Every few months, I’m reminded just how special Startmate is – and Demo Day for the Winter 2025 cohort today is another one of those moments.

It’s a celebration not just of another set of ambitious founders, but of the community that has quietly shaped the startup landscape in Australia and New Zealand for the past decade and a half.

When Niki Scevak called and offered me the chance to invest in and mentor Australia’s first proper accelerator back in 2010, the local ecosystem was still young. There was talent everywhere – you could feel the energy at Silicon Beach meetups in Sydney – but we didn’t yet have the networks, mentors, and early-stage capital that make industries thrive.

From our cohort in 2011, it didn’t take long to see that Startmate was going to change that. It built the connective tissue our ecosystem needed: a program built on paying it forward, where experienced founders helped the next generation avoid the mistakes we’d already made. That simple idea and a lot of effort became a flywheel that’s still spinning – over 350 investments, companies now worth more than $4.5 billion, and a ripple effect that gave birth to Blackbird and a much bigger belief in what’s possible.

I’ve had the privilege of seeing that evolution up close – from the early, scrappy cohorts iterating, where each cohort made the pilgrimage to San Francisco and onto the well-oiled StartMate machine Batko leads today. Watching people like Casey from BugCrowd, Mike and Alan at UpGuard, Rory at Propeller, Michael at Morse Micro, and Alexandra and Nic at Workyard turn ideas into global companies has been a joy to see.

Since exiting Accelo last year, I’ve had the privilege to work very closely with the last three cohorts, leading the B2B stream and making it to my first Sydney Demo Day ever earlier this year! And being close to it again with more experience has reminded me that Startmate’s real achievement isn’t the portfolio value; it’s the culture. A community of founders and mentors who see helping others win as part of their own personal mission and higher purpose.

So to the Winter 2025 founders: enjoy Demo Day. You’re stepping into a lineage that’s shaped a generation of Aussie and Kiwi startups. Stay curious, stay close to your customers, and keep paying it forward – it’s what makes this ecosystem so special.