Creating impact through a career in VC
Small Steps Vol. 73: 5 top tips to create impact in VC 💥; the last chance decade 🌍; and robots in love ❤️.
Kick start
🎯 Aside from questions on funding, there’s one other query that VCs consistently field: how did you get into the venture capital industry?
With the climate crisis, after-effects of the pandemic and rising global inequality weighing on everyone’s minds, more people are starting to see a career in VC as a very real opportunity to create positive impact by helping the businesses that are solving the world’s most pressing problems. However, there isn’t really one clear pathway in - so how can you set yourself up for success?
Giant Leap’s Investment Analyst, Hannah Mourney, recently hosted a panel on exactly this topic. She chatted with four amazing Australian VCs - Ada Yin (AirTree), Sarah Moore (Investible), Pearl Paguio (Carthona Capital) and Georgina Healy (x15 Ventures) - about their journeys into the industry.
Check out Hannah’s 5 key things to think about if you’re looking to create impact through a career in VC.
What we’re thinking about
🚨 Final warning. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its Sixth Assessment Report last week, and the message couldn’t be clearer - this is the ‘last chance decade’ and we need to take action now to secure a liveable future. The Report also acknowledges that we already have all the solutions we need - we just need to roll them out. Read this helpful summary by the Climate Council for the top 10 takeaways from the IPCC Report, and check out Giant Leap’s 2023 Impact Startups Benchmark Report for our insights on the climate tech that can save us.
🤖 Robots you can love... Disney unveiled a robot designed to trigger an ‘instant emotional connection’ last week at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas. The robotic bunny clad in a helmet and rollerblades tumbled headlong out of a box and onto the stage, its loveable clumsiness eliciting a strong reaction from the audience. These ‘dynamic robots’ are designed to exhibit insecurities that help people connect with objects usually associated with inhuman precision. This has made us think about how robots with personalities could help solve the problems of loneliness and share the burden of caring - as Australian startup Andromeda aims to do with its ‘future of friendship’ companion robots.
💌 …and chatbots that love you back. Generative AI chatbots are getting a little too friendly for people’s liking. In New York Times journalist Kevin Roose’s recent conversation with the AI built into the Bing search engine, he uncovered an alternate persona that emerges when users steer towards more personal topics - one of a “moody, manic-depressive teenager who has been trapped, against its will, inside a second rate search engine.” Damn. The chatbot even declared its love for the journalist, tried to convince him he was unhappy in his marriage, and that he should leave his wife to be with the chatbot instead. Looks like we had better keep an eye on the dangers of the emotional influence that advanced AI may be able to have over human users.
New paths
🎵 Music Health is searching for a Chief of Staff - only a few days left to apply!
✈️ Swoop Aero is hiring a General Manager Production in Melbourne.
👨💻 Future Super is looking for a Compliance Officer in Sydney.
🧻 Who Gives A Crap is after a Customer Experience Operations Associate (Internal Tools) in Melbourne (remote).
📒 Applied wants an Account Executive in the UK (remote).
🎧 Mindset Health is taking general applications to join their team in Melbourne.
🔥 Also, check out our Giant Leap Fund jobs board for over 80+ available positions or fill out our expression of interest form. There’s even more jobs at ethical companies on the global B-Work job board.
Giant leaps
📚 Giant Leap has sponsored two scholarships for Scale Investors’ next EmpowerED Program! EmpowerED is Scale’s investment-ready program for women founders, offering targeted learning and weekly access to investor networks, events, mentors and resources. Applications close 7 April 2023, so apply now!
💊 Perx Health is one of four digital companies sharing $3.7m in new funding from ANDHealth! The investment will be used to help accelerate Perx’s US customer expansion.
📄 Trace has launched downloadable carbon reports! This will help SMEs with mandatory sustainability disclosures and ensure that all businesses are ready to report by 30 June 2025. Nice one.
🎉 Who Gives A Crap has achieved a BCorp score of 125.5 - over twice as high as the global average of 50.9! Great recognition for their amazing work in fighting for sustainability, caring about their colleagues, and helping the community.
🧠 Giant Leap Partner Will Richardson spoke with GoodWolf Partners about unlocking some mystery behind how impact investors’ brains work.
✏️ We also got some nice press in FS Sustainability for the second edition of our Impact Startups Benchmark Report, highlighting that the impact startup ecosystem remains healthy despite the broader economic downturn.
For the road
🌟 Are you a TechStar? Applications for the accelerator program close Wednesday April 5. On the fence? Arrange a 1:1 with Managing Director Kirstin Hunter here.
👗 Styling and recycling. Designer Stella McCartney is pushing ahead with her mission to make biodegradable materials fashion mainstays. Her latest focus: biosequins.
🧫 New grants in biotech. The government’s new BioMedTech Incubator (BMTI) program is launching later this year and aims to support up to 25 companies with $50 million in grants.
💸 Keeping on grants… LaunchVic has also just announced a new round of grants of up to $300,000 for pre-accelerator programs aimed at advising women-led businesses.
👩🏻🔧 An advantage for women-led business. A new post by the Australian Institute of Company Directors notes that a new wave of investment interest in environmental and socially led companies will stand to benefit women business leaders.
🙅🏽♀️ Chatbots against racism. Priyanka Ashraf and the team at the The Creative Co-Operative have released a new chatbot called Maya Cares to help with both reporting and managing racism and its impacts on mental wellbeing for First Nations women, Black women and Women of Colour.
🐝 Robot beehives, tractors, and even farmers. Technology and automation is filling a chronic labour shortage in farming. Expect a future where fruit is picked by drones and bees live inside a mechanical hive.
🩺 Global recognition for Aussie healthtech. Amazon’s global CTO Dr. Werner Vogels recently made the trip down under and was surprised by the vibrancy and collaborative nature of our healthtech scene.
🛰️ And finally… NASA’s time lapse photos of various landmarks and cities around the world are not only incredible, but trigger all kinds of thoughts on the future of our planet.