427. Building a Billion Dollar Venture Capital Fund with Blackbird's Niki Scevak

Future Squared with Steve Glaveski - Helping You Navigate a Brave New World

English - May 25, 2023 21:00 - 1 hour - 58.5 MB - ★★★★ - 13 ratings
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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:

His life before Blackbird

Successfully raising his first fund back in 2012, without having a network or any startup successes of his own

Getting beyond the trough of disillusionment

How Australian superannuation funds are opening their wallets to VC

Scaling culture

Generating deal flow

Advice for founders and budding VCs on raising capital in a down market

The AI investment landscape

The battle between AI-powered indie hackers and venture-backed startups

Whether sophisticated investor rules preventing retail investors from getting direct exposure to venture capital is just increasing the wealth gap

Diversity, quotas, and Startmate’s merit-based selection criteria