Top 25 Sports Angel Investors in Australia in December 2024

Andrew Bogut

Andrew is a Venture Partner with Tempus Partners, and an experienced founder and investor. He is a Director of HealthEngine a leading Australian healthtech company, a Director of UK EdTech stand-out Wonde, and an active investor in software and internet companies. Andrew is a Board Member of StartupAUS an industry body committed to developing theAustralian startup ecosystem and Founded Perth’s first tech co-working space.

Daniel Gavel is an entrepreneur and investor who has founded a number of businesses including early stage investment firm Black Sheep Capital, leading Queensland property developer Golden State Property, and venture capital firm Full Circle Venture Capital.Dan started out in financial advisory, growing his own practice before exiting the industryin 2013 and establishing Black Sheep Capital to invest in early-stage tech companies and other assets. Today, Black Sheep Capital is one of Australia’s most active angel and seed investors, and has funded a wide range of startups including Airtasker, Sendle and Go1.Dan plays an active role backing and mentoring startups, and contributing to the development of Australia’s innovation eco-system. He brings his commercial acumen and strong corporate networks to his investment activities, and believes strongly in the power of collaboration in helping new ventures grow to their full potential.

Jeff Sagansky - Chief Executive Officer and President @ Double Eagle Acquisition

Matt Fayle - CEO & Founder @ TheLoop

Vu Tran is a director and co-founder at Go1. He is also a medical doctor working in General Practice and has passion for developing new and innovative ways to promote healthcare in the broader community. Aside from Go1, Vu Tran is also a co-founder and director of Aduro Learning Management System and Go Catalyse.Vu Tran obtained his MBBS inMedicine from Bond University.

Co-founder Rob Phillpot is senior vice president of product and engineering, responsible for product vision, strategy and management. He has been instrumental in developing the company’s business on a global scale and ensuring that Aconex solutions deliver a superior customer experience to buyers and users. Before founding Aconex in 2000 with CEOand director Leigh Jasper, he managed document control, quality and trades on a site team at Brookfield Multiplex. Prior to Brookfield Multiplex, Mr. Phillpot was an auditor at Deloitte & Touche in Australia. He holds Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Planning and Design degrees with Honors and a Master of Building degree from the University of Melbourne.

Chris Hadley - Managing Director @ Quadrant Private Equity

Nathan brings a unique entrepreneurial business and organizational development background developed during years of hands-on, active leadership and operational experience. As one of the Northwest’s leading organizers of entrepreneurial and investor relations-focused media and funding events, he has facilitated scores of engagements and successfullypromoted hundreds of privately financed high-growth companies.In June 2014, Nathan became CEO of Keiretsu Capital with the mission of fostering closer ties between Keiretsu Forum angels, the institutional investor community and Keiretsu Forum portfolio companies. Keiretsu Capital provides access to proprietary deal flow by investing alongside the angels, providing additional capital to complete rounds and acting to source follow on capital where appropriate.Nathan co-founded and currently serves as Chairman of the Northwest Region of the Keiretsu Forum global angel investment group. He wrote the business plan and designed the organizational structure, which led to the initial license agreement with global Keiretsu Forum. He recruited the team, implemented policies and procedures, designed, and coordinated multi-faceted events. As part of his overall regional growth strategy, he created and implemented controlled expansion activities in Seattle, Bellevue, Boise, Portland, Spokane, Victoria and Vancouver, B.C. Nathan’s leadership and personal networking skills combined to quickly build the region into the fastest growing angel investment group in the nation, adding over 650 investor members and facilitating over $164 million in funding for over 240 companies.In 2004, Nathan became Managing Director of Venture Velocity, a business growth consulting organization. He recruited a talent pool of executive-level consultants from among the most successful and fastest growing companies in the region. Nathan has been a moving force in building and shaping investor networks for two emerging fund managers including The University Funds and Pacific West Land.Nathan has dedicated much of his career to stimulating growth-stage capital investment including as lead organizer for the Northwest’s most successful venture funding conference, raising over $30 million for 15 growth companies. As Co-founder and Managing Director of the Investment Forum, he produced the highest quality educational programs, social events, and investment forums in the region in collaboration with more than thirty-five industry groups and hundreds of different sponsors. Nathan co-founded an industry leading showcase event and media piece, which attracted over 500 of the region’s most influential investors and CEO’s to recognize and celebrate their accomplishments.Nathan is a graduate of University of Washington Michael G. Foster Business School with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration & Finance with an emphasis in entrepreneurial leadership and venture finance. He has been a consistent supporter and volunteer for his alma mater, serving as a sponsor and judge for the UW Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Business Plan Competition for many years. Nathan and his wife Brianna live in the Wedgwood neighborhood in Seattle with their three young children Evan and Wyatt and Ana Leigh.

