427. Building a Billion Dollar Venture Capital Fund with Blackbird's Niki Scevak Future Squared with Steve Glaveski

Niki Scevak is co-founder of Startmate, and founder and partner at Blackbird VC, Australia’s largest venture capital fund, with its 5th fund having raised AUD$1B (US$640M). Blackbird was an early investor in Canva, SafetyCulture, CultureAmp, BugCrowd, RedBubble, and many more, and has to date generated a net internal rate of return of 56%. 
 
Niki joined me today to discuss:
His life before Blackbird
Successfully raising his first fund back in 2012, without having a network or any startup successes of his own 
Getting beyond the trough of disillusionment
How Australian superannuation funds are opening their wallets to VC
Scaling culture
Generating deal flow
Advice for founders and budding VCs on raising capital in a down market
The AI investment landscape
The battle between AI-powered indie hackers and venture-backed startups
Whether sophisticated investor rules preventing retail investors from getting direct exposure to venture capital is just increasing the wealth gap 
Diversity, quotas, and Startmate’s merit-based selection criteria
And more. 
 
Show Notes:
Email Niki: niki@blackbird.vc 
Web: www.blackbird.vc  
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nikiscevak?lang=en
Contact Steve on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/steveglaveski
Email Steve: hello@steveglaveski.com 

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