An immersive one-week program for active investors to gain the best practice tools and skills to make more successful venture capital investment decisions.
Delivered by a world-class selection of VC experts and practitioners, you will access one of Australia’s most innovative and diverse entrepreneurial networks. Alongside the one-week intensive, you will receive 6 months of 1-on-1 mentoring and support.
Program dates: The next VC Catalyst program will take place in early 2020.
Cost: Fees for the 2020 program will be released in due course.
Where: Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship – Melbourne, Australia
How to apply: Applications have now closed. Enquire now for our 2020 cohort.
Places are strictly limited.
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Powerful network of VCs, angel investors, experts and fellow investors for generating future deal flow
Tools to successfully navigate and engage with the venture capital ecosystem
Insight and guidance from 1-on-1 mentoring with some of the world’s leading VCs and VC investment education experts
Actionable strategies and tools for building and managing high-yield portfolios
Methodology for assessing opportunities against your personal investment philosophy and conducting stage-appropriate due diligence
Exposure to startups, deals and investment opportunities
Express Interest
5-DAY INTENSIVE
We will bring together academics and industry practitioners to deliver immersive and relevant content.
DEMO DAY
Demo Day is an opportunity to put your learnings into action and get front row access to exciting startups.
1-ON-1 MENTORING
Your mentors will help you over six months as you seek to implement what you have learned.
VC Catalyst is delivered by a world-class selection of practitioners and academics. Here are some of our speakers for the 2019 program.
Adjunct Prof, Stanford University
A founding faculty member of Stanford’s VC Unlocked program, former Principal at Mayfield Fund and instructor at UC Berkley’s Haas School of Business, Pedram brings extensive VC knowledge and experience to the Wade Institute. Whether early-stage startups, Fortune 50 companies or the World Bank, Pedram shares his experience from working with hundreds of business leaders and entrepreneurs across five continents.
Professor of Management, Stanford University
George Foster holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in economics from the University of Sydney and a doctorate from the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. He taught at the University of Chicago and the Australian Graduate School of Management prior to joining the GSB faculty at Stanford University.
His writings include over 50 research articles, over 100 cases, three monographs, as well as multiple editions of several textbooks. Foster’s early and continuing research was on the role of financial analysis in the valuation and growth of companies. He subsequently broadened his research interests to include management control systems, entrepreneurship/venture capital, and sports business management. His textbook writings include Financial Statement Analysis; Cost Accounting: A Managerial Analysis; and The Business of Sports.
Foster works extensively with the World Economic Forum and is a member and former Chair of their Global Agenda Council on Fostering Entrepreneurship. He led the research team on the 2011 Forum publication on Global Entrepreneurship and the Successful Growth Strategies of Early-Stage Companies. He co-led the research team on the 2013 Forum publication on Entrepreneurial Ecosystems Around the Globe and Company Growth Dynamics.
Foster’s 2010 California Management Review co-authored paper on “Building Sustainable High-Growth Startup Companies” won the 2011 Accenture Award for the article that “has made the most important contribution to improving the practice of management.” He has won multiple other research awards including the AICPA Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Accounting Literature (twice) and the Competitive Manuscript Award of the American Accounting Association (twice). He is a winner of the Distinguished Teaching Award at Stanford Business School and has been awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Ghent (Belgium) and the University of Vaasa (Finland).
He is actively involved in the business community, especially with venture-capital backed startup companies and has served on the Board of Directors of multiple companies. He is also actively involved with sporting organizations around the globe, including directing executive programs for the National Football League (NFL) and the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA).
Co-Founder and Partner, BBG Ventures
Nisha Dua is a Co-Founder and General Partner at BBG Ventures, a NYC-based seed fund which invests in consumer start-ups with at least one female founder. BBGV invests across commerce, connected communities, future of work, personalized health and wellness, and Gen Z. At BBGV, Nisha has invested in over 60 start-ups including Zola, The Wing, Pymetrics, KiwiCo, Spring Health, Future Family and Winky Lux.
Nisha has spent the last decade working in media, tech, strategy and law. She was the GM of AOL’s millennial site, Cambio, which she re-launched as a site “for girls, #BUILTBYGIRLS” in partnership with Girls Who Code. She founded the #BUILTBYGIRLS WAVE platform, which has connected over 5000 girls with professionals to help them build their first networks in tech.
Nisha was previously Chief of Staff for the AOL Brand Group, working on strategy, operations and special projects. Nisha cut her teeth as a management consultant for Bain & Company and an M&A lawyer at Blake Dawson. She received her Bachelor of Commerce/Bachelor of Laws from UNSW.
