About the role

As a  Blackbird Associate, you’ll help us uncover and invest in Aotearoa's most ambitious founders, right at the very beginning.

We’re looking for someone with unbounded curiosity, that will draw our attention to new technologies, social trends and founders that will define the next generation. Someone who is unafraid to build conviction and defend their point of view. And someone who places relationships first, bringing a mindset of enlightened hospitality to everyone they interact with.

Based in Auckland, this role will report to James Palmer and will form a key member of our team in Aotearoa, led by Sam Wong and Phoebe Harrop. Here are some of the examples of the work you’ll do, but if you can’t do everything on day one, that’s okay!

• Generating dealflow: Help to source and screen deals as part of the Aotearoa investment team. Attend events in the ecosystem and be a face that founders expect to see in the audience at meet-ups, pitch competitions and conferences. You’ll take us into new seams of deal flow and build relationships with the most ambitious founders in Aotearoa.

• Supporting investment decisions: You’ll work closely with senior investors in the team to help Blackbird make better investment decisions. Example activities could include: 

  • Leading aspects of due diligence, including sourcing, leading reference calls and desktop research. 

  • Drafting investment papers where you will discuss what excites you about an investment - including the market, founders, product, traction and so on.

• Building models to analyse the operational metrics for new companies, revenue forecasts, cap table scenarios and fund outcome analyses. P.S. we can teach you if you don’t know how to do this today!

• Proactively work with Deal Leads to address all comments and feedback following a company pitch and understand all elements set out in our investment logic framework. You’re on the path to developing a clear and concise communication style (verbal and written).

• Supporting investment transactions: Contribute to the preparation of investment materials (eg. IC Pitches, investment logics, research summaries) and external communications (eg. LP memos, investor notes, founder emails, Rivers of Inquiry) with close supervision from Deal Leads.

• Earning the trust of founders: You’ll become known as someone who treats founders with the highest level of integrity and care and a source of good advice or connections. Over time, you’ll become a trusted partner that our founders are comfortable to share their best and worst news with.

• Supporting community initiatives: You’ll help Blackbird Aotearoa execute on a range of initiatives that build our presence in the community. For example:

  • Launch and run community events;

  • Contribute to the Blackbird blog or other pieces of content

  • Contribute to projects and products that make us more efficient as a team, such as building out investor outreach lists or operator network lists in Affinity; and

  • Moderate or speak at our yearly Sunrise event.

We’ve recently shared our thinking on what makes a great investor at Blackbird. Check out our blog written by Alexandra Gifford that dives into more depth on the investor skillset.

What we're looking for:

Your background is less important than your key skills, which might include:

• Humility: Blackbird is a startup — no task is too small for us and no ambition is too big. We all take out the garbage. You’ll be scrappy, move quickly and never hesitate to roll up your sleeves.

• Expressed ambition: Nobody is too "new" or "junior" at Blackbird to live up to their ambition — we care about the quality of thought, not where it comes from. We value diversity of thought, and believe that we’re stronger because we each think differently.

• Clarity of thought: You can articulate what you think makes companies valuable. You have strong opinions on what are the greatest businesses, technologies and markets of tomorrow. You have an innate ability to communicate complex topics in a clear, simple, and concise way — either through sharp prose or powerful visuals. Your opinions are persuasive.

• Good investment intuition: You should have strong intuition for high quality business models, attractive markets and an ability to hypothesise how these might evolve over time. Familiarity with a range of technology sectors and categories is advantageous.  

• Hospitality mindset: We believe in the philosophy of "enlightened hospitality" and it lies at the heart of everything that we do at Blackbird. We serve our founders, not the other way around. We are about people, not companies. You’ll be generous with your time to create delightful experiences for founders, never losing sight of the people behind the numbers.

• Passion! You need to have a passion for working with the founders of technology startups, and a deep commitment to building the skills and attributes required to be a generational investor at Blackbird.

Finally, you do not need to have worked at a venture capital firm or startup — and you do not need to have any investing experience at all! We love it when people have bootstrapped themselves into a skill as much as gaining the skill from working at an established organisation.

Working at Blackbird

We believe that building a diverse and inclusive team is critical to Blackbird’s success. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, marital, veteran, or disability status. We use Applied to ensure every applicant gets an equal chance of success.

We offer:

• Flexible working: Whether working from home or leaving early to pick up the kids from daycare or school.

• Generous parental leave: We know family comes first, and we are proud to offer 20 weeks of parental leave for all parents (an additional four weeks for the birth parent), with no minimum tenure. In addition, we offer IVF, adoption, and surrogacy leave. We also continue to pay superannuation and vest carried interest for up to 12 months of parental leave. We also offer a supportive return-to-work policy to help with the ramp-back.

• Learning & Development Budget: Our team is hungry to learn continuously, and you’ll receive a budget to spend on books, conferences, training, coaching and courses relating to your profession.

• Wellbeing: We think in decades, not days. To support our Blackbirds over the long haul, we offer a range of holistic well-being benefits, including a monthly healthy living allowance, 24/7 access to wellbeing support, a home office allowance, personal kit-kat days, and more!

• Unplugged weekends: We work hard without letting work get in the way of life. We’ve implemented no Slack or emails on weekends, so you can switch off and enjoy yourself.

• Connection: While being big fans of a fully distributed workforce, we value our vibe and time to connect online and IRL through team and company offsites, monthly social activities, weekly lunches and our many social clubs (#fun-manis, #fun-fantasybookclub, #bb-craft just to name a few!).

• A share of Blackbird’s success: We think sharing successes with the whole team is essential. All Blackbird employees receive carry in funds raised and ownership in management companies formed while they are at the firm.

Blackbird is a Pledge 1% member —  we pledge 1% of our time, equity and profits to help not-for-profit causes in our community. Through Pledge 1%, we established the Blackbird Foundation to supercharge the creative capabilities of young people.

We are also very proud to have won the 2023 AFR Best Place to Work award in three categories, including Overall winner. In 2022, we became certified as one of Australia’s Great Places to Work.

About Blackbird

Blackbird is Australia's biggest venture capital fund whose mission is to supercharge Australia and New Zealand’s most ambitious founders. We do this by raising venture capital funds, investing into the best startup companies and helping them succeed. We have a portfolio valued at over $7B, including some of the most successful Australian and Kiwi startups such as Canva, Safety Culture and Culture Amp.

We are inspired by investment firms such as Berkshire Hathaway and Bridgewater Associates. Like the companies we back, we want to build a business that lasts for decades and produces excellent returns for our investors. Most of all, we want to support our region’s most talented founders build category-defining technology companies.

We’ve written a lot about what we love at Blackbird, so check out our blog if you want some more information about us. In particular, you should read aboutour mission and values, our Blackbird’s Operating Principles (BOPs) and what we look for in founders.