Startmate plays a foundational role in Australia's startup sector. Here's how.

How can Australia create more world-leading companies and innovative startup founders?

For ⚡️ Michael Batko , the CEO of early-stage accelerator and investor Startmate , it is all about investing in people with big potentiel, early.

Startmate runs fellowship programs with a focus on students, women and people passionate about addressing climate change. Participants upksill to become entrepreneurs, and receive help in raising their first lot of funding.

It has supported more than 230 startups — 63% of those are still running and together are worth $2 billion — and was founded by Blackbird Ventures co-founder Niki Scevak in 2011, with the backing of Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes .

Earlier this year, Startmate recevied an undisclosed amount from investment company Tattarang — owned by Nicola and Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest, Australia's second-richest person — further cementing it's foundational role in Australia's startup sector.

Michael, where did the idea for Startmate come from?

We are on a mission to make Australia and New Zealand the best place in the world to build a startup. The way we do that is by accelerating your ambitions through our programs. We help founders validate problems, help them to build their first product, talk to customers, raise their first round and we help operators land their first job in a startup.

What impact does Startmate have on new founders trying to raise funds?

Statistically, 50% of our startups raise $1 million to $4 million rounds within 12 months of finishing the Accelerator.

What do you consider as some of the most exciting startups you have supported or invested in?

There are too many here to recount. I've personally worked with more than 100 of our companies. Here are a couple of the ones that people might want to check out because they are epic:

• Heaps Normal — non-alcoholic beer — they are everywhere now!
• Aquila — beaming energy into space
• Psylo — the next generation of psychedelics 🍄
• The Mintable — upgrading the potential in every manager
• Great Wrap — biodegradable and compostable cling wrap
• 5B — rapid roll-out solar farms

When you’re assessing applicants to be part of your accelerator programs, what are you looking for in them?

Their life's mission.

The startup journey has been described to me as chewing glass every day with a smile on your face.

Even though it hurts every day, you get beaten down and it is that crazy rollercoaster ride, you still get up every day because you will stop at nothing to solve your customers' problems.

When you meet a founder who is that obsessed about a customer, you know they will run through any wall to make it happen.

Startmate has some huge backers in Atlassian, Canva, Culture Amp, and Andrew and Nicola Forrest’s Tattarang investment company. How have you secured such big supporters?

The reason we can bring them all together is because of the community and culture of paying it forward and founders helping founders that we've consistently nourished for 13 years now. Startmate is the Switzerland of the startup industry, where all the most ambitious startups and by extension VC funds come together.

Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar from Atlassian have been investors and mentors at Startmate since 2010.

Didier Elzinga, Douglas English, Rod Hamilton and Jon W. from Culture Amp are investors, mentors and coaches across most of our programs.

Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams from Canva have invested and selectively mentored in particular climate companies.

Tattarang and Minderoo Foundation have been incredible supporters of our Women Fellowship and [assisting in ensuring] accessibility to First Nations participants.

How can Australia create more global tech companies?

Start your company with global customers always being the main customers, rather than just local ones.

I see hundreds of startups every year who narrow their customer segments from the get-go to Australia and New Zealand only.

Australia and New Zealand business-to-business and business-to-government are historically hard to break into, often harder than international markets, so you're already setting yourself up for failure in a small market with hard customers.

Get out there. Talk to international customers from day one.

What emerging tech industry do you think Australia has the potential to pioneer and be a leader in?

I wholeheartedly believe that Australia has the potential to exceed in any industry.

If I had to pick one industry in which Australia has a global competitive advantage it would be climate tech.

We've got an incredible geographical location to harness solar, water and wind energy and we should be punching above our weight here.

You have a vision for a startup 'city' in Australia, similar to Silicon Valley. Can you explain it to us?

The benefit of having one location, rather than many dislocated hubs is that you create a density of ideas, capital and talent.

That density becomes a gravitational force to draw in more ambition which acts as a continuous catalyst for ever more ambition.

As people and ideas collide, they break apart, new and better ideas are created, validated and the best ideas are birthed.

Startmate City is a concept of surrounding yourself with a "yes, and" and "paying it forward" culture rather than the average attitude to cut down tall poppies.

Economically, it will create the industries of the future, giving hundreds of thousands of Australians a job in areas they can have a global impact and put Australia on the world map as the best country in the world to build a startup.

I interviewed Phil Morle from Main Sequence recently and he had a similar idea for an Australian Silicon Valley. But he saw regional Australia as having the most potential to house it, given it could support rural-based emerging industries like biotechnology, cellular agriculture and green tech. Could Startmate City be in the bush?

That's totally possible.

The physical location itself is secondary to the culture of the place — a culture of belief that attracts the right people to a single place.

That being said, I'm not looking for an "industry to be solved" for the right location, but rather a supportive state who cares enough about this future that they want to go on this ambitious journey with me.

What grabs your attention during a pitch?

When a founder can go incredibly deep on their customer insights, whilst at the same time calling out what they don't know.

That kind of depth coupled with self-awareness is rare.

The most exceptional founders can then even talk through the parts they don't know and make logical hypotheses and how to test them to uncover the truth.

What's your biggest failure and what did you learn from it?

In my first job as an intern at American Express, I screwed up. I was responsible for the budget submission for one of the countries and did it all perfectly.

Apart from changing the very top box in the Excel file that locked in the currency of the submitted budget. Three months later HQ figured out that we had a ~$30m budget hole because an intern didn't change the default AUD into EUR.

What I realised was that it was even worse for my manager and their manager and their manager for that mistake to have gone through the entire process without anyone picking up on it. It made me realise that whilst I love autonomy, independence and trust, when things go badly they always fall back on and are the responsibility of the leader. That's a tough gig to get right

💡 Want to learn more about startups and entrepreneurialism? Follow Michael Batko on LinkedIn.

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