Hosted by author and entrepreneur, Steve Glaveski, Future Squared brings you conversations with preeminent thought leaders from myriad disciplines such as startups and entrepreneurship, technology, corporate innovation, psychology, philosophy, economics, politics, biology, human performance and productivity, motivation and self-development, management and leadership, health and fitness and more to help you think in a multi-disciplinary way, avoid relying on the first piece of information that comes to hand, kick goals in your professional and personal life and better navigate what is fast becoming, a Brave New World. Previous guests include thought leaders such as Adam Grant, Brad Feld, Tim O'Reilly, Gretchen Rubin, Kevin Kelly, Jeremy Heimans, Steve Blank, Neil Patel, Rand Fishkin, Jordan Harbinger, Omar Zenhom, Andreas Antonopoulos, Ryan Blair, Whitney Johnson and various other thought leaders...
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427. Building a Billion Dollar Venture Capital Fund with Blackbird's Niki Scevak
Niki Scevak is co-founder of Startmate, and founder and partner at Blackbird VC, Australia’s largest venture capital fund, with its 5th fund having raised AUD$1B (US$640M). Blackbird was an early investor in Canva, SafetyCulture, CultureAmp, BugCrowd, RedBubble, and many more, and has to date generated a net internal rate of return of 56%.
Niki joined me today to discuss:
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His life before Blackbird
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Successfully raising his first fund back in 2012, without having a network or any startup successes of his own
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Getting beyond the trough of disillusionment
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How Australian superannuation funds are opening their wallets to VC
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Scaling culture
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Generating deal flow
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Advice for founders and budding VCs on raising capital in a down market
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The AI investment landscape
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The battle between AI-powered indie hackers and venture-backed startups
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Whether sophisticated investor rules preventing retail investors from getting direct exposure to venture capital is just increasing the wealth gap
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Diversity, quotas, and Startmate’s merit-based selection criteria
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And more.
Show Notes:
Email Niki: niki@blackbird.vc
Web: www.blackbird.vc
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nikiscevak?lang=en
Contact Steve on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/steveglaveski
Email Steve: hello@steveglaveski.com