Open the Pod Bay Doors

Joining us for Episode 148 is the fascinating George Peppou, Founder and CEO of Vow Food, a cultivated meat company, founded and operated in Sydney. Vow is made up of a multidisciplinary team of scientists, technologists and designers, working together in the relentless pursuit of better food.By making meat with animal cells, and not the animals themselves, Vow is creating the world's most tantalising and unique culinary experiences without compromising on ethics or our planet along the way. Ian and George dive into George's career path so far, from studying Biochemistry and Immunobiology at Sydney University to Founder and CEO of Vow Food. Tune in to hear more on: The effects of the meat industry and food production on the Global greenhouse gas emissions  How Vow as a product is produced and when it will first go to market The investment and growth stages of Vow  Georges business and personal challenges Quick fire round: Book: Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Handbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell, By: Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, Alan Eagle Podcast: Lex Fridman and The Constant News Source: ABC/AFR for local news and The Atlantic App: Vimcal - Lightning-fast calendar for remote work Tech CEO: Elon Musk TV Show: Jerrfey Dahmer on Netflix Ted Talk: Woodwork and a mindfulness practice. George is a member of Summit Community at Innovation Bay.  You can find more at VowFood.com, Twitter or Linkedin. Vow Food is hiring so be sure to keep an eye out on their careers page. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joining us for E147 is Angela Clark, Co Founder of Wallet Nation. Angela is a specialist in business transformation, customer experience, innovation and digital platforms. Angela’s experience spans multiple industries, customer segments and services, across education, media, payments and financial services. Angela has previously led companies as a CEO and Managing Director, founded her own start-ups and led transformation of divisions and customer strategy within larger companies.Tune in to hear Ian deep dive into Angela's fascinating career journey plus so much more as the pair cover off topics such as: The transition from corporate to start up Wallet Nation - How was it founded, where is it at currently and what is the vision Crypto Winter and the evolution of blockchain and web3 The benefits of being apart of a community Quickfire Round Book - Cloudstreet by Tim Winton News source - NY Times Tech CEO - Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia Best productivity tool -  Weeding tools for the garden TV show - ESP News Tedx talk - Importance of citizens taking active interest in media and how it affects society.   Angela is also an Innovation Bay member and part of the Canopy Community. You can reach Angela via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelaclarkaustralia/?originalSubdomain=au See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our guest for episode 146 is Australian politician Hon Ed Husic MP. Elected to the House of Representatives as the Federal Member for Chifley in 2010, Ed is currently serving as Minister for Industry and Science.  Passionate about the digital economy creating the jobs of the future, Ed has a long-standing interest in the impact of tech on our economy and community and his portfolio appointments and parliamentary interests have focused on this. For a number of years, he has been part of the Federal Opposition’s team developing policies to promote early stage and digital innovation.In this episode, we dive into Ed's top priorities for policies within the startup ecosystem. Ian and Ed also touch on the Research and Development tax incentive, the positive impact migration and visas can have on growing the economy, as well as discuss politics in general plus the impact inflation and rising interest rates may have on small startups.  Tune in to hear more from Ed! Quickfire RoundBook - System Error by Rob Reich and Starling Grad War by Antony Beevor. Series - Narcos and Kenobi (Starwars)TV Shows - The A TeamGadget - New generation airpods This is Ed's second time on the Open The Pod Bay Doors podcast. You can check out his first appearance here.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After a two year hiatus, Innovation Bay and ARENA teamed up once more for the ARENA Renewable Energy Founder Forum.    Across the course of the evening, four promising founders from a pool of 40 applications in the renewables space were invited to pitched their business to a room of experts and enthusiasts in the industry.    We heard from ARENA's Darren Miller, past alumni 5B’s Dr Nicole Kuepper-Russell and an expert panel, recorded the night, featured Renate Egan from the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics, Kate Vidgen of Macquarie Group and Kristin Vaughan from Virescent Ventures.   