Ep. 17 - Techstars: why accelerating seed stage startups in Australia now?

If you've come from Google, Apple, from Amazon, it's, you know, you come with an inbuilt network of peers who you've worked with, of alums who've left those companies, of investors who sort of see that line on your CV and think, this is someone who I'd be willing to back to be able to create a successful business. But if you don't have that background, it can be really, really hard to build up the network and to crack into the ecosystem to be able to build your company. And that's where I think the real magic of an accelerator like techstars comes from today, is those people who are outside the kind of core technology ecosystem who might not have the networks of wealthy family members who can back them to get their startup off the ground, who might not know a heap of different engineers who they can call on to get discounted or free engineering support to be able to build their first version of the mvp or. Or who might not know investors and have an existing relationship to get those investors to back them.

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Good morning. Today we are going to talk about startups and accelerations here from Sydney and we have the pleasure to have with us Kirstin Hunter, managing director at techstars. Kirsten, hello. Welcome.

Thank you.

With some branded shirts there. We're both in Sydney. So I made it to Sydney after the longest direct flight of my life, I think 15 hours or whatever. But super stoked and excited to be here finally. And we're both at the south by Southwest Sydney, the first edition of hopefully a long series of additions to come. So we have the pleasure today also to discuss about the ecosystem and how you see the ecosystem, startups progressing here in the region. And we also will have the pleasure to be sitting on the same panel in a couple of days. So looking forward to the discussion, Kirsten?

Yeah, absolutely. Let's get started.

Let's get started. So let's talk about techstars. Techstars landed here for the first time. You just, I think the middle of the first batch. Remind me. I think there is a demo day still to happen, but we're finished.

Two weeks ago, it was our demo day.

Okay. Okay.

Yeah.

Excellent, Excellent. And so, you know, first, first time in Sydney. So tell us what's the story. So why eventually after several years? So techstars has been around for. We're going to talk about techstars and give a little bit of a background of the model. But techstars is in several cities around the world. One of the key and top seed stage accelerator of startups in the world. Why Sydney?

Yeah, I mean, great question. So I mean, as you say, techstars is the worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed. We are also the largest pre seed investor according to Crunchbase. So currently we operate in 53 locations across the world, predominantly in the U.S. but, but also Europe, Middle east and now fortunately Sydney in Australia. So techstars model is very much based around this idea that good ideas can come from anywhere. And our job is to find and back the most promising entrepreneurs from all of the ecosystems that we're a part of. And we run small localized programs to find those entrepreneurs and support them with our worldwide network of mentors and other founders who've been through the program before. And so the decision to come to Sydney I think was really quite a simple one. It was techstars is sort of looking to move into the most active and sort of fast growing tech ecosystems across the world. And Sydney's really an, kind of the central technology ecosystem in Australia, but also for the broader Asia Pacific region. So the New South Wales government who is partnering with us to bring this program to life down here, has had a number of years of investing very heavily to build up this tech central region as the central ecosystem for technology and entrepreneurship in Sydney, but also for the broader region.

Yeah, so we're going to talk about the, really the plans and, and also government support and why this is happening now. But maybe, maybe a little bit of your background, you have a very interesting background, you did a little bit of everything and, and you ended up as a managing managing director at a startup accelerator. What, what drove you there?

