3 ms·
Recently having moved to Sydney from the US to do startup stuff (working on a clinical trial here), it's definitely got a "home town" feel compared to the US.
by yawnxyz 4y ago
Recently having moved to Sydney from the US to do startup stuff (working on a clinical trial here), it's definitely got a "home town" feel compared to the US.
I really like the feel though — everyone in the VC world here seems to know and support each other; haven't seen that much politics and infighting yet.
However, the science / grant world here is pretty crazy, as one professor put it "In Australia everyone loves to fight over nothing" — "nothing" being the smaller grant sizes here compared to other places like Europe or the US
- threeseed 4y ago> everyone in the VC world here seems to know and support each other; haven't seen that much politics and infighting yet You can follow them all on Twitter so it's pretty easy to see that they do know and support each other. Not that surprising when majority of VCs are based in Sydney/Melbourne and the likelihood of co-investing is high. The problem with that is you end up with a hive-mind, consensus-driven, conservative attitude towards investment. So even at the seed stage you end up needing solid traction, high quality team and some incredible metrics compared to investors in other countries. And worst of all they love nothing more than startups who copy US ideas e.g. 15 min food delivery and try to apply it here. So you do see profitable startups but often are uninspiring and insipid.