Today we’re thrilled to share the panel discussion with you for this week’s episode. Across this educational and eye-opening conversation, Innovation Bay’s own Ian Gardiner alongside renewables experts Renate Egan, Kate Vidgen and Kristin Vaughan cover a range of topics.    We investigate the renewable energy industry shifts across the last 12-18 months, Australia’s evolution relative to other international markets in relation to EVs and hydrogen and where Australia is going to win within the emerging technology space. We also discuss how the world is recognising the need to globalise the supply chain, export opportunities for Australia’s energy commodity or IP and the increasing need for negative omissions. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Louise Nobes is the founder of the Australian arm of 42 - a globally innovative software engineering and coding trade school. 42 is free to attend with entry criteria being that you must be 16 to attend and either undergo a strenuous 2 hour logic test (and pass) or a 4 week intensive bootcamp (and pass).    An ex-social worker, Louise is incredibly passionate about supporting underprivileged and underrepresented people. While teaching at Flinders NVI, Louise became fixated on wanting to push into work of the future and how it would look to bring in the best educational model that focused on coding and jobs - and one that was open to everyone. After looking up 42 on the advice of a colleague, Louise contacted the French headquarters to ask if she could become the Australia license holder. Within 24 hours they agreed.    Louise looks at everything with a lens focused on diversity and equality. She is driven by a desire to solve some of the really complex problems in society - one problem in particular being youth unemployment. Through 42, she’s also looking to squash some of the statistics currently running through the tech industry. Stats such as only 25% of people in the tech sector identify as female; the number for software engineering dwindling down to 12%. At 42, 30% of intake are women, 40% are neurodiverse and 28% did not finish grade 12, all proving that 42 is open to all.    Running for just over a year in Adelaide, 42 has seen 450 students pass through its ranks and move straight in employment via a red hot recruitment market. The learning philosophy is all practical without any theory with students working across around 200 projects during the course of their learning curriculum. With a long term goal of being first and front of mind for digital apprenticeships, Louise plans on setting up shop in Sydney as a second Australian market very soon with a goal of 1500 students through the door.    Quickfire Round  Book: Jacinda Ardern (I Know This To Be True): On kindness, empathy & strength Podcast: The Game Changers  News Source: YouTube  App: Spotify  Tech CEO: Allison Nikula (CareApp) Productivity Tool: My brain + team use Airtasker   TV Show: Peaky Blinders  Ted Talk Topic: What will it take to get equality in tech and are we prepared to really listen to what that is.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wayne Gerard wears a number of hats. By day, he is the Co-Founder & CEO of RedEye and the current Queensland Chief Entrepreneur. He lives on a working farm outside of Brisbane, is a trail runner and is deeply passionate about innovation, entrepreneurship, the climate, helping others and making a difference with the time we have!    Wayne spent 10 years in the ARMY straight out of school, first as a tactical communications officer and later with a key role to build the ARMY’s first drone. This opportunity led to a job offer with Boeing, then a Queensland tech company (Lincom) before starting his own consultancy company. Following a devastating flood that affected his property in 2011, Wayne reevaluated his position, wanting to move away from being the product of his business.    During a trip to the US, Wayne came up with an idea for a SaaS business - a single instance multi tenant cloud as a solution for engineering companies. RedEye was born with BHP the very first customer. Fast forward 10 years and Wayne has taken up position as Queensland Chief Entrepreneur - a position he will hold until the end of 2022.    His key focus priorities in this role include:    To help the existing industry to be as sustainable and successful as possible by partnering with QLD innovators, entrepreneurs and researchers  To build the next emerging industry and new economy To focus on regional - entrepreneurship and innovation can happen anywhere, from Longreach to Gladstone or Cairns  To unlock partnerships with the Brisbane 2032 Olympics   During their chat, Ian and Wayne cover a range of topics, all highlighting Wayne’s desire to make a difference and help others - particularly those in the innovation and entrepreneurship space. One of the key takeaways: Resilience is learnt as you go on your journey. Know you’re not alone. It’s hard work but keep going. What you’re doing is going to make a difference!    