# James Palmer

> James Palmer is a seed investor at Blackbird Ventures backing Software and Artificial Intelligence. See 6 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Fund: [Blackbird Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/blackbird-ventures-australia)
- Location: Auckland, New Zealand
- Total investments: 6
- Last investment: Mar 2026
- Lead investor: 67%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-palmer-58a536a5/

James Palmer is an associate in the investment team of Blackbird.

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Software | 3 | 50% |
| Artificial Intelligence | 2 | 33% |
| SaaS | 1 | 17% |
| Legal | 1 | 17% |
| Energy | 1 | 17% |

15 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Seed | 2 | 33% |
| Series A | 2 | 33% |
| Pre-Seed | 1 | 17% |
| Series B | 1 | 17% |

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| New Zealand | 4 | 67% |
| United States | 1 | 17% |
| United Kingdom | 1 | 17% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NextWork | NextWork is developing the world's greatest online learning experience for switching careers. | $4.5M | Seed | Mar 04, 2026 |  |
| Ivo | Ivo provides an AI-powered contract intelligence platform that helps legal and business teams review, analyze, and extract insights from agreements. It offers tools for automated redlining and comparison against playbooks, a repository that organizes contract libraries without manual tagging, and an assistant that answers complex contract questionsusing natural language. The platform connects to common workflows like Microsoft Word and enables users to uncover relationships between contract documents and surface risk or deviation patterns. Ivo’s technology aims to reduce the manual effort in contract review and support strategic decision-making across functions that work with agreements. | $55M | Series B | Jan 20, 2026 |  |
| Elyos AI | We connect to smart thermostats, EVs, HVAC systems, solar, and batteries in large commercial properties to optimise consumption and automate participation in demand response energy markets. Our platform allows customers to manage real-time energy use across all their commercial sites, by leveraging APIs from a range of connected devices. Weoptimise these devices to reduce energy consumption and have an opt-in to National Grid demand response (DR) events where customers can earn money for energy reduction. | $12.9M | Series A | Jan 19, 2026 |  |
| Kwetta | Kwetta mission is to revolutionise the world of electric vehicle (EV) charging by unlocking the potential of power grids. | $16.2M | Series A | Jan 27, 2025 |  |
| Watchful | Watchful operates as an AI security company. | $2.7M | Seed | Dec 03, 2024 |  |
| Cotiss | We're building the world's easiest to use, end-to-end procurement software, specifically built for small and medium procurement teams. We instill guided, best practice processes into organisations through an easy to implement, integrated, single solution. | $2.2M | Pre-Seed | May 15, 2023 |  |

6 of 6 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Icehouse Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/icehouse-ventures) — VC Fund, 5 deals together
- [GD1 (Global From Day One)](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/global-from-day-one-fund-ii) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Phase One Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/phase-1-ventures) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [645 Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/645-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [AfterWork Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/afterwork-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Cake Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/cake-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together

## About Blackbird Ventures

VC Fund · Sydney, Australia

Blackbird is an Australasian venture capital firm whose mission is to invest in wild hearts, with the wildest ideas, right at the beginning. The firm specializes in innovative ideas and solutions, focusing on ambitious projects from software to space technology. Blackbird Ventures manages multiple early-stage venture capital limited partnershipsaimed at supporting Australian startups in their growth journey.

5 contacts available at Blackbird Ventures.

| Name | Title | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Anubhav Ghosh | Intern | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/anubhav-ghosh |
| Bill Bartee | Co-Founder, Managing Director | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/bill-bartee |
| James Palmer | Associate | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/james-palmer-161f |
| Joel Connolly | Creative Director | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/joel-connolly |
| Michael Tolo | Principal | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/michael-tolo-3c65 |

## Similar investors

### Similar stage
- [Antler](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/antler-be9c) — VC Fund
- [Alumni Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alumni-ventures-group) — VC Fund
- [Right Side Capital Management](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/right-side-capital-management) — VC Fund

## FAQ

### What does James Palmer invest in?

James Palmer invests primarily in Software, Artificial Intelligence and SaaS startups, most often at Seed and Series A stage. Most of the 6 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in New Zealand. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### When did James Palmer last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for James Palmer closed in Mar 2026. Shizune tracks 6 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 Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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