Yeah, absolutely. I, I certainly do have a little bit of everything which is, I think a really great grounding for working with founders startups because they end up having to do a little bit of everything as well. But I started out my career as a management consultant and as a lawyer. So I was 10 years in professional services working with some of the largest companies in Australia, but also spent some time overseas in Canada mainly. And so very broad strategy background. But for me I, I loved my professional services time. But what I loved most about it was the opportunities that you get to do sort of pro bono and social impact work when you're working with those big global consulting firms. And so for me, that really showed me the value of the skill set that I was learning. But things started to change a little bit, I guess after I had my little baby daughter, partly because trying to be a full time parent and a full time consultant didn't leave a lot of time for volunteering activities. Which meant that my kind of energy and enthusiasm for what my corporate skill set was able to do didn't get that boost that I used to get from doing the pro bono and volunteering activities. And then the other thing that changed for me, it's a bit of a cliche, but having an infant daughter in 2014 and reading a lot of the IPCC reports about the horrific climate implications if we didn't do something to stop climate change, and doing the very, very basic maths that 2040 is really not very far away when you consider that in the context of your child's lifetime. My daughter's going to be 26 in 2040 when it's forecast to have an increased number of wildfires and floods and food shortages. And it really just hit home for me that climate change is real and it's something I want to make sure that I'm doing everything I can in my working life to be changing the future that she's going to inherit. And so that led me to join as a co founder an early stage startup called Future super, which is an ethical and fossil fuel free superannuation fund, so pension fund here in Australia. I joined when they'd been going for about a year and was able to be a massive part of the growth journey. We went from $200 million under management to three and a half billion dollars under management. That's Australian DOL. And really changed the conversation around the role of superannuation funds as investors not just to deliver financial returns for their members, but to deliver a livable environment and be safe, safe hands and stewards of the future for their members, not just in terms of their financial outcome. So that was my big step into entrepreneurship. As I said, I joined as a co founder and was there for a little over four years before reaching a point, like a lot of co founding teams do, where we started to have a difference in direction of where we saw the company going. So I chose to leave at that point and hand the company back to my other two co founders. And since that time I've done a couple of different roles within startups here in Australia before taking some time out late last year to think about, you know, what I wanted to do when I Grew up and kind of decided that now was the right time for me to move across onto the ecosystem side. So rather than being a founder myself, I now am in the the role of managing director at techstars where my job is to support, mentor and coach the founders that are coming through our accelerator program to help them build the biggest and best businesses that they can.

So let's talk about techstars one second and I want to get also some of your thoughts about the accelerator model today. Right in 2023, considering there's something that started almost 20 years ago. But first the implementation. Techstars, as we said before you mentioned, is also on the homepage of your website. The largest precede investors in the world. What sets techstars apart in the top ranking accelerator is also the international presence. We can talk about some of your peers. So Y Cy Combinator, maybe 500 Global and others. But I think the one of the key elements of techstars is the international presence. So give us a little bit of a flavor of how are you guys structured inside. So maybe the number of accelerators that are running, do they all use the same terms and you know what takes the decision to either going in one geography or deciding to do one geography and one specific industry within that geography?

Yeah, I mean look, great question. And I mean what I always say to startup founders. We have a couple of really strong local players in the accelerator space here in Australia as well. And then obviously, you know, you mentioned Y Combinator 500 Startups. All of these are amazing programs and any founder who gets selected into any one of them should be super, super proud because it's a massive achievement. But they all are slightly different as well. And so it's important when you're making the decision to understand what's the focus and the operating model for the accelerator that you're considering and which one going to be better placed to support you. So techstars, as I said, our model is sort of really focused on the small localized model. So for my program here in TechCentral in Sydney, we run run one accelerator class a year and we have 12 companies that come into that class. And so the program that we offer those companies brings into like we sort of use I suppose the the best of the global program at the techstars level. But we really do customize that to the local market and to the particular 12 startups who come through. So to give you an example of what that might look like, we are an industry agnostic program here in the Sydney accelerator. So for this Most recent class, I had companies in AI in Women's health, I had construction companies, I had a company focused on changing the rental landscape. I had one focused on HR tech and providing a decision intelligence platform to allow companies to make better, faster and fairer hiring and succession decisions. And so we really had such a diverse group of founders. You know, some of them were direct to customers, some of them were business to business companies, some of them were focused on multi geographic operations from day one. Some of them were starting local in Australia or even local within Sydney. And so each of those companies had slightly different needs. There's a lot of overlap, but there's differences as well. So my job as managing director is to craft a program for them that hopefully delivers for all of their different needs and then to be sort of an individualized kind of coach and almost kind of, you know, almost. We talk about ourselves as techstars coming on as a co founder. So that's the kind of relationship that I try and have with the founders that I'm working with where I can be their trusted advisor and support on whatever problem they might be having in their business. And if I can't help them figure out how to solve it, I can connect them with people who do. So this is the model that Techstars has across the 53 different locations that we operate in at the moment. A lot of those programs are industry agnostic like the one we're operating here, but we do have some programs as well that might have a specific, you know, technology or sort of niche focus. So a couple of examples of that. In Amsterdam we have the ABN MRO Future of Finance accelerator, so very much focused on fintech businesses that are going to be moving the world of finance forward. And in the Paris program it's a sustainability focused accelerator. And so that's very much focused on fintech, sorry, not fintech, on clean tech and industries that are going to be impacting climate change and sort of the transition towards a zero carbon economy. So across the network there's a huge amount of variety in the type of programs that we run and the corporations and governments that we partner with to deliver them.

