENA Darren was the co-founder and CEO of Mojo Power, an innovative electricity retailer.

This week our panel talks about some of the massive acquisitions and rounds recently raised in the Australian ecosystem, including the $2b acquisition of A Cloud Guru, the $1.7b acquisition of MessageMedia, and new funds from Tenacious Ventures and Investible.