Blackbird Founders and Silicon Valley Advisors

At Blackbird, we’ve brought together over 35 of the most successful tech founders in Australia.

Blackbird is a “founders fund”, in that most of our investors are highly successful Aussie founders and investors from Silicon Valley [1]. We’ve specifically designed the fund this way because we think that giving Australian founders access to those who have gone before them, and giving them direct access into Silicon Valley networks, is a key success factor in building big global businesses.

[1] not to be confused with “the Founders Fund“, a Silicon Valley fund formed by Peter Thiel.

Aussie Founders

So at Blackbird we’ve brought together over 35 of the most successful tech founders in Australia. They are the investors in the fund and are active mentors to our companies. They are happy to provide help in many ways from simply answering daily questions, to detailed strategy advice and introductions to their networks.

Here are three well-known founders in the Blackbird family. We’ll showcase some of the others in future blogs.

Bardia Housman

Founder of Business Catalyst (acquired by Adobe) and Start Corporation (acquired by Looksmart); Startmate mentor.

Dean McEvoy

Co-founder of Spreets (acquired by Yahoo7) and Booking Angel; angel investor; Startmate mentor.

Mike Cannon-Brookes

Co-founder and CEO of Atlassian Software Systems; angel investor in Shoes of Prey, Ninja Blocks and Tyro Payments; Startmate mentor.

Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists

We’ve also built a Silicon Valley advisory group which is made up of venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. Each of them has invested in Aussie companies and has an active interest in the ecosystem. The Silicon Valley Advisory Group includes:

Dave McClure

Founder of 500 Startups — one of the most prolific seed investors in Silicon Valley. Investor in 7 Aussie startups.

Bill Tai

Angel Investor and Partner in several funds at Charles River Ventures. Investor in 5 Aussie startups.

Rich Wong

General Partner at Accel Partners. Investor in Atlassian, 99designs, OzForex.