Yeah, and some, I want to talk about this. So some are explicitly powered by, in particular corporate. So out of the 50 plus there are several from JP Morgan for example, there's one in San Francisco by ebay, there are universities behind. So what, what does it take to, to, to become powered by? Right, so it's is a core funding, is, is a sponsorship. Do you have different models? So if Somebody is interested in, in bringing techstars powered by their own entity. What should they do?

Yeah, so there's a lot of different reasons why our partners partner with techstars. Using our partnership with the New South Wales government as an example, the government is really focused on ecosystem building. So they wanted techstars to come to Sydney to bring the international brand and add a lot of value to creating a thriving local ecosystem here in Sydney and one that becomes the regional hub of entrepreneurship in the greater Asia Pacific region. Other partners, some corporations might partner with techstars because they're interested in getting the inside lane to be able to invest in some of the best and brightest companies that are coming through, or they might be partnering to try and boost their own innovation capabilities. So rather than sort of trying to create and incubate new companies and new ideas within their own business, they might partner with techstars. And then, you know, techstars can sort of source those companies and the most promising founders that then that that corporate partner has the opportunity to invest in and even help scale throughout their network and distribution as well. I guess the third kind of archetype of partner that we work with is partners who are looking to create a certain kind of social outcome or stimulate or have an impact on, you know, inequality or other sort of aspects of society. And so that's a really, that JP Morgan program that you mentioned or programs is a really great example of that, where the J.P. morgan program is really focused on founder diversity and in particular promoting and elevating black and Latinx founders. So, you know, there's a variety of different reasons why corporates and governments would want to partner with a company. Not like Text does, but generally it all comes down to the quality of our network across all of these programs. And I mean network in terms of the techstars teams who work on these accelerators, but also the thousands and thousands of mentors across the network who give up their time to help founders, and also now the almost 4,000 graduate founders, alumni, founders who've been through the program, who also see the benefit and willing to continue to give back to the current founders who are going through.

Yeah, so I'm interested to understand if the. How you guys are structures is every program is there is either a franchise or a new fund that gets started for every, every cohort that you have.

So it's not, it's not a franchise model per se, although we do have quite a lot of autonomy in how we set up the local model to make sure that we can customize the delivery of the accelerator for the local market and the companies that are part of the program. But techstars is a global company and all of the accelerators are affiliated within the global network. All of the companies that come through the accelerator get the same investment terms. So that's sort of part of our, you know, values around fairness, that no matter where you're located, you get the same, you get the same deal for being a part of a techstars program if you're in Sydney versus if you're in San Francisco. And then the investment that goes into those companies comes from that central fund. So we don't raise a separate fund for every individual cohort. The investment comes from the central textiles fund.

Got it. Perfect. And so you were already alluding to the term. So what are, what are the current terms? So 120k. Is that the current investment?

That's right.

Of equity?

Yeah. So every company that's accepted into Techstars has the opportunity to take up to US$120,000 worth of investment. And that's structured in two components. The first part is a $20,000 US dollar investment for which Techstars takes 6% of equity. And so we think about that as kind of the participation cost of being part of the accelerator program. And that's an investment by Techstars in the companies of that $20,000. And it's also an investment by the companies in Techstars and in the Techstars network. In addition, companies also have the opportunity to take on a hundred thousand dollar US dollars convertible note that comes with a sort of predetermined valuation of between 3 million and 5 million US dollars depending on that company's prior capital raising investing activity. And so, yeah, 120,000 USDs all up, but split into those two different tranches. So a company might choose for whatever reason not to take up that $100,000 convertible note, but still, still be allowed to participate in the accelerator.

Got it. Is there any option to negotiate those terms or. Those are set, so don't even try.

Yeah, I mean the terms are set as I said, because it is a global company. And so those terms are fixed across all of the accelerator programs. But as I mentioned, that convertible note does have the ability to change the valuation depending on the company's prior raising activity. So that unfortunately is the only sort of area where negotiation could happen in our.

Yeah, otherwise you, you will go crazy to try to negotiate every deal. That, that's the, I think part one of the core parts of being an accelerator as A fund. Do you know what, what is your acceptance rate? Maybe as a range, but I want to understand is something that you guys are tracking also among the different programs. Is this something that you have a kind of average around the world or every region is slightly different.

