Blog Home
>
Futuresquared

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

    ‍

    Steve Glaveski 2021
    Privacy Policy
    -
    Powered by Collective Campus
    Thanks! You've subscribed!
    Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.