Isharna Walsh

Which international VC has invested most actively in NZ? Here's the slide we prepared recently for our Investor Masterclass. Let me know who I'm missing. Four more sessions coming up including: Valuation, Terms, Governance, and War Stories. Join the fun by registering here: https://lnkd.in/ghJJpdR4

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Complete list of all active pre-seed & seed lead investors in NZ below. Thank you to all those who helped fill in the gaps. Quite a few people have reached out and said it was helpful, which is great. Next, I am thinking of creating the list of pre-seed & seed investors in NZ who follow and fill in investment rounds. As the list will be quite long, help would be appreciated. Please add in the comments. Aera VC AgriZeroNZ Blackbird Brandon Capital Bridgewest Ventures NZ Cure Kids Ventures Ecliptic Even Capital GD1 (Global From Day One) Hillfarrance Venture Capital Icehouse Ventures Maker Partners Motion Capital Movac Nuance Connected Capital NZ Growth Capital Partners NZVC Outset Ventures Pacific Channel Phase One Ventures Punakaiki Fund Quidnet Ventures Soul Capital Sprout Agritech WNT Ventures

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🎊 Big News from Our Team at Titanium Ventures! 🎊 Today, we’re thrilled to share that we've evolved from Telstra Ventures to Titanium Ventures! Why Titanium? Because it captures the essence of who we are and aspires to be—a firm that supports exceptionally strong and resilient entrepreneurs, those who thrive under pressure. Titanium is not just a metal with the highest durability and strength-to-weight ratio; it represents the extraordinary capability and determination of the leaders we back—leaders who consistently punch way above their weight. Our commitment remains steadfast: to unearth and scale the most promising ventures in AI, digital, and software sectors. With 99 investments, including 12 IPOs, 17 unicorns and 42 liquidity events, we’re just getting started. Holding almost US$1B in funds under management and having returned US$678M to our investors, we are more driven than ever. This is more than a name change—it’s a reaffirmation of our promise to accelerate the extraordinary, fueling the growth of standout disruptors. We've been doing this for over a decade, and it's what our investors and founders expect us to do for many more to come. Here's to the next chapter in our journey with all of you! #VentureCapital #Innovation #Entrepreneurship #TitaniumVentures

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📈What an incredible week it has been for FundTool and the amazing community driving change with us! 🚀 Here's a glimpse of the milestones we've achieved together: 👉 Surpassing $200k in funds raised for causes, marking a significant step towards making a difference where it matters most. 👉 Welcoming over 1000 users to our platform, each one a vital part of our mission to empower and uplift communities worldwide. 👉 Experiencing our largest week of growth yet, with a remarkable 15% increase in participation and support. But it doesn't stop there. Our community continues to inspire with their unwavering dedication and remarkable achievements: 👉 A cheer team rallying together to raise an astounding $14k in just 5 days, showcasing the power of teamwork and collective action. 👉 A single mom's determination shining through as she raises $1000 for her daughter's needs, a testament to the resilience and love within our community. These milestones are not just numbers; they represent lives touched, dreams realized, and hope restored. They remind us of the immense need that exists and the profound impact we can make together. Thank you to each and every one of you for being part of this extraordinary journey. The need is indeed huge, but so is our collective resolve to make a difference. Here's to many more milestones and moments of impact ahead! 🌟 #FundTool #ImpactMatters #CommunityPower #buildinpublic #fintech #fundraising

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If you are in start up mode, planning a startup or looking for help to grow internationally, I recommend watching this interview. Colin provides some down to earth insights in how to get started and grow your business.

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It’s a brutal #VC fundraising market out there (if you’re not a megafund); I recently spoke with a few GPs who raised $000s Fund I’s for their new firms in under 3 months. Here’s what they said worked and what is resonating with LPs today...TLDR; BACK TO BASICS 👇🏽 1/ Selling a fund strategy that looks like “classic venture,” back to the basics, not capital aggregation, and not bloated teams 2/ Keeping fund size manageable $150M - $400M for an early stage fund, where fees aren’t overblown and the LPs are confident the GP will invest in growing the team and the brand, not pocketing the fees 3/ Selling their past VC experience over 10+ years where they made investment decisions directly and are hands on with their portfolio companies supporting them to succeed; not relying on an army of “partners” to be shoveling $10M checks out the door 4/ Selling the focus of a singular stage, early stage; where LPs can be sure of what type of risk exposure they are getting; LPs want early stage, but are too often plugged into multi-strategy pockets that blend out their returns

