Canva backer Bill Tai and Uber angel Jason Calacanis headlining Startmate webinars on getting US investors

Startmate CEO Michael Batko reckons founders ask him weekly about how to raise from US investors.

So he decided to ask some of the best in the business directly, including Bill Tai, one of Canva’s first backers, and Uber angel investor Jason Calancanis, for a Q and A webinar series for ANZ founders, called the US Investor Series.

Calacanis is a founder, podcaster and author and has made more than 70 angel investments in startups, from Uber to Robinhood and Notion. He is currently investing $15 million a year in 30 promising startups through the LAUNCH Fund and his AngelList Syndicate, which has 400 members.

Startmate is hosting a webinar with Calacanis this Friday, September 6, at 8am, via Zoom.To be a part of it, register here.
That will be followed by a similar conversation with veteran VC Bill Tai, who, along with Canva, has invested in Dapper Labs, Lineage Logistics, Wish and Zoom. The conversation with Tai is on September 27. To be a part of it, register here

The startup accelerator and investor has also lined up Niko Bonatsos, from General Catalyst, who’s invested in Class Dojo, Discord, Dubsmash (acquired by Reddit) and Snap, and M13 partner Anna Barber, for subsequent sessions.

Michael Batko said the sessions will help answer questions such as how to get US investment and approach US investors, if you need to move to the US, and also address the Aussie/Kiwi advantage or disadvantage when going to the US.

“The US investor series is an easy way for us to provide a small window of Startmate’s deep connections into the US to founders across the region,” he said.

“As part of Startmate it goes much further, but this is an easy way for us to close the gap to the US, expose founders to the global mindset and hopefully open their eyes to global ambitions.”

Startmate has tapped into its network to expose not just alumni but also founders across the region to international funds to make the big funds more accessible for everyone. The only catch is that the Zoom webinar is limited to 500 attendees, so being part of it is on a first come first serve basis. They’ll be using Slido to get questions from ANZ founders to put to the guest speakers.

Batko said the US investor series is designed to challenge founders and show how they can create the world around them.

“We’re too comfortable in Australia and New Zealand. Way too often happy to stay in our corner of the world, selling locally, cracking Aussie B2B sales,” he said.

“The US investor series is here to challenge that, thinking globally, founders can and should from Day 1 think about their global market and potential. We’ve launched this free monthly series to open founders’ eyes to the possibilities, they can compete on the world stage, and don’t just hide in our small corner of the world.”