Andrew Sypkes is one of Australia’s most active family office technology investors being a founder investor in 4 amazing success stories that have become Unicorns
- Leigh Jasper’s Aconex
- Martin Hoskin’s - Redbubble
- Melanie Perkin’s - Canva
- Tim Klay and Jesse Levinson’s - Zoox
About Andrew Sypkes
Andrew Sypkes began his career with McKinsey & Company and then worked with start-up technology businesses before completing an MBA at Stanford University. He now based in Hobart where he manages his family’s investment business, family office and foundation, and is a co-founder and Director of several private companies and charitable organisations..
He is also a partner at SecondQuarter Ventures, Australia’s first venture secondaries fund.
Why angel investing?
Andrew realised he was not a great entrepreneur , but was great at supporting them - and that angel investing was a great way for him to work closely with entrepreneurs — vicariously living their journey — while actually playing to his more natural analytical and investing strengths.
His first 2 investments got him hooked .... and he blames Leigh Jasper and Martin Hosking for that!!
So what makes a founder and entrepreneur succeed?
- resilience
- interpersonal skills - a great team
- a combination of big picture thinking
- a sense of detail and urgency for the daily execution
- a sustainable competitive advantage - which could be
an abnormally-sticky product,
a trusted brand/customer loyalty, unique assets,
scale economics or
network effects.
A great product just gets your to the starting line but is not a durable advantage.
If you do win, you want it to be big, because that’s how you make a real impact - says Andrew
To go deeper on that topic, read 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy by Hamilton Helmer and the white papers about network effects by Nfx.com.
It’s a great time to be in Innovation in Australia!!
Why secondary investing in the Australian venture capital ecosystem?
Secondary investing is investing in already funded startups enabling founders, early investors and long term staff to cash put and get liquidity - maybe before a listing
Andrew saw the importance of this at Aconex pre-IPO when there were numerous early investors and long-term staff who needed liquidity due to their personal circumstances.
This also included the founders themselves who wanted to take a bit of money off the table to be able to confidently keep swinging for sixes in the next stage of their journey.
Having secondary liquidity available is a sign of a maturing ecosystem, and there have been a few really big secondary transactions that Andrew has been involved with over the past five years.
As a result he has set up SecondQuarter, Australia’s first venture secondaries fund.
The fund had already made half a dozen secondary investments and have committed to work alongside another cohort of top-tier ventures as an ongoing provider of liquidity for their staff and early investors.
It’s potentially a great asset class -
A secondary Fund is a stepping stone for entrpreneurs of an innovative company to cash out a little without having to list!
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