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:

• 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

• 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 

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