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I first met Nic back in 2015/2016 when I literally fell into tech and well before Emerge had raised its first fund. My journey into the venture ecosystem was driven by my first role on my return to the UK as CFO in an edtech venture using blended learning to deliver soft skills training to students outside this country. I learned a lot about the transformative opportunity that tech gives us during that period but even more about how broken education has been and continues to be in so many places. And how difficult it is for edtech ventures to be able to raise and scale given the fragmented customer journey, multiple gatekeeper and difficulty getting to substantial revenues in many cases. That is why it is so important that funds like Emerge exist. Funds that are deep specialists in education, with networks and relationships that can truly help founders in the space find and develop an edge. And never has that been more important as educators, students and parents try to navigate the rapidly evolving AI landscape. Massive congrats to Nic, Jan, Mario and the entire team on raising their second fund, cannot wait to see what's in store 🔥

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Ecstatic to announce Titanium Ventures' investment in Samsara Eco, the climate tech innovator enabling infinite plastic recycling, as part of their US$65M Series A+! Global emissions from plastic production could triple to account for one-fifth of the Earth’s remaining carbon budget. Plastic creation generated 2.24 gigatons of planet-heating pollution in 2019, or as much as 600 coal-fired power plants - 5% of all global carbon emissions. Samsara Eco has led world-first innovations in infinite recycling, pioneering the ability to recycle plastics including nylon 6,6 and polyester. Earlier this year, in partnership with its first textile partner, Samsara Eco unveiled the world’s first enzymatically recycled nylon 6,6 product (sweet jackets which we bought online!) and also helped to introduce lululemon’s first product made from enzymatically recycled polyester. Whilst I write this, I am wearing one of the first jackets in the world that has been recycled! We’re excited to see the impact they will have in the years to come. Other impressive investors include: Temasek, Main Sequence, lululemon, DCVC, Hitachi Ventures and Wollemi Capital. https://lnkd.in/gKkg2mS3

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Join me at our next course June 6 & 7 as we delve into the changing Angel Investment landscape and what it takes to build a successful Angel Investment Portfolio.

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Who are the NZ venture capital leaders in 2024? Which New Zealand funds are LEADING investment into pre-seed and seed stage companies? Below, I have provided a summary of these investors. Have I missed any key players? Are there any included that shouldn't be? Note: I have excluded any funds that have not made an investment in the past 12 months, based on available evidence. Blackbird Cure Kids Ventures Even Capital GD1 (Global From Day One) Icehouse Ventures Motion Capital Movac Nuance Connected Capital NZ Growth Capital Partners NZVC Outset Ventures Pacific Channel Phase One Ventures Soul Capital WNT Ventures

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If you're excited about the OpenStar news - and I reckon we all should be - and would like to be part of enabling these great deep tech companies, and are a wholesale investor, I recommend investigating Outset Fund 2. The First Outset Fund was the first backer and lead for OpenStar, as well as scores of the most interesting and impactful companies in NZ, and the second fund, that is open now, already has a placement in OpenStar, (as well as Ternary, which has perhaps the most extraordinary talent and experience density and concept I've seen in a company). This is not investment advice and it is best practice to seek qualified financial advice in making long term investments like venture capital funds. My personal view on this is that if you are a qualified wholesale investor, and have available a small percentage of your overall savings with a very long term view, and would like access to a broad range of deep tech companies that are vetted by the best in the ecosystem, then investigating making a placement in Outset Fund 2 could be a great way to be a small backer of great innovators, and perhaps share a little in what they create. https://lnkd.in/gQXUFUPE

