Startmate is building the ecosystem that startups need to thrive in our own backyard. We do this by investing in and accelerating the most ambitious founders, operators and investors in ANZ. Through this, we're unleashing the potential of Aussies and Kiwis to solve the world’s most pressing problems.
Invested in over 250 companies
Combined portfolio value
Women-founded companies
people through our programs
On top of that, we think Aussies and Kiwis are the best people in the world to build them.
In this corner of the earth, we punch above our weight without breaking a sweat. We don't value hierarchy or prestige, we value hard work, grit, having a crack, supporting our mates and backing the underdog — qualities that make us risk-takers, rebels and believers.
We have 7/20 most liveable cities in the world, stable economy & politics, and Australia and NZ are both in the top 5 wealthiest countries in the world from a median wealth per capita view.
We have the ultimate ingredients to be world-leading in the startup sector; we just need a system to support it.
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We’re making Australia and New Zealand the most fertile ground a startup seed could possibly be planted.
But, how?
By building the ecosystem that startups need to thrive. We’re calling it Startmate Nation.
Startmate Nation brings together the dreamers, believers and builders who start, fund and work in startups. In nature, we call this kind of symbiosis ‘mutualism’ — a type of relationship where all species involved benefit from their interactions. None can exist without the others.
When you bring these units together, a powerful chemical reaction occurs. Collision theory explains how when two compounds come into contact with enough energy, they alter their underlying structure. Old bonds break and are replaced by new connections. The more connected the ecosystem, the more each component can mutually benefit, and the more the ecosystem strengthens and grows.
Startmate Nation is collision theory at scale — where ideas collide, innovation multiplies and people grow.
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Plus, we’ll solve some of the biggest existential threats to humanity along the way.
We have all the potential to make this dream a reality and our legacy at Startmate will be defined by how well we can unlock and unleash that potential.
The dreamers who will go on to change the world as we know it.
The builders on the ground who help bring the wildest of ideas to life.
The believers who find, fund and mentor founders from the very beginning.
The missing piece of the puzzle — we’re supercharging the ecosystem by supporting and growing its women.
The culture at Startmate is best articulated through our values and operating principles. Our values are our North Stars that help us and our community agree on what matters, while our operating principles demonstrate exactly how we put them into action.
Operating Principle - Ship It!
We’re as ambitious, scrappy and fast-moving as the startups we back.
We value creating and experimenting on the fly, rather than having all the answers before we start. We back each other to have a go and get stuck into something without necessarily knowing what the outcome will be. When things don’t work out, we’re okay with that, as long as we’re learning and growing and sharing those insights with each other.
You probably wouldn’t enjoy working here if you're a perfectionist, like to play it safe, are uncomfortable with failure in public, want an instruction manual, or need permission to fix things.
If you love creating on the fly, learning as you go, setting wildly ambitious goals and moving at top speed, then all aboard!
Operating Principle - Build in public
We share the good, the bad and the ugly as individuals, as a team and as a company, and we actively seek out feedback for our growth.
Wolfing is a culture of not just being open to feedback, but actively seeking it out too. This is lived through the principle of building in public, which forces us to be open about our mistakes and struggles and how we’re responding to adversity, as well as our wins and triumphs. This, in turn, helps us build trust and normalise failure.
This culture creates a dialogue that invites maximum feedback, which enables us to learn from each other and our customers and community. It also acts as a proxy for how we build relationships. We don’t pretend to have everything figured out. Rather, it’s all about sharing, welcoming feedback and growing together.
Our team knows that our multiplier for growth is how much we can encourage and be open to feedback. We’re open to debates and robust discussions. People will probably find our levels of feedback and transparency unsettling at first. But being open and honest about who we are, where we’re heading, and how we’re going about it, is what makes us strong.
operating Principle - welcome to breakfast club
Bring your weirdness to work.
Vibing is the magic that happens when two or more people connect as their genuine selves, and together, create something exponentially greater than they could have conceived on their own.
We’re a melting pot of uniquely weird people — and embracing and celebrating this is what gives us our uniquely weird flavour. If we’re not having fun, if we’re taking things (or ourselves) a bit too seriously, we’re not doing it right.
We truly believe you work better when you can be yourself. We’re about helping people figure out who they are, and their own personal values and purpose, and then giving them the support, encouragement and guidance to bring their whole selves to work.
Operating principle: Steer the waka
We’re a community of mates working towards a common mission that's bigger and more important than any one individual goal.
This value sets the tone for how we interact with each other and our community. If you're in our community, we’re not your parents, bosses or colleagues, we're your mates. We’re on your level. Your success is our success, and we will sing it from the rooftops. We will cheer you through the highlights, but also give you tough love when required. We are a genuinely neutral third party within the startup ecosystem. Our mission is to make ANZ the best place in the world to build a startup, so if you’re contributing to that, we’re your mates.
Raising the waka is all about building each other up, which is fundamental to helping us achieve our mission. While we all strive for individual excellence, the team’s success is more important. We're a team of people who contribute outside the scope of their own roles when it means driving the waka upwards and onwards. No task is beneath us. You shouldn’t be afraid to do the unpopular work if it helps someone else.
Operating principle: Give the community a job
We're always looking through the lens of scale, whether it's at the community, product or individual level.
We know we're our own biggest bottleneck. After all, we can only grow as fast as the systems we create. To maximise growth and impact, we need to leverage each other and our community.
We’re trying to build something where people can create value for themselves and others, because Startmate itself will never be as talented and magical as the sum of our community. Our goal is to give the community a platform to self-propagate and grow.
The more people in our community, the greater the chance of serendipitous connections and for luck to strike.
