A few snapshots from Sunrise Australia. Source: LinkedIn/ Dickie Currer.
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“A safe space to be optimistic.”
That’s how Rick Baker, partner at Blackbird, one of Australia’s biggest venture capital firms, which is also the custodians of Sunrise, described 2024’s edition of their Festival of Ideas & Innovation.
He was, of course, contextualising. Since the last edition of Sunrise in November 2022, Australia’s tech and innovation sector has been through a rough ride.
From widespread job layoffs impacting every inch of the sector
To the gushing funding tap of yesteryear drying up, with less funding made in Q1 2024 than in the previous 5 years (according to Cut Through Ventures’ The State of Australian Startup Funding Report)
To numerous scandals involving sexual harassment, gender imbalance and monopolisation of certain markets.
Though as over 1700 darlings of the Australian ecosystem spilled through the doors of Sydney’s iconic Carriageworks for Sunrise, you could have been forgiven for thinking we were still living in the “good ol’ days”.
Dickie Currer is the head of ecosystem at Scalare Partners and the co-national lead of Tech Australia Advocates. Currer was formerly the head of partnerships at Startup Victoria.
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