Open the Pod Bay Doors

Large buildings are both economically and environmentally costly to operate. David Walsh saw lots of data flowing in and around these inefficient buildings but there was no focus on using this data to find or fix the root causes of wastage. That's why he founded CIM in 2013. CIM's platform analyses building data to detect faults and inefficiencies that are wasting energy, saving their customers money and improving environmental outcomes. Today, CIM counts 58% of premium grade shopping grade centres in Australia as customers, has offices in Dublin, London and Sydney, and employs just under 40 people.In David's conversation with Ian, he talks about his personal career journey, starting as an Irish backpacker in Australia, how he's attracted an incredibly talented team with a sustainability-focused mission, and the ways to overcome the challenges of enterprise sales. David also discusses why he was determined to bootstrap as long as possible, the importance of maintaining strong company culture, and how CIM doubled revenue even when their customers were clobbered by the pandemic.Don't miss this chat with a resilient, reflective founder cracking a hugely important problem.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Olivia Humphrey is the founder, former CEO, and current executive chairman of Kanopy, the award-winning video streaming service for universities and libraries. She worked in media rights management at the BBC and Village Roadshow for 10 years before founding Kanopy in Perth back in 2008. After growing the business for a few years, Olivia and her young family packed up and moved to San Francisco in 2013 to help Kanopy's overseas expansion. Today, millions of students at thousands of universities use Kanopy's service. Olivia transitioned from CEO to Executive Chairman in 2019 and moved back to Perth. She was recently appointed entrepreneur-in-residence at Curtin University.In this conversation with Phaedon, Olivia talks about...How to think about growing beyond Australia from the startScaling once landing in the USThe pros and cons of bootstrappingThe process of exiting KanopyWhat's next for herSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to the OTPBD News Special, our fortnightly series analysing the news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.Meet the panel...Founder: Emma Weston, AgriDigitalInvestor: Craig Blair, AirTree VenturesEcosystem Leader: Michael Bakto, StartmateTopics we discuss:Some of the biggest headlines our panel discussed include the federal government's news battle vs. Facebook and Google, recent volatility in tech stocks, and big upcoming tech IPOs. We also talk about the launch of Second Quarter Ventures, the new secondary fund from David Tarascio, Andrew Spykes, Ian Beatty, and Leigh Jasper, the role tech jobs will play in Australia's economic recovery, and Elon Musk's Nuralink chip.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Olympia Yarger, founder and CEO of GoTerra, is converting food waste into livestock feed by using robots, AI, and maggots. Yes, maggots. After years of working across many different agriculture sectors, Olympia knew she wanted to find a new way to help farmers and make farms more efficient. It was only when she starting farming insects to feed her own poultry that she stumbled upon the solution. She was blown away by how difficult insect farming was and decided to engineer her own fix; she ended up developing a high-tech solution in which maggots in robot-run automated capsules turn food waste into animal feed and fertiliser. Olympia welded the first prototype herself and GoTerra was born. Since founding GoTerra in 2016, she's steadily scaled operations and recently completed a $6 million Series A round of funding with Grok Ventures and Tenacious Ventures to fuel future growth. Olympia is living proof that with time, passion, and tenacity, you can solve big problems.Some specific topics touched upon in Phaedon's interview with Olympia include: the nitty gritty of how GoTerra's capsules work and the business model, why GoTerra is trying to enact change without disruption, how Olympia transitioned from agriculture to tech, why naivety sometimes beats knowledge, how she inspired her early team to join GoTerra, and what the next big steps for her company are.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to the latest edition of OTPBD News Special, Innovation Bay's fortnightly podcast analysing the news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.Meet the panel...Founder: James Ferguson, Immutable GamesInvestor: Niki Scevak, BlackbirdEcosystem: Cheryl Mack, Stone & ChalkTopics we discuss:Our panel covers recent funding news, including raises by See Mode, Buildkite, SpaceX and Blackbird's new fund. Some other key topics include Canva and Atlassian blasting changes to R&D tax scheme, the COVID-19 Global Venture Funding report from Crunchbase, and AirBnb's upcoming IPO. Our panel also discuss the growth of edtech, the formation of a new venture fund for female founders by Marisa Warren and Kate Vale, Expert360's Bridget Loudon joining the Telstra board, and the ongoing battle between Apple and Epic, the creator of Fortnite.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

