Innovation Bay is a community dedicated to supporting startup founders and investors in Australia and New Zealand. The organization aims to accelerate the success of visionary entrepreneurs and investors by fostering valuable connections and creating a dynamic ecosystem. Innovation Bay offers distinct communities for different stages of founders and investors: Canopy for early-stage founders, Summit for later-stage founders and CEOs, Horizon for angel investors, and Aurora for venture capitalists. The community emphasizes collaborative learning, shared experiences, and strategic collaborations to fuel growth and success. Innovation Bay also provides insights through blogs and podcasts, hosts events, and offers a job board for startup-related positions.
Team
Kali Norman is the kind of person who somehow runs growth at Innovation Bay, programs an entire tech festival (West Tech Fest), hosts a podcast about investment theses, invests in startups through two VC funds, and still found time to become a certified yoga teacher in Bali. Based out of Western Australia's Margaret River region, she spent 2+ years at Atlassian building out their Foundation programs across APAC before jumping back into the startup ecosystem full-time. Her background is genuinely all over the place in the best way — from recruiting, sales, community building, corporate philanthropy, and events to government, enterprise, and scrappy early-stage startups. She's an LP in Co Ventures and AfterWork Ventures, hosts the Investment Thesis Podcast where she picks apart how investors actually think, and co-runs After Dark, a series of unofficial afterparties at major Australian tech conferences with Garry Williams. Curtin University grad, board volunteer, meditation student, and apparently someone who thrives on running between airport gates.
Ian Gardiner is an accomplished technology entrepreneur and investment partner based in the Greater Sydney Area, Australia. He is currently a Partner at Jelix Ventures, a seed-stage venture capital fund that invests in world-class Australian tech startups. Ian is also a Co-founder of Innovation Bay, a community for founders and investors across the Australian and New Zealand startup ecosystem.With a strong background in leading high-growth technology businesses, Ian has a deep understanding of how technology can be leveraged to build competitive advantages. He has previously served as the Head of Startups at Amazon Web Services for Australia and New Zealand, where he established and managed relationships with the startup community.Ian's entrepreneurial journey began with the founding of Viocorp, where he served as CEO and helped raise several rounds of equity finance. He has also been involved with lastorders.com and NewsBase, gaining valuable experience in the dot-com boom and emerging markets news publishing.A graduate of the University of Oxford with a degree in Engineering, Ian is passionate about mentoring and investing in startups. He is a member of YPO and has been recognized with the Pearcy award for IT Entrepreneur of the Year. Outside of his professional life, Ian is a cyclist, gamer, skier, husband, Scotsman, geek, and father.
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