Emily Rich
Executive Director at Hola Health · Former at M8 Ventures
Emily Rich is an accomplished executive and entrepreneur based in Sydney, Australia. She is currently the Executive Director at Hola and a Partner at M8 Ventures, a venture capital fund focused on early-stage tech and product commercialization. Emily co-founded a machine learning and computer vision startup, which was acquired by a publicly listed IoT company in 2017. She has also served as the Managing Director of Startups for APAC at Microsoft, where she helped startups grow and scale with a founder-first approach. Emily holds a Bachelor of Information Technology in Networking and Security from the University of South Australia and has been recognized with several awards for her innovation and project management skills. She is also a former board member of Girls in Tech - Australia.
In their own words
From Emily Rich explains why taking “smart money” is often a better path · The History of the Australian Startup Ecosystem - Interview SeriesRaise money that comes with knowledge attached to it, and comes with experience attached to it.
Career
- Now Executive Director · Hola Health
- From 2024 General Partner · M8 Ventures
Sources: hola.health
Key moments
Jump straight to the part of Navigating the Hype Cycles and Early-Stage Deep Tech Investing with Emily you want.
- 4:29 Discussing being bad at being told what to do; founders as bad employees
- 6:12 Emily on why she invests in pre-seed and seed stages
- 13:14 Navigating hype cycles; the Metaverse example
- 18:14 Thoughts on blockchain and crypto as hype cycles
- 22:26 Understanding and identifying hype cycles in investing
- 29:28 Changes in AI over the past decade; Emily's background in AI
- 32:31 Public perception of AI and fear of job loss
- 37:39 Tips for non-technical investors to understand AI
- 40:40 Emily's Big Kahuna moment—leaving a safe job to start angel investing
- 44:44 Closing remarks and thank you
Heard on
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▶ Hola Health on Day One
1 person · 3 episodes → Connections
Cheryl MackHost, First Cheque 
Maxine MinterHost, First Cheque 
Adam SpencerHost, Documentary: The History Of The Australian Startup Ecosystem 
Michael BatkoCEO, Hourglass AI 
Wayne GerardFounder, Partner Ventures, Partner Ventures (Prtnr) 
Petr AdámekCEO, Canberra Innovation Network (CBRIN) 
Peter DevineFormer CEO, Uniseed, Uniseed 
Rohit BhargavaFounder & Director, Playbook Media, Playbook Media Spot something wrong? Suggest a correction Updated 25 September 2026
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