David Shuman

Lars Rasmussen is a co-founder and 'Chief Espresso Officer' at Weav Music, Inc in Brooklyn, New York. Formerly, he was a director of engineer at Facebook London where he headed up the Facebook Workplace team. Formerly, he was a member of Google's technical staff, based in the Sydney office, and with his brother the

Anthony has an extensive experience in cutting edge research and commercialisation, particularly across the University sector. Over the last 10 years Anthony has worked with a wide range of new innovations predominantly in the science, engineering and information technology fields. Anthony has experience in commercialisation strategy, intellectualproperty, due diligence, marketing and promotion, negotiation, grant and capital raising from his roles at UniQuest Pty Ltd and QUT Bluebox Pty Ltd. Anthony has a scientific background having completed a Bachelor of Applied Science (Chemistry) – Hons(First Class) at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Materials Science / Nanomaterials at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology at the University of Queensland (UQ). Anthony has also completed a Graduate Certificate (Research Commercialisation at UQ and an Executive Masters of Business Administration at QUT.Anthony currently holds the position of Investment Manager at Uniseed Ventures. In this role Anthony is responsible for- Provision of on-going guidance and direction to investee companies, including the role of Director and / or project manager where appropriate;- Development of financial and commercial strategy, including identification of finance requirements, and investment and divestment strategies for investee companies;- Management of the process of assessment and due diligence on potential ICT and physical sciences investments- Uniseed Investment Committee Member- Management of the relationship between UniSeed and its partner universities including, where necessary, working with partners to identify potential investments for Uniseed- Development and maintenance of Uniseed's relationships with the QLD and NSWGovernment, Australian VC and commercialisation sector

Todd Forest - Managing Director @ NAB Ventures

Zhen is a partner at Republic.co, an Angelist spin-off, with 1M users globally, the mission is democratizing private market investing. Republic is one of the most trusted online startup ecosystems in the world, along with AngelList, Product Hunt and CoinList family. Our funding portal and broker-dealer are SEC-registered and members of FINRA. Shewas the partner of JLAB, the crypto fund of JD Capital. It is the only public PE fund in China with a $9B AUM. Her portco included The Graph, Flow, Star Atlas, StepN, Oasis, Thunder, MobileCoin, Ontology, Ankr, etc. Zhen was on the content strategy team in HTC Vive, Where she was working on Skyrim, Doom, Star War, Star Trek, Ready Player One, Fallout, etc.

Mr Patterson has more than 20 years’ experience working with both start-up and blue-chip technology companies spanning Australia, Europe, US and Asia. As a leading senior executive, his experience includes telecoms, IT, digital media and venture capital. Mr Patterson is Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Alchemy Ventures, an ESVCLP venturecapital fund established to invest in teams and ideas which changes lives and industries, whilst having a positive impact on human and environmental wellness.Mr Patterson's international experience has seen him hold senior business development roles with Yahoo, ECI Telecom, Energis Communications / Cable and Wireless PLC and Cisco Systems. He has been an investor in technology ventures Abyss Solutions, Persollo, Republic Capital Management, Firstwave Cloud Technology, Lumific and Datasift where he secured investment from US venture funds.Most recently he was the CEO and Co-Founder of Australia’s only regulated property investment platform, BrickX, and was CEO and executive director of Property Connect Holdings (ASX:PCH).Mr Patterson holds an MBA from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business and a Bachelor of Computer Science from the University of Technology, Sydney and is a graduate member of the Australian Institute of Directors.