QUICKFIRE ROUND  Book: Lifespan by Dr David Sinclair  Podcast: Rich Roll, The A16Z Podcast  News Source: tries not to focus on the news - prefers to focus on customers  App: Garmin, Strava - for trail running  Fav Tech CEO: Elon Musk  Productivity Tool: Redeye  TV Show: The Terminal List  Ted Talk Topic: Building resilient economies for innovation See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joining us for E142 are Katie Heathcote, Associate Director Technology - Export Services for Investment NSW and Ryan Edwards-Pritchard, CEO and Founder of Fintech company Cape.Katie’s role at Investment NSW sees her meet hustle with NSW tech companies that are at the right stage to scale globally. Investment NSW provides advice and mentoring to companies into which markets they should select to scale into, with one of Katie’s role responsibilities to ramp up exports for NSW. Investment NSW also has a department specialising in export assistance grants, an MVP team that focuses on the local ecosystem and helps companies get to the point of scaling and a tech precincts team that offers rental and subsidies among so much more.Ryan is the CEO and Founder of Cape, an expense management platform that will work with businesses to spend smarter, reduce wasteful spending and grow their business. Cape are currently in the closed beta phase of their timeline, having onboarded their first 34 customers and are about to move into the open beta phase with a public launch to happen at the end of the year. Cape currently employ a team of 25 predominantly across Sydney and other parts of Australia and around in the UK. They recently raised $30mil with a focus on a warehouse facility in Sydney - where the physical cards will be created - and an equity component - essentially where credit is coming from.Ian dives into Katie and Ryan’s chance meeting, how Katie has assisted Ryan with the success of Cape and also covers:Investment NSW’s areas of focus which include Fintech, Cyber, Blockchain, Smart Cities, GreenTech, EdTech, AdTech, HealthTechDifferences between the tech ecosystems in Australia and the UKHuman and financial capitalThe importance of Australian startups thinking global from the get goScottish tiesQuickfire Round Book: Katie - Sally Rooney, Normal People | Ryan - Homer’s IliadPodcast: Katie - Bankless, 11FS | Ryan - Lex FreemanNews Source: Katie - Reddit, Financial Times | Ryan - AFR, The Australian, The Economist, National GeographicApp: Katie - Spotify | Ryan - HeadspaceTech CEO: Katie - Sarah Biller | Ryan - Mike Cannon-BrookesProductivity Tool: Katie - Monday | Ryan - TrelloTV Show: Katie - Toast of Tinseltown, Obi-Wan KenobiRecent Movie: Ryan - Top GunTed Talk Topic: Katie - Music on the brain and mental health | Ryan - Marine conservationSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Just last month (June) Innovation Bay spent 3 days and 3 nights in Noosa, Queensland with over 100 of the country’s leading VCs for our VC community Aurora’s annual cornerstone event, Venture Downunder (VDU). After a learning day full to the brim with panels, discussions, keynotes and serendipitous conversations, we took the opportunity to sit down with three of the most illustrious and active VCs in the ecosystem right now to take a snapshot in time of the current state of affairs of our industry and to catch their thoughts, concerns and what they’re most excited about right now.Joining Ian, around a small bar table in a quiet backroom, were:Karen Chan, Portfolio Manager, Perennial PartnersJohn Henderson, General Partner, Airtree VenturesStew Glynn, Managing Partner & Co-Founder, TEN13During VDU, Macquarie's Head of Wealth Management Investment Strategy, Jason Todd, provided attendees with an incredibly insightful, if not at times concerning, view into the current state of play. We took the podcast group’s pulse on the keynote and how they see macroeconomics affecting the industry with Karen, John and Stew all wary but nevertheless optimistic about the industry at large. There was agreement that while there will be compressions throughout the market, innovation is here to stay, deals are still happening and the very best founders will continue to raise at impressive prices. We were reminded that in the last downturn companies like Slack, WhatsApp, and Groupon were born, and that this vintage could very well yield similar strong returns with the most resilient of companies pushing through.As