Making space for great funds to start and grow

Cheryl is the CEO of Ventari, on a mission to democratise early-stage investing in Australia & New Zealand. She’s an active angel investor with 33 investments, a Venture Partner at Black Nova VC, and co-founded the now famous 361 Angel Club. Cheryl also leads an angel syndicate, CMACK Ventures, with over 500 investors. She’s a strategic advisor for several startups, and in her spare time, mentors for programs like Startmate. A community-builder at heart, she previously held leadership roles at Stone & Chalk, and the Australian Computer Society. Before that she was the CEO of StartCon for 4 years, and created the APAC-wide Pitch for $1M competition.

Thomas is the CFO of Ventari and a Responsible Manager on the group’s AFSL, which means he’s accountable for the licensing, fund structures and compliance framework everything else runs on. He designed Ventari’s core investment infrastructure - the trustee, nominee and unit trust structures that let thousands of wholesale investors sit on a cap table as one clean line — and oversees the product and engineering team that turns it into software. A Chartered Accountant, Thomas started out in audit and assurance with PwC in Canada and Australia, then held senior finance roles at Healius, where he helped steer the $500 million sale of its Medical Centres division, and vehicle subscription scale-up Carbar. He’s an active angel investor and co-founded 361 Angel Club alongside Cheryl.

Vinko leads product and platform at Ventari. He owns the platform roadmap, runs the product and engineering delivery rhythm, and works closely with operations and investment teams to keep what gets built aligned with how investors, syndicates, and fund managers actually work. He brings over a decade in senior startup roles across product and operational leadership.

Alex leads Funds and Syndicates at Ventari, where she helps fund managers and syndicate leads get off the ground, from launching a fund or syndicate to scaling their FUM and reach, and gives their investors the kind of experience the market too rarely delivers. She shares the revenue line for that side of the business, and looks after the platform experience for clients and their 3,000+ wholesale investors across 50+ syndicates and funds, and more than 150 deals a year. Before Ventari she spent a decade in senior operating roles spanning GM, COO and Chief of Staff, and she's a Startmate Women Fellow, AirTree Explorer and VC Catalyst alumna. Alex is also an active angel investor, with 30+ cheques written from pre-seed to Series F.

Tina works where design and engineering meet at Ventari, building the interfaces investors, syndicates, and fund managers use every day and shaping how the platform fits together underneath. She fell in love with coding as a kid, got into design on the way and has been building for the web professionally for over 15 years now. Much of it in the Drupal ecosystem at agencies like Technocrat and PreviousNext, delivering major rebuilds and design systems for national clients. When she's not hiding behind the screen, you might find her climbing walls or hugging trees.

Simon leads technology and platform decisions at Ventari. He owns the platform's technical direction, build and hosting, and the engineering delivery rhythm, keeping what gets built reliable, secure, and aligned with how investors and syndicates actually use it. He brings 25+ years building software, spanning custom development, full-scale site architecture, performance tuning, complex integrations, and container-based hosting on Docker, Kubernetes and OpenShift.

Nicolas builds the parts of Ventari that investors, syndicates and fund managers use every day. He created the platform's investor dashboards and owns much of its product core — deals, investments, messaging and member networks — with the access controls that keep each syndicate's data in the right hands. He also leads Ventari's move into AI, building its first AI integrations and the AI-assisted workflows the team now builds with. He brings over 25 years building for the web, nearly two decades of it in Drupal, with earlier roles at Salsa Digital, PreviousNext and Australian government digital services. Outside work, he plays electronic drums and rides adventure motorbikes.

Cameron supports Syndicates, Investor Relations and Customer Success at Ventari, with a career built on turning early-stage ideas into traction. One of the first seven staff at the Canberra Innovation Network, he worked directly with over 200 founders and ran innovation programs across the ecosystem before joining Capgemini as Innovation Partner. He sits on the Industry Advisory Board at UNSW, mentors with Startmate and Startupbootcamp, and advises early-stage startups.