Partner, IBM Blockchain and Prose Ventures
A seasoned entrepreneur and VC investor, Jules is Partner at IBM’s Blockchain Accelerator in NYC and Co-Founder of Prose Ventures: an independent fund focused on professional services. No stranger to either sides of the coin, Jules has exited three major startups including Evolve Law, Hire an Esquire and Carbonado Group. She has degrees from UCLA and LSE and is a Kauffman Fellow and mentor for young women.
Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Rampersand
Paul is an internationally experienced investor and senior marketing executive within technology businesses, having spent years living and working in Silicon Valley, the UK and Australia. Specialising in strategic communications, Paul was VP Global Marketing at Jajah (acquired by Telefonica), Head of PR for Snaptu (acquired by Facebook), Head of Communications for Amobee (acquired by Singtel), Asia Pacific PR Manager for Responsys (NASDAQ: MKTG), head of PR for TokBox (acquired by Telefónica).
As well as supporting growth stage tech companies, Paul co-founded rampersand to invest in and support Australian early stage technology companies.
Director, Trawalla Group
Carol Schwartz is one of Australia’s leading business identities. Carol has extensive experience in business, property, the arts and community organizations.
Carol’s current roles include: Chair, Creative Partnerships Australia; Chair, Ourcommunity; Chair, Womens Leadership Institute Australia; Director, Stockland Ltd; Member, Reserve Bank Board; Director, Qualitas Property Partners.
Co-Founder, Square Peg Capital
Paul is a co-founder of Square Peg Capital.
Prior to founding Square Peg, Paul co-founded SEEK in 1997 and served as Joint CEO from 1997-2011. SEEK is the world’s largest online employment business and has market-leading businesses in Australia, China, Brazil, Mexico and throughout South-East Asia.
Paul is a director of Wesfarmers Ltd and a Commissioner of the Australian Football League (AFL). He is also on the board of Innovation Australia, the Peter MacCallum Cancer Foundation and the P&S Bassat Foundation. Paul started his career as a lawyer and practised for 6 years.
Paul holds a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Commerce from The University of Melbourne.
General Partner, Blackbird Ventures
Nick invests in Australian founders with global ambition at Blackbird Ventures. He also runs Startmate, Australia’s premier startup accelerator. Previously, he co-founded Sessions, a health coaching company, which MyFitnessPal acquired in 2013.
He also co-founded We Are Hunted, which was acquired by Twitter in 2012.
Partner, Blackbird Ventures
Sam is a Partner at Blackbird Ventures, a technology venture capital fund with half a billion under management. Prior to joining Blackbird, Sam co-founded a company that went through the Startmate accelerator run by Blackbird called CapacityHQ, a professional services marketplace. Sam started her career as a corporate lawyer at Minter Ellison before career-pivotting to lead Product teams at SurfStitch.com, a multi-national e-commerce startup.
Partner, Corrs Chambers Westgarth
Jonathan‘s career spans over 20 years across both commercial law and investment banking. He specialises in M&A, strategic advice and capital raisings.
As a result of the range of his experience, Jonathan brings a truly commercial perspective to legal advice and is noted by his clients for his ability to speak their language.
His stellar deal sheet includes many of the major M&A transactions of recent times and high profile capital market transactions with a combined value of over $50 billion.
Jonathan holds first class honours degrees in Commerce and Law, and a Master of Laws, from the University of Melbourne.
Co-Founder and Partner, Qualgro
Through his time at Qualgro Peter has lead investments in SaaS, data, marketplaces, messaging and hardware. Previously Director at Singtel Innov8 and Co-Founder of Optus-Innov8, Peter has long held leadership positions in business, corporate and product development. He is also an investor and mentor at Startmate.
Partner, AirTree Ventures
With a background in M&A law and tech banking, James is a seasoned VC investor. James joined AirTree from Accel Partners, the fund behind companies like Facebook, Dropbox, Slack, Etsy and Atlassian, James loves supporting the next generation of great Aussie and Kiwi founders and so far at AirTree, he has lead investments in Prospa, Paxata and 90Seconds.
Investment Director, Blue Sky Investments
Elaine has held diverse roles including CEO, Board of Director and other executive level roles within industry, venture capital and the public sector. As board observer to many innovative startups
(THRIVE, Vinomofo, ParcelPoint) and investment director at major VC funds, Elaine knows how to play both sides of the coin.
Executive Director, Melbourne Entrepreneurial Centre
Colin McLeod is the inaugural Executive Director of the Melbourne Entrepreneurial Centre.
