Matt Poblocki tapping into global network to support SA start-ups

Returning fintech leader Matt Poblocki is supporting the local start-up scene by tapping into his global network of tech experts and investors.

After two decades working interstate and overseas with some of the world’s leading financial services and technology companies, Matt Poblocki has returned to Adelaide where he is hoping to leave his own mark on the city’s burgeoning start-up ecosystem.

Like many of the state’s best and brightest, Covid-19 was a driving factor behind his family’s decision to return home, following a series of senior legal and regulatory roles with eBay, PayPal and Afterpay in Sydney and Singapore.

Another factor though was the emergence of some exciting technology start-ups in Adelaide, which were proving the city was becoming a hub for innovation and new ideas.

“Ever since I started at PayPal and eBay back in the day, growing up in that world there wasn’t really a tech eco-system in Australia full stop - we’ve been laggards,” Mr Poblocki said.

“I was always looking at Adelaide thinking it’s amazing how you’ve got the universities, you’ve got this quality of life, time to think and time to network - people actually have time to properly get engaged with one another and I think that’s what the big attraction is - time to think and time to innovate.

Matt Poblocki has returned to Adelaide after two decades working with some of the world’s leading financial services and technology companies. Picture: Michael Marschall

“There’s so much cool stuff going on in Adelaide and so many latent stories and start-ups.”

After spearheading Afterpay’s launch into Asia in 2020, Mr Poblocki returned to Adelaide late last year, and it didn’t take long for fast-growing IPO-hopeful BizPay to come knocking.

Unlike Afterpay’s buy now pay later model, which focuses on the consumer market, the BizPay BNPL platform facilitates business to business invoice payments.

As the company’s newly appointed chief commercial officer, Mr Poblocki splits his time between Sydney and Adelaide, tasked with driving sales, strategy and international expansion ahead of a $400m-odd listing later this year.

At the same time he is investing in and supporting several Adelaide start-ups including ValAi, which has developed a sustainability valuation platform to help financial institutions lead the world’s energy transition, and CourierApp, which Mr Poblocki describes as the “Uber of couriers”.

Through Matrix Advisory, a firm he set up with long-time friend and colleague Dinuke Ranasinghe, Mr Poblocki draws on his extensive global network to support entrepreneurs looking to scale up their ventures.

“We realised that we’ve got this huge network, and they’re all over in the US and Europe, but we can help so many fintechs learn from our experiences and the mistakes we’ve made, and also bring people in as advisers or investors,” he said.

“The whole idea of Matrix is to bring together this collective in our eco-system that we can draw on - if someone needs public relations, or they want marketing advice or structuring, we can either do it ourselves or bring them in to help out.”

While there are plenty of examples of promising start-ups emerging in Adelaide, Mr Poblocki said access to capital remained a key challenge.

But by tapping into his own networks in Asia and the US, as well as high-net-worth investors locally, he is hoping to bridge the funding gap.

“There’s great innovation going on here but you’ve got to find it, and there’s also a lot of locked up capital here because Australia, let alone South Australia, is still a little bit conservative in how it invests,” he said.

“There’s a tonne of investors here and a lot of them are not too sure where to find the next opportunity. Everyone’s setting up their mini funds, but what we want to do is set up something a little bit more public than that. We want to go around and help curate and vet deals which would then allow others to come to it.”

Originally published as Matt Poblocki tapping into global network to support SA start-ups