VDU is an event to bring the Innovation Bay VC community together, the panel discusses the importance of community. Being brought together in a structured and unstructured way to learn from one another or chat “around the watercooler” is vital in this market. VCs are collaborative by nature but there is always an element of natural competition underlying. We also cover what everyone is most optimistic about - from Web3 to strong deal flow to investing in emerging markets like Africa, Latin America and Indonesia.We also had a chance for a couple of Quickfire Recommendations:Karen - Podcast: All-In PodcastJohn - Podcast: Invest Like The Best - Jeremy Grantham EpisodeStew - Podcast: 20VC - Quick Commerce EpisodeIan - Book: Why We Sleep, Matthew WalkerSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr Julio Ribeiro is the Co-Founder and CEO of Inventia Life Science, a deeptech, biotechnology company. Inventia build instruments for the 3D printing of biomaterials (literal living human cells) to print 3D structures or models of tumors with an ultimate aim to accelerate the drug discovery process and speed up medical research.The impact Julio and Inventia are looking to have is life-changing. To date, the pharmaceuticals industry has spent billions of dollars in research. According to Julio, 90% of drug trials fail. Inventia’s technology reduces the pipeline of unsuccessful drugs, speeding up the process of getting those that do work onto the market.Inventia have to date raised $35million with the likes of Blackbird, Skipp Capital, Main Sequence and angels as investors. The top 10 pharmaceutical companies globally already utilise the technology, with labs all across the world and a global waitlist eager to use the technology. The current funds and next few years will see Inventia exploring the market and scaling up, increasing their production facilities, and expanding their sales force in US and Europe and team globally.Quickfire Round Book: Carl Yeung - Memories, Dreams and ReflectionsPodcast: The EconomistNews Source: YouTube, French 24 ChannelTech CEO: Jamsetji TataProductivity Tool: Confluence, JiraApp: WhatsApp, YouTubeTV Show: Life is a movie - doesn’t watch TV or moviesTed Talk Topic: What we can do to improve medical research with the right balance between regulations and safety.Inventia Life Science are on the lookout for talent in the fields of biology, software engineering and always welcome interns. Head to https://inventia.life/ for more information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

IT’S OUR BIRTHDAY! Today, Innovation Bay’s Open The Pod Bay Doors turns 5! To celebrate, we’ve taken it way back to our very first guest. Daniel Petre is the Godfather of the ecosystem and has arguably been around longer and had more success than anyone else in the sector. In 2014, Daniel founded Airtree alongside Craig Blair but a year ago, made the move out of VC and into the philanthropy space.Daniel felt the need to step away from VC for a number of reasons - to make way for the next generation to shine, the business model of VC started to lose it’s shine for where he wanted to focus his energies, and he became a grandfather - a milestone that has seen him appreciate so clearly how short life is.His move into philanthropy was initially driven by his time working with Bill Gates in the US whose mother’s greatest value has resonated with Daniel over the years - that if you’ve been fortunate in life, it’s your responsibility to give back, not your choice. Inspired, Daniel has founded StartupGiving - a concierge of sorts with a goal to inspire founders and tech execs (with upwards of $20m net wealth) to start up their own charitable foundations - to give back.During their chat on this very special anniversary podcast, Ian and Daniel cover:The transformation of the ecosystem since 2016 (including the positive impact both the ESVCLP Legislation and Canva have had on the industry at large)The most important sectors in the industry - Web3, AI, computer vision, the metaverse (though he’s not hugely excited about it), drug discovery and creation using AIHow Australia needs to dramatically increase research fundingThat there is no reason we shouldn’t be a renewable superpower, and that we shouldn’t close minds to small scale nuclear, andDaniel lends some incredible insight into current market conditionsQuickfire Round:Book: 'Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World' by Anand GiridharadasPodcast: Open The Pod Bay Doors, Sam Harris’ ‘Making Sense’News Source: The EconomistTech CEO: Impact over last 5 years - Elon Musk, Melanie Perkins (Canva) - will go down as one of the greatest tech CEOs of our timeTV Show: The Liar, (new version of) The Staircase, OzarkSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.