Yeah, every region is slightly different, as you would expect, I suppose. For our program here in Sydney, this was the first time the program is run. So, you know, we're a little bit less known here in Australia than Techstars is in the US or in Europe. But we had just under 500 applications for the program, which we whittled down to the 12 companies that were eventually given an offer. So it's still incredibly competitive even for a brand new program like our house.

Yeah.

All right.

Talking about the accelerator model, because the. I believe that techstars, if I'm not mistaken, got started the same year that I started Mending bridge, which is 2007. Right. So the world was a different place. Nobody was talking about, you know, mentorship based programs in general. The idea of connecting a network was still kind of a key elements to it. I mean, today we're in a different world. Right. So there is so much out there. Also evaluation of companies have a much different starting point. I wonder in your assessment if you think that the model of accelerator as it was thought, 2007, that still makes sense with similar terms 15, 16 years later?

Yeah, I mean it's something that I think about quite a lot and a lot of founders do ask, ask this question of, you know, why would I come to an accelerator when I could just read, you know, I could just read the hard thing about hard things and learn everything I need to know about starting a startup. I do think accelerators have evolved a lot in the last 16 years, you know, and the, the amount of literature and lessons that have come out of other technology companies and high growth companies has increased a lot over the time that accelerators have been operating in this way as well. But I think while they're, while they're sort of focus might have evolved, they're still just as important and just as useful for founders today as they were when they started. In particular, I think, you know, it's, it's a lot easier, I think, to start a technology company now than it was 16 years ago. But there's still a real difference between people who are kind of like inside the ecosystem and people are outside of that. And so here in Australia we have, you know, two very big technology success stories in Atlassian and Canva. And those two companies have Been around long enough now that we're seeing operators and engineers who've done their tour of duty in those companies leave and start their own businesses. And so if you've come from that kind of a pedigree or, you know, globally, if you've come from Google, Apple, from Amazon, it's, you know, you come with an inbuilt network of peers who you've worked with, of alums who've left those companies, of investors who sort of see that line on your CV and think, this is someone who I'd be willing to back to be able to create a successful business. But if you don't have that background, it can be really, really hard to build up the network and to crack into the ecosystem to be able to build your company. And that's where I think the real magic of an accelerator like techstars comes from today, is those people who are outside the kind of core technology ecosystem who might not have the networks of wealthy family members who can back them to get their startup off the ground, who might not know a heap of different engineers who they can call on to get discounted or free engineering support to be able to build their first version of the mvp, or who might not know investors and have an existing relationship to get those investors to back them. So coming through an accelerator program like Techstars 1, we, we do provide that financial investment. So often we're the first, the first money that a company or a founder might have received in their journey. But we also, the big focus of the program is around building out that founders network. So for our Sydney program here, we had over 130 mentors who signed up to volunteer their time to help our founders solve all sorts of different business problems. And then we also, over the course of the program had a series of investor speed dating nights. We had an angel investor mixer and then ultimately our demo day event. And through that, the founders each got to meet probably around 50 individual investors who are operating across a different, you know, different venture capital funds and corporate venture capital and angel investing networks and family offices. So for people who don't come with a ready network of investors, that's a really massive boost to their ability to go on to raise, raise capital in the future.

It's also interesting to see how from the original model, different companies branching out, different customization of that model. So I mean, YC has probably been the one that's been kind of constant to the initial model. Overall, 500 Global has started even changing the name and a number of different areas of development Plug and Play has moved into the corporate, corporate world. So it's interesting to see how those models are evolving today and still thriving because you see the numbers of the entities that we just mentioned are significant. Who is the perfect profile of entrepreneurs that would fit well in the techstars kind of universe?