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📣 Emerge has never stopped investing over the last 10 years and today announces $73m of fresh capital available for early-stage founders building the future of work and learning. We have just closed our new [oversubscribed] fund – focused on democratising access to opportunity and helping humankind maximise their potential. If we don’t adapt to this new AI-driven world, we will be left behind — and that's why we are investing in companies that empower people to Learn, Navigate and Work - so that no one will be. 🙏🏼 Sifted covered our Fund II close: https://lnkd.in/ebQgEKtt 💚 As a specialist early-stage fund we believe in founders before others do. No idea is too early for us. We build conviction early due to our deep industry knowledge. We have identified the major sub-thesis opportunities in the broad categories of edtech, hrtech and business productivity and understand these areas in great depth 💥 As an exited entrepreneur, I truly believe the model we have for early-stage founders is exactly what early-stage founders need 🟢 writing big cheques early - $500k-$2.5m at the early stage, so founders can get on and build 🟢 provide the knowledge to get you to PMF and Series A - by matching you with our 100+ community of top founders and C-level executives from our industry 🟢 help you raise your Series A - we will move mountains to help you raise your future rounds from the best possible investors This model has worked well for us over the last 10 years achieving high return and high impact. Through our 80+ strong portfolio, we have impacted over 31m people - and this is only the beginning of helping hundreds of millions of people fulfil their true potential 🙏🏼 Thankyou to our Fund II LPs including KfW Capital, Laerdal Invest, Jacobs Foundation and Southern New Hampshire University. We appreciate your belief in us as a team 🙏🏼 Thank you to all 80+ of the Emerge’s portfolio who revolutionise access to learning (Solvely Labs, MyEdSpace, LearnWise AI), level the playing field for kids (Yoto, Edurino | We are hiring! ), help people navigate careers (Popp AI) and empower them to use AI at work (Colossyan, Mendo) 😔 To close - what worries us is that people don’t have access to the tools, skills and confidence they need to thrive in this new AI-driven world. As a first-generation university student, I'm where I am today because I got lucky and access to higher ed was my way up. I know only too well what a lack of access can do to a human life 💚 Emerge won't rest until we level the playing field for people to fulfil their true potential. AI provides the key to improving people's lives at scale, and we are determined that AI will be used for good - to close the global inequality divide - and not increase it. 🔥 To all and any founders building the future of learning and work > we can't wait to hear from you ⭐️ finally I'm incredibly grateful to our amazing team for their commitment to our mission: Jan, Mario, Zara, Sami and Charlotte

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📣 Excited to wrap up 2024 by helping more Australian founders crack the US market - without learning everything the hard way! This Thursday, I'm joining forces with Jason Booth from TaxStudio to share the essentials of US expansion - from flip-ups to tax strategies that help support sustainable growth. It will be a power hour to help founders gain insights that could save years of trial and error. We'll break down the complexities into actionable steps, sharing experiences and practical tips. Join us if you're planning your US journey for 2025. Your future self will thank you! 🚀 Details in comments ⬇️ #Startups #Scaleups #GlobalExpansion #USMarket #2025Growth

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Well done everyone involved! Qureight is a great investment and looking forward to seeing their growth! Echoing Joe - more announcements coming soon from Guinness Ventures so watch this space! 👀 #venturecapital #eis #vct #healthtech #investment #fundraising

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Why GP Carry Economics for Syndicates are Superior to Venture Funds Sharing #2 of 5 learnings Zachary Ginsburg posted via Last Money In Media yesterday on reflecting back after 500 SPVs completed. 500 SPVs is not a typo :) – “The carry economics are arguably far superior for Syndicate GPs than the carry economics for fund GPs. We previously put out an article discussing the economics of venture, and the reality is that while venture can be the best performing major asset class the returns are skewed to the top funds with the average fund barely returning 1x capital back. There is no major asset class that has dispersion of returns quite as high as venture capital. This underscores the benefits for Syndicate GPs. For one, it means the time to actually receive carry income can be extremely quickly. Despite starting Calm Ventures in 2020, we had one nice exit in 2021 (~10x outcome in 12 months). While the returns from that investment were only ~10% of the capital deployed to that point, we still received carry (over a half million dollars). In a traditional fund if you returned only ~10% of capital back, you would not be seeing a dollar in carry from that sale. To further underscore the GP benefit, as mentioned, around half of funds return <1x DPI. Meaning half of GPs aren’t seeing a dollar in carry from their funds. You can have a <1x fund in SPVs and still receive an enormous amount of carry distributions. To take the extreme case, let’s say we invest $1M each into 100 investments via SPVs over the course of 3 years - so $100M invested total. 99 of those investments go to zero and one 100x’s or returns $100M. While LPs in aggregate didn’t make any money (we received $100M in distributions and invested $100M), the GP actually makes almost $20M dollars (20% carry x $99M in returns on the single performing investment). It’s worth pointing out that while the carry economics are superior, the fee economics are substantially worse for Syndicate GPs, who often aren’t drawing any consistent income or salary.” Link to full post w/4 other key learning in comments. -- Powered by Sydecar and Forge, Last Money In Media is the most actionable venture capital newsletter. Written by Zachary Ginsburg and Alex Pattis, global syndicate leaders with 800+ SPVs closed.

