Startmate hire Emma Grife a ‘needed injection of US energy’ for Australian tech

The nation’s largest accelerator, which is backed by Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes and the Forrest family, has hired Emma Grife from New York to lead its program.

Australia’s technology start-up sector has received a “welcome and necessary” injection of US venture capital experience, with the nation’s largest accelerator Startmate appointing Emma Grife from New York City-based Insight Partners to lead its program.

Startmate, which is backed by Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes and the Forrest family, has tapped Ms Grife to the new title of ‘chief of staff for founders’ and she relocated to Sydney for the role, starting this month.

Startmate, which is led by chief executive Michael Batko and was recently named one of The Australian’s Top 100 Innovators, runs boot camps for technology start-up founders, pairing them with mentors and investing $120,000 into each company in exchange for an 8 per cent stake.

Self-described as the epicentre of start-up ambition across Australia and New Zealand, Startmate has invested in more than 230 start-ups through its accelerator programs, and has a collective portfolio value of more than $2bn.

Mr Batko told The Australian that Ms Grife’s hire was a boon for the local sector, representing a “a welcome and necessary injection of US VC energy and mindset that Australia and New Zealand need.” Mr Grife has joined from US venture capital outfit Insight Partners, which boasts more than $US90bn in funds under management and has 500 full-time employees.

“Emma’s growth stage US VC experience will be invaluable in helping hundreds of the most ambitious founders grow within the Startmate Accelerator,” Mr Batko said.

“Startmate is well beyond a local accelerator, but already, and going forward even more so, it helps companies think and act global from day one.”

Ms Grife said she was already familiar with Australian start-up success stories like Atlassian and Canva, as well as the ‘big three’ local VC funds Blackbird, Square Peg and AirTree, but was attracted to Startmate’s self-described role as being a ‘Switzerland’ in sitting in the middle of Australia’s start-up sector. She said the ongoing tech downturn also made Startmate’s role in the sector more important.

In a letter to its investors last week, Startmate said its funds between 2011 and 2016 returned cash worth 2.69 times the $2.18m poured in by investors, according to its unaudited figures, with paper returns 10.29 times that amount.

Mr Batko said in the letter that for 10 out of the last 12 years Startmate has been in the top TVPI - Total Value to Paid-In Capital – of VC funds globally.

“Even in uncertain markets the last 12 months the Startmate funds have continued to meaningfully grow due to continued strong rounds raised by our companies,” he said.

Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar from Atlassian have been investors and mentors at Startmate since 2010.

Ms Grife said she had heard a lot about Startmate before making the move to Sydney.

“They’re the connective tissue of taking emerging founders and connecting them with successful operators, accomplished investors and industry stakeholders,” Ms Grife said. “From figuring out the important players in the Australian ecosystem, I heard a lot about Startmate.

“When I was at Insight, my job was sourcing companies, and we were talking to companies all around the world. I noticed a lot of central entrepreneurial hubs growing, out of a couple of really successful start-ups. Like Berlin is now thriving because of Delivery Hero and Soundcloud in the 2000s, and that’s what’s now happening here in Australia because of Canva and Atlassian.

“Australia is pretty established, but its innovation sector is growing superfast, so it’s a great time for me to be getting involved in that.”

Mr Batko said the process to sponsor and bring Ms Grife into Australia took the best part of six months – Startmate used a migration agency called Techvisa for help – and that the pathway to get talent sponsored needed to be simplified, especially in new industries which will shape the future make-up of the economy.

“Critical industries such as technology will make an outsized impact on Australia’s GDP, so we should attract the best people internationally for Australia to become the global frontrunner,” he said.

“The Aussie tech industry has grown fast over the past 10 years. Alongside the growth, the VC industry followed with a slight lag, as ambitious start-ups presented great investment opportunities.

“Because of the fast growth, Australia is only seeing the first wave of investors come through now, most in their first investing role ever. Couple this with the long timelines of VC investing and we don’t have strong signals yet on who the next wave of great investors will be.

“As Australian venture capital keeps growing we need more senior talent which we’ll see come through the ranks of hungry juniors who are trying to prove themselves, and this needs to be supplemented by experienced international VCs.”

Ms Grife’s hire is also a bid to further encourage more women founders, Mr Batko said, given more women investors would inherently lead to more women founders. On July 13, funds including Blackbird, AirTree and Startmate committed to publicly releasing their data around how many women and mixed-gender teams they invest in.

“At Startmate we have an outsized impact on the next wave of successful start-ups, so it is even more important to have a considered approach towards diversity,” he said.

“With 40 per cent of our start-ups being women co-founded and 500-plus women coming through our fellowships to join start-ups every year, we are custodians of the future make-up of technology innovation.

“Hence, we’re consciously building a diverse team split 50-50 between men and women and are excited for Emma’s appointment to lead the next generation of ambitious founders.”

Ms Grife said that it’s still a tough environment to be either a female start-up founder or a female investor, given pervasive issues like unconscious bias and a lack of female role models throughout the sector globally.

“I think from my experience, one way to make sure that you are moving the needle is to actually measure and disclose what your female representation looks like,” she said. “And whether that’s female representation or people of colour representation, I think it’s really important to make sure you’re measuring that, and publicly disclosing it because that way you have a public forum to keep you accountable.

“That 40 per cent of Startmate’s investments in the past four to five years are in female co-founded teams, that’s a lot better than the industry average which some people say is less than 1 per cent, which is awful.”