We are building a team that is as ambitious as the companies we invest in.
We want Blackbird to be a place you can do your life's work, to be as inspired by the founders we back as the team we have built.
In 2023, we were recognised by the AFR for Best Place to Work in Australia, (which was pretty exciting) but what we really care about is our culture - and that’s stayed steady over the past few years, even as we've grown from 12 to 70+ people across Australia and Aotearoa.
But you know what? We’re only just getting started.
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“When returning to Aotearoa after 8 years away, Blackbird was without a doubt where I wanted to spend my next chapter. Everyone at Blackbird is empowered to do their best work, and it shows: each Blackbird is a force of nature, whether they’re investing, managing accounts payable or looking after our own investors.”
“I was a founder in the portfolio for 4yrs before joining, but the view from inside Blackbird is even more ambitious and mission-driven than I expected. It’s a privilege to be surrounded by a diverse group of people as relentlessly curious, energetic and humble as those in this team, let alone the universe of incredible founders and operators in our ecosystem.”
“Blackbird is filled with great people to work with. There’s a high level of trust, autonomy, empathy, and good old fashioned banter, yet everyone performs like a Formula 1 pit crew. Blackbird also allows me to work remotely from Tasmania and has been responsive to different work setups as needs change. This has had an incredible impact on my work/life happiness.”
“Blackbird is a company that is truly passionate about what it does, and the value of "making our kids proud" really resonated with me. Everyone at Blackbird thinks like an owner and is here to do their best work - being amongst such a talented and motivated team is contagious and inspires me to keep improving myself.”
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If I had to sum up the Startmate experience in five words, I’d say joyful, eclectic, unfiltered, high-energy and experimental. It’s infectious and deeply gratifying to work with a group of people who have such a strong shared belief in the impact Startmate will have in the ecosystem, as well as a shared desire to contribute to and build this.
Blackbird is a startup and will always be run as a startup. Our style, our office, our events and our communications relate to the founders we back.
Founders come first, they are our reason for being. We work for our founders, they don’t work for us.
We make high conviction decisions after careful research and debate, but also trust our instincts built up over years of pattern matching.
We invest for the long term. Building iconic businesses takes the best part of a decade or longer. We don’t plan for exits.
We don’t need to know all the answers to make an investment decision. We’ll look to maximise the upside, rather than minimise the risks.
Everything we do, we do with integrity, in a way that we’d be happy to tell our kids about.
Our Aotearoa office is a small but mighty crew of five hailing from throughout the whenua. Find us at our new home on colourful K Road, or on the road meeting founders in all corners of Aotearoa.
The Melbourne Blackbirds will tell you they’ve got the best coffee - and they’re probably right. They also have a steady stream of La Croix, Cremorne’s tech community on their doorstep, and the beloved Startmate Monthly Family Drinks events.
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Smack bang in the middle of Surry Hills, our Sydney office is a stone’s throw from many of our portfolio companies. It’s also got fresh coffee, plenty of TimTams and even a novelty “birdbox” phone booth.
We use a blind application process through Applied. You'll answer 4-5 questions relating to the skills we're looking for.
We contact the top applicants from Applied for a 15 minute chat about the role and what you want to get out of it.
We conduct 2-3 interviews in person (or on Zoom) to get to know you better.
We talk to a few of your references to get a feel for what it's like to work with you.
We make an offer to the candidate we feel is the best fit for the role.
We’re flexible by default with working locations and hours to suit your life, whether it’s working from home or leaving early to pick up the kids from daycare or school.
We’re proud of our employee-first policies, from 20+ weeks of parental leave, to our quarterly KitKat days where our entire team takes a break with a full office shutdown.
Happiness and work satisfaction is everything. We survey the team regularly to measure wellness and engagement and are proud to say we score over 90% on both!
We work hard without letting work get in the way of life. We’ve implemented no Slack or emails after hours or on weekends, so you can switch off and enjoy yourself.
Our team is hungry to continuously learn and you’ll receive an annual $5000 budget to spend on whatever you’d like to learn - from coding courses to meditation.
We believe every Blackbird contributes as an owner of our company and deserves to be recognised as one. All of our team have carried interest and are owners in the management company, to share in our financial upside.
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