David Shein first emigrated from South Africa to Australia in 1986. 9 months after touching down he founded his company Com Tech, a specialist supplier of networking and communications products. He grew the business for 14 years and eventually sold it to Dimension Data for over $1bil. At the time of David's exit, Com Tech employed over 1,400 people, had offices Australia wide, and achieved revenues of $700 million. After leaving Com Tech, David transitioned into becoming an investor and mentor to a number of startups. He is the GP and cofounder of Our Innovation Fund, an early stage venture capital fund that invests in exciting Australian startups, as well as a founding partner in the Israeli Venture Capital enterprise, OurCrowd, the first Global Equity Based Crowd Funding Platform.In this episode, David discusses:-Where his love of mentoring startups comes from-Why he feels lucky to have landed a terrible job when he first arrived in Australia-How customer service fueled his company's growth-Why he was called a "one minute manager"-The challenge of transitioning out of the role of founder after exiting-His philosophy towards the investor-founder relationship...and a whole lot more! Ian loved having a chat with David and we think you'll love giving it a listen.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kristo Käärmann, co-founder and CEO of TransferWise, shares his journey of disrupting traditional banking with a peer-to-peer money transfer service. He discusses the challenges of building a customer-centric solution while navigating the hidden fees imposed by banks. Kristo recalls his thrilling fundraising experiences and the pivotal moments of scaling the company, especially during the pandemic. The conversation also touches on tech skills’ importance and innovative banking partnerships that have transformed their service.

Welcome to the OTPBD News Special, Innovation Bay's fortnightly podcast that analyses the news that matters for Australian and Kiwi startups.Meet the panel...Founder: Lauren Hall, iVvyInvestor: Bede Moore, Antler Ecosystem Leader: Angus Hervey, FutureCrunchTopics we discuss:In this episode our panel covers ANZ funding news, including raises by Jig Space, Pyn and XYSense, as well as relevant local and global news. Some key topics include Blackbird's new fund, the BigCommerce IPO, and the government's mandate that Google and Facebook pay for news. We also talk about COVID-related news such as Atlassian and Facebook's new WFH policies, some good COVID stories you might have missed, and the big dip in hotel transactions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tom Humphrey is an experienced Aussie entrepreneur and Partner at Access Ventures, a venture capital fund based in Denver, Colorado that invests in early stage technology companies. Before joining Access, Tom helped grow two successful startups, OurDeal and Kanopy. He was COO of OurDeal, a “group-buying” ecommerce website in Australia and helped scale the business to a successful exit to News Corp. Tom was also COO/Director of Sales of Kanopy, a B2B video streaming platform that he saw through an exit to L2 Capital in 2018, delivering a 14x return to investors.In Phaedon's conversation with Tom, the two cover:• The story of building Kanopy with his sister Olivia• How Tom managed rapid growth when OneDeal scaled from 8 employees to 80+ in a year• The segments and markets Tom is excited to invest in• Qualities Tom looks for in a founder• The value of partnering with a VC• Why he lives in Colorado instead of San FranciscoSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sarah Nolet is one of Australia's leading agriculture technology (agtech) experts. She's the founder and CEO of AgThentic, an agtech strategy and advisory firm, and the co-founder of Tenacious Ventures, Australia’s first dedicated agrifood tech VC firm. Sarah also hosts the podcast "Agtech - So What" which tells the story of innovators at the intersection of agriculture and technology.In this episode, Sarah talks about her professional journey moving to Australia and growing the agtech ecosystem here, cofounding a new venture fund, and starting a podcast. She also shares the criteria her fund uses when evaluating food and agriculture startups, the first addition to the Tenacious Ventures portfolio, and some insights about sustainable farming.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.