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
