Innovation Bay

📣 Tech founders: this one’s for you! Join us for Summit Expedition: Scale-up Edition 2025 ⚖️🧱🚀 This is not your typical tech conference. It’s our flagship retreat designed exclusively for founders navigating the challenges of scaling their companies. Over three immersive days, you’ll unplug from the day-to-day to dive into hands-on experiences, candid discussions, and meaningful connection, all focused on the scale-up journey. Set in remote Victoria, this experience is all about: ✅ Tackling your biggest growth challenges ✅ Refining strategy alongside peers ✅ Building genuine connections with fellow founders ✨ Check out the incredible journey from 2023 below — and get ready to take your next leap forward. Event details: 🗓 28 – 30 October 📍 VIC 🔗 Secure your spot: https://lnkd.in/gVCERdFA Our events are exclusive to Innovation Bay members. Curious? Apply to attend and learn more about our founder community via the link above.

We've teamed up with our friends at Gilbert + Tobin to host an in-depth half-day education session designed specifically for junior and mid-level members of the VC community 👀 In this interactive session, G+T partners Deborah Johns, Judy Hsu and Xavier Keary will dive into essential topics to help elevate your expertise across: 📋 Regulatory considerations 💼 Deal structuring and commercial negotiations 📊 Ongoing governance, future financings and exits The education session will be followed by a live case study, giving you a unique opportunity to apply these concepts in real-world scenarios. Gain invaluable insights from industry experts, enhance your practical knowledge and network with like-minded professionals. KEY DETAILS  📆 Date: Wednesday 7 May 2025 ⏰ Time: 10.00am - 2.30pm 👉 Secure your spot: https://lnkd.in/dc8wAR7Q

🎧 We’re back with a brand-new episode of Open the Pod Bay Doors! 🦾🤔 This week, host Ian Gardiner is joined by Robert Sibo, Head of AI/ML Customer Engineering ANZ at Google, for a deep dive into the evolving AI landscape. Recorded in late 2024, Ian and Rob discuss the shift from demos and POCs to production-grade AI in 2025. Rob’s mission? Move beyond the hype and focus on real, scalable use cases. He predicts a surge in conversational and multimodal AI agents—capable of acting autonomously through voice, text, and more. In this insightful episode, you’ll hear: 🧠 Practical insights on AI adoption 📊 Tactical advice for startups & builders 🧭 A perspective on ethics, responsibility & the agent era 🌐 How to engage with Google Cloud’s AI ecosystem “In 2025, the conversation won’t be about what’s possible, it’ll be about what agentic experience do we want to create.” – Rob Sibo 👉 Catch a snippet below, and listen to the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/gauTYDvN (Or wherever you get your podcasts!) *Links to the Google Cloud program mentioned in the episode can be found in the link above and episode description.

🚨 New member alert 🚨 Join us in welcoming Gary Zurnamer to our Canopy Community 👏 Gary is the Co-founder and CEO of Vouch, an AI-powered content platform transforming how talent teams attract and engage top candidates. By enabling recruitment teams to showcase authentic, engaging content, Vouch helps companies hit their hiring goals faster. Leading brands like GoDaddy, Stryker, MongoDB, Amazon, Cisco, and Warner Bros Discovery trust Vouch to elevate their hiring strategies. Before founding Vouch, Gary built and led marketing and revenue teams at Canva, The Iconic, NRL, and Stackla, driving growth and brand success at some of the world’s most recognised companies. Welcome Gary 🙌 If you're interested in learning more about our founder and investor communities click here 👉 https://lnkd.in/gknF4-cU

🚀 Venture Downunder is back for 2025! Mark your calendars for Tuesday, 5th – Friday, 8th August 2025. This year, we’re heading to… 🥁 the beautiful Perth, WA! 🌊☀️ VDU is more than an event—it’s a one-of-a-kind experience ✨. Step away from the day-to-day grind to broaden and deepen key relationships, dive into insightful discussions, and bond over shared adventures 🏕️. This is the must-attend event for the ANZ tech and venture community—where collective wisdom shapes the future 💡 🔗 Registrations are now open: https://lnkd.in/g3qf3sqF ⚠️ Please note: VDU is exclusively for partner-level VC members only.

🎁 From our VC community to you: 100+ Insights for Founders We’re excited to share our latest resource, 100+ Insights for Founders, a digital book born from a powerful collaboration of nearly 80 of Australia’s leading venture capitalists and startup ecosystem leaders at Aurora Retreat.   This book offers you unfiltered, candid insights on everything from 🔄 Pivoting and adaptability 💰 Fundraising 📙 Storytelling 💪 Building a strong team 🔥 Maintaining resilience   It’s structured around essential themes to support you at every stage of your startup journey, with each chapter providing practical tools and strategies to refine your approach and fuel your success.   Whether you're navigating the early stages or scaling up, these insights are meant to inspire, challenge, and sharpen your thinking. The knowledge shared here is a product of real-world experience, and we hope it serves as a valuable resource to help you thrive on your journey.   🔗 You can download the full version here: https://lnkd.in/g9_icWdF

Sunrise Australia 2025 has just dropped its BIGGEST speaker lineup yet!  Trust us. You don’t want to miss this. Hosted by our friends at Blackbird, Sunrise isn’t just another startup event—it’s a festival of creativity, technology, and ambition.    A two-day celebration of exceptionalism in Australia and New Zealand, where people come together to dream up the future. At Sunrise, you can immerse yourself in our startup community, become a part of it, and help to shape it.    🎟 Tickets are selling fast! Don’t miss out—check out the unmissable lineup & grab your tickets before they’re gone here: https://lnkd.in/ga5X9DAp 📅 April 30 – May 1 📍 Carriageworks, Sydney

🚀 Celebrating Australian innovation! The AIIA 2025 iAwards are open, shining a spotlight on game-changing tech solutions. If you're building something that drives impact, this is your chance to gain recognition, connect with industry leaders, and unlock new opportunities! 👉 Enter now and take your innovation to the next level: https://lnkd.in/gNfVm5Bn

🚨 New member alert 🚨 Join us in welcoming Dr Errol Brandt to our Canopy Community 👏 After 25 years of climbing the corporate ladder—playing by the rules and following the traditional path—Errol Brandt experienced a turning point that changed everything. The sudden loss of a close colleague made him question the way workplaces operate, manage knowledge, and truly value human contribution. Determined to drive change, Errol founded Knowledge Orchestrator (kiraa.ai), a company revolutionising enterprise knowledge management. By leveraging cutting-edge technology, his team has developed a groundbreaking platform that transforms how organisations capture, share, and retain critical knowledge—ensuring that businesses don’t just operate efficiently but also safeguard their most valuable asset: their people and their expertise. Errol is passionate about leadership and culture and completed his doctorate on transformational leadership theory, which is all about getting the most out of people. Errol is on a mission to disrupt the outdated structures of work, creating workplaces that are more intelligent, resilient, and human-centric. Welcome Errol 🙌 If you're interested in learning more about our founder and investor communities click here 👉 https://lnkd.in/gknF4-cU