AirTree’s newest Principal
Last week, we announced the promotion of Elicia McDonald to Investment Principal.
We first met Elicia in 2016 just after we closed our last fund.
Elicia started her career in investment banking at Credit Suisse, but her passion for the technology sector and drive to get more hands on operational experience made her take the plunge and immerse herself in sales and growth roles in a start-up and later at LinkedIn. This eventually led her to AirTree and we were delighted when she agreed to join our investment team.
In the 3 years since, Elicia has made a dent in AirTree in all the right ways.
Elicia has played an instrumental role in many of our investments into successful startups including Huddle Insurance, :Different, Pet Circle, Expert360 and Drone Deploy. She’s led investments into Flurosat and another yet-to-be announced company and she served on the board of TidyMe, seeing it through a successful exit last year.
Elicia has proven herself to have outstanding investor instincts and is deeply empathetic to the founder experience. She has a strong sense of integrity and has built long lasting relationships with founders and members of the broader community.
We asked some of the founders who have worked most closely with Elicia to share their experience. Stacey Jacobs, CEO and Founder of TidyMe said “Elicia’s knowledge, empathy and strategic mindset made her an excellent addition to the TidyMe board. Her contributions led to the successful acquisition of TidyMe and her support along the way was invaluable.”
Mina Radhakrishnan Co-Founder of :Different said “Elicia not only has the hard skills to zoom in on detailed financials, but also the rare ability to zoom out and consider the broader consumer strategy at the same time. She doesn’t shy from asking the tough questions that ultimately get our business to a better place, and we’re proud to call her an investor and a friend.”
Elicia is also committed to providing founders with insights that actually help by contributing her expertise to our Open Source VC resources, in particular on topics like growth and sales.
We are always striving to champion positive change for our industry and to bring substance and real value to everyone we interact with. As a valued member of our team, Elicia has been courageous and vocal on issues that she believes are important to ensure we operate in a principled manner in keeping with our mission.
Quite simply, Elicia has been a joy to work with and a huge contributor to AirTree’s culture. We are very excited to announce Elicia’s promotion to Investment Principal. She is highly deserving and our whole team can’t wait to see what she achieves in her new role.
So what does a promotion to Investment Principal actually mean?
It encompasses all the elements we expect from our investment team (such as developing investment theses in new areas, championing game-changing founders, and sharing expertise and insights that help the broader startup community) with the additional responsibilities of leading investment decisions and taking on increased board responsibilities.
With the launch of our 3rd fund, we are happy to be in a position to reward Elicia for her hard work and dedication. We are also proud to be doing our part to develop homegrown VC talent. Empowering the next wave of savvy and experienced tech investors in our region is a crucial part of achieving our mission of building a venture capital platform that will support generations of ambitious founders to come.
Elicia is a huge believer in the potential of Aussie and Kiwi founders and we can’t wait to see the new ideas and fresh energy that she will bring to AirTree and the wider community in the future.
Join me in congratulating Elicia on Linkedin or Twitter.
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