Paris Smith started her gaming career in 1995 by taking bets at WWTS, an offshore sports betting company that was later sold to Betcorp Ltd. Having worked her way up the business to become COO, she joined Curacao-based Pinnacle in the same role from 2006. Pinnacle soon recognised Smith’s efforts in shifting the focus away from North America towardsgrowth markets in Asia and Europe, by promoting her to CEO in 2008. Almost a decade on, Pinnacle continues to flourish under her leadership. The operator emphasised its desire for data driven innovation by launching a revamped eSports portal in 2017.

Chadd Ciccarelli

Joshua Malik Childress is a former professional basketball player who last played for the San-en NeoPhoenix of the Japanese B.League.

Chris Grove is a partner at Eilers & Krejcik Gaming.

David is a consultant, advisor, investor and dealmaker in the sports betting, iGaming and gambling industry, specializing in the U.S. market.Over nearly 20 years, he has worked with the biggest names in sports and sports betting globally, focusing on the USA since the repeal of PASPA in 2018.He has worked with teams, leagues, casinos, tribes,racetracks and media companies, and is responsible for over 40 deals across 16 U.S. states since 2018 including deals involving The Cleveland Cavaliers (NBA), New York Jets (NFL), the Jacksonville Jaguars (NFL), the Arizona Diamondbacks (MLB), The Texas Rangers (MLB), The Dallas Stars (NHL), The Calgary Flames (NHL), NASCAR, the PGA Tour, CBS Sports, Madison Square Gardens, Meadowlands Race Track and the Football Hall of Fame Village. He has worked on the biggest sports betting partnerships state-by-state including those in Arizona, Colorado, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Virginia and Texas.Additionally, he works as an investor and an advisor with startups entering the multi-billion dollar U.S. sports betting and iGaming industry, and engineered the first-ever U.S. sports betting deal (between two software companies). He has led several high profile startup exits including the recent sale of marketing automation platform Fresh Eight and the sale of AI and data platform VAIX, both sold to Sportradar.Outside the USA, He has worked extensively on sports betting projects worldwide, including in the UK, Ireland, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, Singapore, Chile, Tanzania, Nigeria, and South Africa.He is a speaker, moderator, and chairperson at gambling conferences and events all over the world, including ICE Totally Gaming in London, Global Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas, SXSW in Austin Texas, European and World Lotteries Seminars across the world, SBC in London and New York, WGES in Barcelona, iGaming Asia in Macau, and iGB Live in Amsterdam.

CEO at realAs

Leigh Jasper is the CEO of Aconex, the world’s most widely used cloud collaboration platform for construction, engineering and infrastructure projects. Together with company co-founder Rob Phillpot, he raised A$86 million in private equity investment before listing Aconex on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in December 2014. Prior toAconex, Leigh was a business analyst at McKinsey & Company, where he consulted for clients in the financial services, media and information technology sectors. He is a director of the Burnet Institute, a not-for-profit organization which aims to improve health in poor and vulnerable communities in Australia and internationally through research, education and public health. Leigh holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree with First Class Honors, a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and a Diploma of Modern Languages in French from the University of Melbourne.

Benjie Cherniak

Founder of a diverse group of businesses including globally-distributed consumer brands (Lyre's Spirits Co) as well as growth-award winning companies specialising in the supply of marketing services and products to the FMCG\ CPG industry. These businesses include an integrated creative agency, a digital printing and personalisation platform,a branded merchandise and speciality packaging supplier as well as a specialty promotional logistics and fulfilment provider.Mark has worked closely with over 50 major FMCG organisations in the grocery, pharma, liquor and health and beauty space and has grown a portfolio of businesses servicing their go to market requirements over the last seven years.Passionate about technology, Mark has invested across all business units ensuring a competitive edge is maintained with best in class platforms to delivery quality creative, product production and fulfilment services to some of the world's most recognisable businesses and brands.

Santiago Roel Santos was a Partner at ParaFi Capital.