Colin is a Professor in the Melbourne Business School where has been the Program Director of the Master of Entrepreneurship degree and the Academic Director of the Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship since 2015. He was awarded the title of Enterprise Professor in 2016 in recognition of his contribution to industry and academia.
Colin has a long-standing interest in entrepreneurship. He co-founded his first business in 1992, which expanded to a national company with almost 200 employees, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Haas School of Business in 1995/96 during the first ‘Internet Boom’ (and crash!) and completed a PhD in 1998 that identified some of the key factors that lead to the successful commercialisation of innovation. He has also been a Senior Associate of the Judge School of Business at the University of Cambridge.
In 2007, Colin and colleagues at the University of Melbourne were amongst the first researchers in the world to look at co-production with customers as a source of innovation. Their research was published in the highly ranked Journal of Retailing and has been cited over 800 times by other researchers.
Colin continues to have an interest in the commercialisation of innovation, and he contributed a section called “From Innovation to Entrepreneurship,” to a recent book by Danny Samson and Marianne Gloet titled Innovation and Entrepreneurship and published in 2016 by Oxford University Press.
He is currently a Director/Investor/Co-founder of six early stage companies in retail technology, online training, wireless technology, employee management, aged care and wearable biotechnology. All these companies started in Melbourne and have raised venture capital in the US and Australia, and have expanded to offices in Silicon Valley, Berlin and Manchester with partner operations in India, Malaysia and Uganda.
Colin was a member of the Executive Committee that raised almost $200 million to construct the Olivia Newton-John Cancer & Wellness Centre at the Austin Hospital and is a member of the AFL Research Board.
Head of Startups ANZ, Amazon Web Services
Rachael Neumann plays across many parts of the startup ecosystem, chiefly as Head of Startups in Australia & New Zealand for Amazon Web Services – Amazon’s technology and services business serving millions of customers around the world. In this role, Rachael is charged with growing out the market, driving quantity and quality of startups in the region. To this end, Rachael is a strategic advisor and investor to a number of founders and their early stage companies and is a Partner in Startmate, Australia’s most ambitious accelerator. She’s passionate about helping companies scale and increase their impact impact through differentiated customer experiences and new product development.
Rachael also works to create the right policy environment that’s conducive to a thriving sector, and serves as Chair of the Board for StartupAus – Australia’s national startup advocacy and lobby group – and has a federal ministerial appointment distributing commercialisation and acceleration funding on behalf of the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science.
Previously, Rachael was the Managing Director of Eventbrite Australia, launching the Melbourne-based office to further serve the ANZ market. Before stepping into the MD role, Rachael served as Eventbrite’s Director of Customer Experience Strategy. Prior to this, Rachael was a Case Team Leader at at Bain & Company in Silicon Valley and throughout Australia, advising Technology, Private Equity, Consumer Products and Retail businesses.
Rachael was also a founding Board Member of LaunchVic, a $60m venture seeking to solidify Victoria as a global destination of choice for entrepreneurs, startups, and innovative companies.
Educated in the States with an undergraduate degree from Stanford University and two Masters degrees from Columbia University, Rachael has bounced between Australia and the US for the last ten years and now proudly calls Melbourne home, alongside her partner and two children.
Professor of Management, University of Melbourne
Peter Gahan is Professor of Management at the University of Melbourne and a Research Fellow at the Centre for Workplace Leadership, where he was Foundation Director from 2012 to 2017. He has previously held academic and visiting positions at UNSW, Monash, University of South California, The European University Institute, Cardiff Business School, New York University and Stockholm Business School. Professor Gahan has also worked as senior public servant as Director of Workplace Innovation in the Victorian Department of Industry, Innovation and Regional Development. He has undertaken commissioned research for both state and commonwealth governments on areas related to employment relations, regulatory arrangements to support workplace innovation, and the consequences of various regulatory labour market reforms. Over the last 25 years, Professor Gahan has published widely on conflict and negotiations, employment relations and collective bargaining, high performance workplaces, labour markets and the future of work, and the consequences of labour market regulation. His current research focuses on two major drivers of change at work: workforce ageing and how technology is transforming the nature of jobs. Peter is currently exploring how older works are perceived by others (co-workers, managers and customers) in the workplace and how these perceptions influence hiring decisions, promotion and performance evaluations.
Professor, Melbourne Business School
Jill Klein joined Melbourne Business School in 2009 as a Professor of Marketing and is also a Professorial Fellow at the Melbourne Medical School.
After completing her PhD in Social Psychology at the University of Michigan, Jill joined the faculty at Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. In 1997, she joined INSEAD. Jill has also held visiting positions at Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, and Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration.
