Lessons from the USA: What Aussie startups can learn from overseas founders and investors? (Fireside Chat + Networking)
Come join us for a lively fireside chat and a casual evening of networking with like-minded people in Sydney.
Who are we?
We’re a small collective of entrepreneurs, investors, and startup folk looking to bring innovators together through events like fireside chats, tech talks, and dinners. These are the types of events we frequented while living in Silicon Valley and New York, but are less common in the Aussie Startup Ecosystem. We don’t charge for the events.
For our third "Tech Drinks" event, we will be kicking off with a fireside chat.
Topic: What Aussie startups can learn from overseas founders and investors?
In this intimate fireside chat, we are pulling back the curtain to share lessons and advice on how startup founders in the US run their fundraising process, what they do differently, and the perceived differences it makes to seasoned venture investors.
Confirmed Speakers:
Panelists:
Solai Valliappan, Tech Investor
Solai is a tech investor and adviser in the early stage tech investment space. She started her career as an Actuary before taking the leap to work as an operator in a startup. During this period she started making angel investments predominantly in the cleantech space and over the last few years transitioned to investment and advisory.
Maxine Minter, GP at Co Ventures & Founder at Co Lab
Maxine Minter has always been fascinated by two critical aspects of business: the fuel of early investment and the steering wheel of executive coaching. She is the founder and General Partner of Co Ventures, Australia's first venture fund led by a solo female GP, as well as the country's first dedicated pre-seed fund. Co Ventures aims to propel Australian founders building global companies from day one. Maxine also founded Co Lab. The platform matches startup founders and CEOs with the world’s best executive coaches who have coached leadership teams at global giants like Notion, Linktree, Segment, and Plaid. Her dual roles support her in closing the informational chasm between Australian startups and global investors while also helping startups navigate the complicated path of growth. Before these ventures, Maxine was company-building and co-founding several startups and made her mark as an angel investor in both the United States and Australia. She has attended Stanford, Macquarie, Oxford, and Copenhagen Universities, and taught business-building courses at Stanford and Bond Universities, in addition to guest lecturing at various other institutions.
Moderator:
Zac Altman, Event Host
Zac is a seasoned tech entrepreneur with cross-functional leadership experience across engineering, product, and design. He’s founded and sold two successful companies – most recently LoungeBuddy (CTO) to American Express in 2019 where he served as VP of Digital Product & Engineering until 2021. His current focus is bringing his experience in pragmatic product development, building & scaling global platforms to millions of customers, and empathetic leadership to early-stage tech entrepreneurs.
Schedule:
6 PM - Doors open, grab light refreshments, mingle.
6:30 - 7:15 PM - Speaker Panel, moderator-led Q&A
7:15 - 8:30 PM - Networking
Thank you to Canva for hosting us, Yes You Can Drinks and AWS Startups for sponsoring the event.
Hosted by: Zac is returning to Sydney from 10 years in San Francisco, Germaine just moved to Sydney from NYC and Franko rebased in Australia, from San Francisco. We are all seeking like-minded people with a global mindset to have interesting conversations, so we decided to create the community we were looking for.
The hero image was made with Canva's AI generation tool 🤓
We have a zero-tolerance policy for harassment or discrimination of any kind. Our aim is to create a gathering that promotes respect, inclusivity, and the free exchange of ideas.
