Elaine Stead
Investmet Director @ Blue Sky Private Equity
Brisbane, Australia
Elaine Stead is a seed investor at Blue Sky Private Equity in Brisbane focused on E-Commerce and Shoes. Elaine is the Managing Director of Venture Capital and is responsible for the management of the Blue Sky venture capital fund and portfolio. Established in 2012, the venture capital division has expanded to bear its second fund, VC2014, and over $100 million in assets under management across a broad range of industry sectors.Elaine has workedfor a number of years as a venture capitalist and management consultant to the venture and industry across Australia and the United States. Elaine has also worked in strategic management consulting, with both NASDAQ and ASX listed and private companies based in Australia and the US. Originally trained as a stem cell biologist, Elaine has since spent the last decade within the innovation and investment spectrum, initially in technology commercialisation assisting public institutions and founders translate and commercialise their technology across a broad range of industry sectors including agriculture, healthcare and IT.Elaine has a strong academic foundation holding a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Adelaide. She is actively involved in Australia’s professional venture capital community, as a member of AVCALs venture capital stakeholder committee and as a member of the investment committee of ANUConnect Venture Capital, the Australian National University’s venture capital fund.
- Total investments:
- 5
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 80%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Elaine Stead invests in
Stages Elaine Stead invests in
Countries Elaine Stead invests in
Contacts
| Type | Contact | Validation |
|---|---|---|
| Work email | ||
| Personal email | ||
| Work phone | ||
| Personal phone | ||
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Investment Focus
Industry
- E-Commerce 2 (40%)
- Shoes 1 (20%)
- Retail 1 (20%)
- Travel 1 (20%)
- Fashion 1 (20%)
Stage
- Seed 1 (20%)
- Series A 1 (20%)
- Series B 1 (20%)
- Funding Round 1 (20%)
- Venture - Series Unknown 1 (20%)
Country
- Australia 2 (40%)
- United States 2 (40%)
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fivecast was spun out of the Data to Decisions Cooperative Research Centre, a collaboration between Australia's national security agencies and various research organisations. Fivecast and Data to Decisions CRC spent considerable effort working with the law enforcement and national security community to define the big data problems faced bythe industry. This collaboration, in line with Fivecast’s expertise in big data, natural language processing, knowledge mining and multimedia understanding, led to the development of the first commercial product, Fivecast Insight. This platform is a world-first data collection and analysis platform, powered by machine learning. | $4M / Jul 01, 2019 | ||
| Shoes of Prey creates bespoke, hand-made women's shoes designed by the customer, and delivers them to anywhere in the world.Shoes of Prey has grown rapidly over 5 years and has won a number of awards including Online Retailer of the Year and Store Design of the Year at the World Retail Awards in Paris 2013.Founded in 2009, the company isheadquartered in Santa Monica, California, United States. | Venture - Series Unknown / May 21, 2018 | ||
| Shoes of Prey creates bespoke, hand-made women's shoes designed by the customer, and delivers them to anywhere in the world.Shoes of Prey has grown rapidly over 5 years and has won a number of awards including Online Retailer of the Year and Store Design of the Year at the World Retail Awards in Paris 2013.Founded in 2009, the company isheadquartered in Santa Monica, California, United States. | $15.5M / Series B / Dec 07, 2015 | ||
| HeyLets provides a social network built around experiences. Its platform shows recommendations that are popular with the users, making the process of discovery more social, and the results more relevant. Unlike other companies, there are no 3-star reviews from people with nothing in common on HeyLets, users post pictures and short descriptions ofexperiences that inspire them and that they want to share with the world. | $1.7M / Seed / May 06, 2015 | ||
| Paws For Life is Australia’s leading pet supplies delivery service. The online retailer carries over 1,000 products from 12 quality international brand name suppliers, including pet food, treats, accessories, health and wellness products and medication.One of Australia’s most exciting and fastest growing tech companies, Paws for Life wasfounded in 2011 and is headquartered in Alexandria, Sydney. Paws For Life is unique in its exceptional offering of online purchasing, auto-order, efficient delivery, customer service and competitive pricing on leading brands.Ex-Macquarie executive Mike Frizell heads up a team of experienced individuals with previous careers at Google and Groupon. Paws For Life currently has 30,000 happy clients, with an astonishing 2,500 new customers signing on every month. | $1.5M / Series A / Dec 03, 2013 |
Co-Investors
About Blue Sky Private Equity
Blue Sky Private Equity invests in Australian companies to support their growth.Blue Sky is Australia’s leading diversified alternative asset manager.Blue Sky specializes in managing investments across the four major alternative asset classes: private equity, private real estate, real assets and hedge funds. Founded in 2006, Blue Sky has sincegrown to have more than $3.9 billion in fee-earning assets under management and an 11-year investment track record of delivering returns to our investors of 15.0% p.a.1 (net of fees as at 31 December 2017).Blue Sky has a world-class team, a global investor base, offices across Australia and the United States and is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX:BLA).
Blue Sky Private Equity Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
Mark Sowerby
CEO
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Robert Shand
COO
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Elaine Stead
Investmet Director
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Karin Maritz
Sales and Marketing Coordinator
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Leah Green
Social Media and Marketing
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FAQ
What does Elaine Stead invest in?
Elaine Stead invests primarily in E-Commerce, Shoes and Retail startups, most often at Seed and Series A stage. Most of the 5 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in Australia. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
How do I contact Elaine Stead?
Public channels for Elaine Stead include LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and the website linked on this profile. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.
When did Elaine Stead last invest?
The most recent investment recorded for Elaine Stead closed in Jul 2019. Shizune tracks 5 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.
Is Shizune's investor data accurate?
Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Sep 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.
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