Journeys and Strategies from Trailblazing Australian Investors

Join us for an exclusive investor-focused event in Sydney, featuring: 

Niki Scevak, Co-Founder and Partner at Blackbird
Nan Meka, Startup Operator and Angel Investor
Daniella Aburto Valle, Director & Head of Strategic Alliances at Alteryx

Hosted by Vidit Agarwal from The High Flyers Podcast, we’ll delve into a range of topics, including personal investing experiences and key lessons, the highs and lows of investing in startups, and demystifying the venture capital journey. Whether you’re just starting your journey as an investor or advancing to the next phase of your career, we’ll give you all the tips and tricks you need to supercharge your impact as an investor and support the next generation of groundbreaking founders and ideas.

Keynote speaker:

Niki Scevak
Niki is a co-founder of Blackbird, a venture capital firm with the mission to be a partner to the greatest business stories born from Australia and New Zealand. Prior to Blackbird Ventures, he founded Startmate, an accelerator that helps nerds with ideas become great CEOs and build global startups. Earlier, he co-founded two software companies.

Panel guests:

Nan Meka (VC Catalyst, 2020)
Nan’s interest in investing burgeoned during her early career in corporate strategy and ventures at News Corporation and Aristocrat, where she helped close over $3.5 billion in acquisitions and investments in B2C software, gaming, and media. She then moved into senior leadership roles within startups and scaleups with annual revenues up to $400M, backed by venture capital (e.g., Pet Circle, Simply Wall St). In these roles, she built and led finance, people, operations, and partnerships teams, driving product and growth strategies, enabling high-performance teams, and tackling big rock opportunities. As a Fellow and Limited Partner of Afterwork VC and a 2020 graduate of the Wade VCC program, she began personally investing in early-stage consumer and product-led startups, providing both capital and mentorship.

Daniella Aburto Valle (VC Catalyst, 2021)
Raised in Mexico by entrepreneurial parents, Daniella inherited a passion for innovative ventures that can contribute to solving global complex problems. She embarked on an international journey across academic institutions like the University of Toronto, Yale, and NYU, driven by curiosity to leverage cutting-edge technology for positive impact. Daniella believes AI is the pinnacle of transformative technology, and she honed her expertise at industry leaders such as GE Digital, Amazon, and Alteryx. Daniella's investment thesis focused on FamTech investments, investing in companies like Upfront, Milkdrop, Storytilling, or Mtime. She has also been an Airtree Explorer, AWS StartUp Scout, and was part of Sydney Angels.

Hosted by:

Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship
Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship is a leading centre for entrepreneurial training based at  Ormond College, the University of Melbourne. Wade Institute delivers immersive education  programs to accelerate learning, creation and connection.

VC Catalyst
VC Catalyst is an immersive executive education program for active investors to gain the best  practice tools and skills to make successful early-stage high growth venture capital investments.  Powered by LaunchVic, the program is delivered at Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship by world-leading venture capitalists and experts.

Vidit Agarwal
Vidit is the founder of The Curiosity Center, a leading on-demand intelligence network for entrepreneurs, investors, business executives and students — with 200,000+ users across their products (Global top ten The High Flyers Podcast, Association Series Newsletter, 7-Star live events and Wondery). Vidit is also a Venture Partner at Ecotone Ventures, Founding Partner of FB10x Ad-Ventures, EIR at Climate Salad and Advisor to SXSW. He is also a Non Executive Director at StreetSmart Australia.

High Flyers Podcast
With host Vidit Agarwal, re-imagine the traditional "high flyer" with 160+ relatable role models from all over the world, reaching an audience of 170,000+ students, industry leaders, investors and founders. A premier product of the Curiosity Center and ranked in the TOP 10 podcast shows by Spotify and Apple Podcasts globally. 

With thanks to:

Morse Micro
The Morse Micro team includes original inventors of Wi-Fi and designers of Wi-Fi chips that have shipped inside many billions of devices. The company is an avid contributor to the efforts of the Wi-Fi Alliance to bring interoperability certifications for Wi-Fi HaLow technology to market.