I think that is something that really does depend on the particular accelerator. I mean, obviously for those that have more of a sort of specific focus, whether it's sustainability, fintech, health, tech, longevity, they're looking for founders within that particular space. But for us over here in Sydney, we have an industry agnostic program. So we are not limited by what the founders are building. Instead, I think what we look for is, especially given that we invest at the pre seed stage, it really is about the founder or the co founder team in making that decision. We sort of have this six point criteria that we use when we assess founders and companies applying for techstars, which is team, team, team market, idea and traction. And so, you know, it's a little bit tongue in cheek that we put team in there three times, but it really does, I think, show the importance of the co founder team in that decision. And part of the reason for that is at the pre seed level, you expect founders to pivot the idea of what they're building a little bit. As they get into this market, they learn from customers, they learn more about the problem space that they're operating in. So you can't just pick the winning idea at the early stage. You have to pick the founder and then back them to find the idea. And so when I'm interviewing founders for the Sydney accelerator, I'm really looking for what is it about this problem space that means that this founder has chosen to spend potentially the next year, 10 years of their life solving it? Like, what is it about this problem that means that this person can't sleep unless they're doing something to try and solve it? Secondly, I'm looking for what is it about this founder that makes them uniquely placed to solve this problem? Do they have some kind of lived experience or work experience in the space? Do they have some kind of, you know, special insight into the problem space or into the solution that might make them more likely to be successful than someone else who's operating in the space? And then the third thing that I look for with founders is the ability to inspire people around them to join them on their mission. So to be able to convince a co founder to come on board, to be able to win their early staff members to come and join the team to be able to convince customers to try out an unknown product. That ability to sort of tell a story and make people inspired to join you on the mission is a really important part of an early stage founder, a really important capability for an early stage founder.

And do you accept solo founders? Because there are several accelerators that for the same reason that you're mentioning here, they do not accept solo founders. They think that you need to be able to convince at least some other person to join you. Just as a proof that ability of inspiring is well implemented.

Yeah, I do accept solo founders. In the techstars techcentral Sydney program we had a number of solo founders in the most recent cohort. A couple of those did end up deciding to bring on co founders and were able to recruit co founders and so I was able to support them in that process, but others didn't made the decision not to bring on a co founder. I think it's very possible to build a successful company without a co founder, but I think you need to be a little bit more creative in how you think about accessing the support, the advice, having a sounding board around you to be able to make sure that you've got that full kind of full suite of capabilities at your disposal. And so for example, I'm thinking about one of my, one of my companies in the most recent accelerator that had a sole co founder. She has two very, very experienced, very highly credentialed chief C suite level people who are working with her part time. So she's able to access their, their expertise to be able to solve a bunch of problems that ordinarily she and a co founder would be figuring out from scratch. She also has an amazing, you know, selection of angel investors who are very hands on in the business who she's able to access for advice. So you know, in that situation, I think she's got the right support around her that having a co founder, while it might tick some boxes for people who see that as a criteria, in her particular case, it's not, it's not essential to help her run her business.

Cool. So I want to end talking about the ecosystem here and the way that you see the progression of the innovation ecosystem. So in particular, I mean you were, I think born and raised right here. You said you spent some time abroad, but that's your turf. What do you think is happening today in Sydney? Then we can talk about Australia and also what do you think is going to be or can be? Because I believe that as part of your sense of attraction of the right Founders, you also need to sell the unique value proposition. Why in Sydney? Why Australia today? What is your view?

Yeah, I mean, I think we've got a lot going for us here in Sydney. So I mentioned before, Atlassian and Canva, they're Australia's two biggest technology success stories. They're headquartered here in Sydney. You know, Sydney has beautiful weather, amazing environment, amazing beaches, which makes it a great place to live. So good to be able to attract talent to come and live and work here. And then on top of that in Australia more broadly we have this incredible asset in the superannuation space whereby every Australian of working age is contributing 10% of their income every year into their superannuation fund, which, which gets managed by superannuation funds until they retire. And so a lot of you know that that pool of investable assets in Australia is around $3 trillion. So it's one of the largest pools of investable assets globally. And that means there's quite a lot of money available to be invested into technology. The other thing that's really interesting about this point in time in Australia is the kind of VC maturity of the VC ecosystem. So you know, 15 years ago when, when Atlassian was just starting out, there were very few venture capitalists who were investing into technology. And Blackbird is probably our best known VC fund over here. They were early stage investors and they, they really grew their fund and demonstrated the success of being able to invest into technology as the, these companies like Atlassian and Canva were growing and building. And so they've really been the ones to kind of prove the VC tech, VC model over here in Australia and have opened up the market for others to follow. So we now have quite a thriving VC space where we've got a couple of really big players like Blackbird, Airtree, Squarepeg to name a couple. We've got a lot of kind of smaller and mid size VC funds who are able to invest in, you know, like a little bit more flexibly. They, they might not necessarily have the same kind of expectations around the ultimate size that a company will need to get to as some of the bigger funds do. And then we also now have this kind of really emerging angel investing ecosystem which really has been made possible by the success of some of those early tech companies and the fact that the founders and early operators of those businesses have now been able to exit and see some liquidity in, in their sweat equity of being part of that. And they're now looking to invest in the next generation of startups. So it's a really interesting time here because we've kind of come through the first full cycle of the technology ecosystem and we're moving into the next. And so there's this wealth of talent who have been through those big technology companies or moved here from overseas or a lot of people as well who, who left Australia 15 or 20 years ago, went and worked in Silicon Valley or in the other innovation ecosystems globally and are now coming back to Australia because that's the point of their career that they're at. And so we've got this talent that has a lot of global experience but ultimately wants to be back here in Australia. So super interesting time. It has changed so much in the last eight years or so since I first made the leap across into technology. And I'm sure it's going to continue changing as well.

