Saluu

Before I chose to build a career in venture capital, it chose me. I was headhunted by a venture fund, where the partner who recruited me to told me that my openness, authenticity, EQ and genuine love of people would make me an anomaly in a industry which was mostly about people.

I found that I very much liked building, creating, and helping others. And while there are a number of careers that might enable me to find that same fulfillment of purpose, I found that I was good at venture. I’ve made investors money, I’ve won awards for our investments, and I built a venture business from scratch to be one of the largest venture franchises in Australia investing across several continents.

I’ve created jobs and mentored careers, developed phenomenal relationships with equally phenomenal people, and I’ve managed to do so, I believe, in a way that was always consistent with my values.

This isn’t to say that everything has always gone smoothly.

Nothing does in the real world.

Over the past 18 months, I was a part of one of Australia’s largest public company value meltdowns, the result of devastating activist short attacks on our parent company. The real victims of this, are of course our investors and shareholders. They have paid an incredibly high price.

And in perfect illustration of the volatile nature of the innovation sector I spoke of in my previous post following the high note of the announcement for my portfolio company Fluent Commerce earlier this week, sadly I also have a low note to announce.

I have always promised one thing to my investors, our shareholders, my founders and my team — that I would do everything in my power to fight for their best interests and keep them at the core of every decision I made, until I was no longer able to. And sadly, we’ve reached the close of that journey together. I have been made redundant from the business I was central to building. I of course feel a deep sadness. It’s dispiriting and difficult to see the end of something on which you have spent vast amounts of your time, blood, sweat and — yes — tears building.

On a personal level, its an understatement to say I am emotionally, financially and mentally impacted by both the public and private events of the last 18 months.

However, a decision that I don’t regret is joining Blue Sky.

Blue Sky for me has truly represented the best of times. Where we were a fast moving, entrepreneurial business, full of decent, bright, talented people that were genuinely creating wealth for ordinary Australians, through building — companies, buildings, jobs, water and food security. We worked closely with our investors, shareholders and founders who were never faceless to us, and I am deeply humbled and grateful for their trust.

But it has also truly represented the worst of times, where the beautiful business we built, many of the jobs we created and the wealth we grew for our shareholders and investors, have been decimated over the past 18 months.

I am proud of the companies and the founders I backed, what they created and how they have conducted themselves.

I am proud of the track record we built at both a VC level and a parent company level which prior to our short attack benchmarked us as one of the best fund managers in the world.

I am proud of the calibre of the people I was so lucky to work with across the ecosystem and I am appreciative of the opportunity to learn from some of the most decent, dynamic, ethical, smart, and talented humans.

I am proud of the resilience I have forged and the dignity with which I always strived to deal with the challenges.

I am deeply grateful.

The blunt reality is that my industry — the venture capital/private equity, startup, high growth sector — shouldn’t pretend to be a quiet and safe one. Its volatile nature is a necessary evil, part of the circle of life that encompasses high risk, high reward, and technological and commercial bleeding edge.

I’m yet to know what the future will bring, however I do want to genuinely thank you all — for your private support, when you couldn’t do so publicly and also for your public and private criticism which has always made me think deeply about my direction, purpose and my values.