Jill’s research has been published in the Journal of Marketing, Management Science, Journal of Consumer Psychology, British Medical Journal, and more, with a focus on decision making biases and how they affect decisions in both business and medical settings.
Jill teaches Managerial Judgement, Decision Making and Resilient Leadership on the MBA, Executive and Senior Executive MBA programs, Advanced Managers Program, Specialist Certificate in Clinical Leadership, and a variety of executive education programs.
Jill has also appeared in the Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal, Guardian and other international media outlets.
CEO, StartupAUS
As CEO of Australia’s national tech startup advocacy organisation, Alex’s role is focused on helping build Australia’s startup ecosystem. StartupAUS work with startups, corporates, and governments across the country to help get the settings right to make Australia one of the best places in the world to build and grow a tech company. StartupAUS believes a strong home-grown tech sector is vital to future Australian jobs and prosperity. But getting there will require a national push to create the right environment, with a supportive culture and more entrepreneurs with the right skills.
Prior to joining StartupAUS, Alex spent three years as an Australian diplomat in Tel Aviv. During this time he led the Australian Embassy’s strategy and analysis on regional security issues, as well as entrepreneurship, innovation, policy and cooperation.
Alex joined StartupAUS in 2015 as Head of Strategy and Advocacy where he was responsible for developing StartupAUS’ extensive contribution to the Federal Government’s National Innovation and Science Agenda.
Investment Manager, Rampersand
Nicole joins Rampersand after seven years in Seek’s strategy team, after a number of years in strategy consulting and investment banking. That journey has given her broad insight into investing, product strategy, general business operations and fast growth environments, all very useful when it comes to finding — and helping — the best tech startups in the country.
LaunchVic is Victoria’s startup agency. Established by the Victorian Government in 2016 as an independent agency responsible for developing Victoria’s startup ecosystem. Their investment into our program will improve the local investor education landscape and help create the next generation of startup Angel and Venture Capital investors.
LaunchVic
Best practice learning bringing together leading academics, investors and experts to deliver immersive and relevant content.
Active mentoring to complement deep learning with ongoing feedback and guidance to help you tailor the tools and tactics for you.
Unrivalled access to leading Australian and international investors sharing their playbook for venture capital investing.
Express Interest
Our Program team will be in touch with further details.
Who is this course best suited to?
VC Catalyst has been created for active investors with a demonstrated history of investment. We are primarily seeking participants with the capacity to invest and who possess the ability to make a sizeable impact on Victoria’s startup ecosystem. We recommend reaching out to us directly to discuss whether this program is the right fit for you.
Am I obligated to make any investments during the course?
There is no obligation to make an investment during the program. We do however encourage active investors to take advantage of Demo Day and the 1-on-1 mentoring relationship to support making a deal if that aligns with their investment plan.
How do I apply for a scholarship?
We are committed to ensuring that the VC Catalyst program includes a diverse range of participants, faculty and guest speakers.
To ensure this, we have five full tuition scholarships on offer for each cohort.
Merit will be awarded to participants who have shown an active commitment to diversity and inclusion and will use their attendance in the program to promote and support a more diverse investment landscape. You will have the opportunity to apply for a scholarship during the online application process.
Who are the teachers/faculty and what are the class sizes?
VC Catalyst will be taught by a diverse set of world-class experts and practitioners in venture capital investing and the startup space. 2019 speakers included Stanford’s Professor George Foster, Square Peg Capital and SEEK’s Paul Bassat and BBG Ventures’ Nisha Dua.
VC Catalyst class size will range from 20 – 30. The program cohort has been kept deliberately small to facilitate optimal discussion and collaboration.
Do you accept applicants from outside of Victoria?
Applications are open to both Australian and international residents. The first 15 Victorian active investors who apply will receive a 20% fee reduction.
Who will my mentor be?
All speakers and faculty, alongside experienced Australian investors, will be made available for one-on-one mentoring throughout the six-month mentoring period. You will be matched with a mentor at the conclusion of the program’s on campus component.
What’s the application process? How will you select the participants?
All applications are to be made online. Participants will be selected on their suitability to the program and to create a diverse cohort of participants. You will be notified of your application outcome shortly after submission.
I’ll be unable to attend one of the days/sessions, how will I make this up?
In-depth class materials will be provided where a participant is unable to attend a session. However, exposure and interaction with faculty and fellow participants is an incredibly important component of this program and so it is strongly encouraged that you try and attend all sessions. Let our program manager know as early as possible so that we can try and accommodate you.