Yeah, I have to say that I've been here a full day now and I feel like the energy that transpires around the, the ecosystem here and the entrepreneurs and the fact that also an entity like south by Southwest decided also to localize their, their big events here, I think all adds up. And I was yesterday visiting some of the tech hubs and the startup apps that are populating now here, certain parts of the city and there's clearly the feeling that that big things are, are, are happening. By the way, the, the, the success stories that you mentioned are still ongoing so they still have to go public. So there's still the big, the big, big potential returns and that financial events that would create a new wave then of, of new angel investors and whatnot will still have to happen. So I think these, the next two, three years would be particularly interesting in to, to see and we as mind the bridge as, as a firm that has been reading different markets and studying macroeconomics of markets of innovations. We're publishing our report specifically about Australia and the trend that Australia is on is particularly interesting. So both on the number of the capital raise and based on the GDP of the region as well as the new investors per and the new entrepreneurs per 100,000 people is definitely now trending into the tier one kind of marketplaces. So very good there. The last question that I have and then we'll let you go is on the suggestion for policymakers. Right. I know that your program for example is powered by the local government here and so they have an active role. This is also our partner here. They're definitely an active role in pushing the ecosystem going up and to the right and to help them move to the top of the top quartile do you have any suggestions of what do you think the policymakers can do even to accelerate this movement that is already ongoing?

Yeah, I mean, I think, but it's a really interesting challenge for policymakers because investing to build an innovation ecosystem requires very long term thinking, whereas often the policy cycle is kind of dictated by the electoral cycle, which means you need to be thinking in much shorter blocks than perhaps otherwise you would be. But innovation ecosystems, you know, they take time to reach maturity and even then the really magical thing about them, but also what makes, makes them quite hard to quantify is it's not the same kind of direct relationship to a typical investment where you put money in here and you get this result. And so I think for policymakers, investing behind building an innovation ecosystem can often feel like a bit of a leap of faith where you're putting money in and you're kind of hoping that something will come out the other end, but you're not able to say definitively what that will be or even if it will be. And so I think that's a really, really interesting challenge for governments in particular and one that requires a lot of bravery and vision from governments and political leaders to be able to invest behind. The way I kind of talk about an innovation ecosystem is it's kind of this network of unscalable human relationships. And so how do you create an environment where that, that network of unscalable relationships can really thrive and can actually scale? And so some things that, you know, have been working really well here. So we have the, the Startup Hub, which is a space that's sponsored and supported by the New South Wales government that allows people at the early stage to just go in and get some space where they can access and be able to work and build connections with other people in the ecosystem. There's a number of programs like the MVP grant to support early stage ventures where startups can apply for matched funding from government programs. And then on top of that there's, you know, obviously a lot of grants and things like that around specific industry verticals and niches. But again it's, it's a really tricky thing I think, for governments to be able to, to not just invest behind, but also communicate in a way that shows the community the value of that investment. Because if that, it might not be something that bears fruit in the, you know, in the immediate future or five or ten years, but, but you have to invest with a belief that having a thriving innovation ecosystem will create the opportunity for the right co founders and investors to come together and meet each other for the right idea, to be able to find the right people to found it and bring it to life. And through that, to sort of be able to increase the likelihood that luck will strike, I suppose, and bring really amazing things to life down the line. So I guess that's sort of my advice to policymakers. While it does feel like a bit of a leap of faith to invest in innovation, take that leap with us because it's going to be an amazing journey and we can do some incredible things together.

And it feels like that leap has been taken because I have the impression that the, the ecosystem per se, the all the actors are kind of aligned and excited. So looking forward to see what the future will bring. But Kirsting, great to have you here and keep up with good work. So talk to you soon.

Sounds good. Thanks for having me. Great to meet you. Thank you for being with us today and see you in the next episode.

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