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In the latest episode of Future Squared podcast, I spoke with Australian and former Head of Product at UBER’s Developer Platform, Chris Saad. Chris noted that: 1) despite the larger pool of VC dry powder in Australia, capital is actually scarce and controlled by a few big players 2) Aussie investors are risk averse and typically looking for ‘derisked’ B2B opportunities, as they are often investing on behalf of large conservative super funds 3) Aussie investors are, for the most part, unsophisticated when it comes to investing in high-growth venture scale returns companies, something Canva’s Cliff Obrecht echoed when talking about the company’s prospective NASDAQ listing in 2026 We’ve no doubt come a long way since the noughties, when there wasn't much of a startup or VC landscape to speak of... but are we still, in Chris’ words, “about twenty years behind”? Is the gap between Australia and the US getting smaller or bigger? What do you think?

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This is nuts! Putting a barrier to exit through M&A will have profound downstream implications on startup funding, especially in AgriTech. The Australian Government are proposing that acquisitions by companies with turnover of $200 Million + will require regulatory approval. This policy will put Australia at a disadvantage, as it is yet another reason for the best companies and technologies to seek capital and exits overseas. This approach cuts the capital cycle for new innovation and has the opposite effect on promoting competition, as it creates a barrier for new solutions to access the full life cycle of funding and liquidity. I would argue that the acquisition of technology through M&A is actually what we need to incentivise, to make larger Australian companies more globally competitive.

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🚨Today we announced that Telstra Ventures changed its name to Titanium Ventures 🚨 We chose Titanium Ventures because it best represents who we are and who we want to be - a firm that backs very strong, resilient entrepreneurs who resist cracking under pressure. Titanium has the highest durability and strength-to-weight ratio of any metal in the world and like the leaders we invest in, we punch way above our weight. Our investment thesis remains the same and we will continue to identify and scale the most promising companies across a variety of AI, digital and software sectors. So far we’ve invested in 99 portfolio companies, resulting in: 🚀 12 IPOs 🚀 17 unicorns 🚀 42 liquidity events Today we have almost US$1B funds under management and have returned US$678M cash to investors. This is an exciting next chapter in our story. Titanium Ventures will continue to accelerate the extraordinary, fueling the growth of standout disruptors, that’s what we have done for over a decade and that’s what our investors and founders expect us to do in the decades to come. www.ti.vc You can read the full press release here: https://lnkd.in/ePtEVPik

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Q4 and here at VenturePath we are busy advocating for a connected venture ecosystem to better support scaling founders. As a member of VenturePath, founders don’t just gain access to fundraising support - they become part of an ecosystem that works together to achieve success. So how are we creating this connectivity? By organising a curated community designed to specifically support scaling UK founders. VenturePath founders are linked with a network of fellow venture-backed founders, peer-referred scale-up experts, successfully exited entrepreneurs, strategic partners, and a £7bn VC network all active between Series A-B. Why does this matter? Scaling a business is challenging on most levels, absorbs almost all of your time. By bringing together the key stakeholders that support founders, we’ve created cohesive, 360° support to cut through the noise and support founders at every stage of scaling their business. Our ecosystem members are grouped as: → Fellow Founders: Founders at similar stages share experiences and challenges, offering invaluable peer support. → Scaleup Experts: Domain specialists, vouched for by fellow founders, are available to provide targeted advice and insights. → Exited Entrepreneurs: Recently exited founders share their journeys and lessons learned through engaging content and events. → VC Network: Access to Series A and B funds offers founders early, informal feedback, fostering open dialogue before formal pitches. → Strategic Partners: Trusted partners provide optional support, helping founders navigate the complexities of scaling their businesses. We believe these are all necessary parts of the journey as you scale with venture backing. We've applied our experience to make these elements readily available and heavily curated. Is this the edge you need to scale your business?

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