Dan Phillips has spent most of his career building up Macquarie Capital's Venture Capital Group. Somewhat of a well-kept secret in the Australian startup ecosystem, in the past 25 years the Venture Capital Group has done 36 deals and deployed almost $600 million dollars of capital into some fantastic companies. The group has 11 companies currently in the portfolio.

In this pod interview, Ian and Dan discuss:

-The implications of COVID for Australian startups

-Some success stories from the past 25 years

-How their hands-on investing model works

-The sectors and geographies the group focuses on

-The strategies that lead to a 90%+ success rate with investments