Managing Partner
Matt de Boer has been a student/athlete for 13+ years playing over 200 games in the AFL, completing the AICD course, Disruptive Strategy at Harvard and a Bachelor of Commerce with a HD average.
Matt is constantly invigorated by purposeful founders that possess traits of a professional athlete and looks to assist with capital, networks or feedback.
Partner
Christie Jenkins has worn the green and gold and represented Australia in 3 different sports - Trampolining, CrossFit and Beach Volleyball. She has a decade of experience helping the leaders of ASX top 10 companies with their strategies, delivering over $100m in additional profits. She speaks and writes on the topic of high performance psychology and how leaders can bring the elite mindset from sport into business.
Advisor
Justin is a Partner at EVP and an advisor to a number of founding teams both within the EVP portfolio and in the broader startup community.
He is a director of Biteable, VendorPanel, Pendula, Foodbomb, Coassemble and Hnry and a Board Observer at Practifi, Shippit, Practice Ignition, EatClub and Snooper. Previously he worked at Credit Suisse, Investec and Ernst and Young.
Advisor
Nick Crocker is a General Partner at Blackbird Ventures and runs their Melbourne office. He sits on the boards of Culture Amp, nura, Dovetail, Applied, Eucalyptus and XY Sense.
Previously, Nick cofounded Sessions and We Are Hunted, both of which were acquired. He holds Political Science and Law degrees from The University of Queensland, and his writing has been published in Wired, Fast Company and HBR.
Advisor
Ed Cowan played 16 years of professional cricket around the world including Test cricket for Australia. He joined TDM Growth Partners, an investment firm with $1.5b under management that has delivered 25%+ returns for 16 years. Portfolio companies include Allbirds, ROKT, Culture Amp and Safety Culture.
Ed holds a Masters of Applied Finance, is a current board member of Cricket NSW, and is passionate about career transitions and financial literacy for athletes.
Hnry is proud to announce our partnership with Dylan Alcott, AO – Australian Paralympic Legend, Disability Advocate, sole trader, and all-around good guy. 💪
AFL star Matt de Boer, with the help of advisers such as former Australian cricketer Ed Cowan, has found a way to combine the two. By putting their money where their mouths – or Instagram accounts – are, de Boer and co are managing some healthy profits.
More than 20 professional athletes across AFL, soccer, rugby league and cricket – including newly crowned World Cup champion Alyssa Healy – are the latest to invest in online pet supply store Pet Circle, which recently became Australia’s largest tech unicorn valued at more than $1bn.
The Heaps Normal founders are on a mission to change drinking culture, and as athletes that’s a mission we are proud to stand behind.
AFL player Matt de Boer is known as one of the most fearless ‘taggers’ in the game. But like many elite athletes, the one thing he admits to feeling some nerves about is life after sport.
Last week Athletic Ventures' maiden portfolio company Eucalyptus closed out their Series C, securing $60m led by highly renowned US venture fund, BOND. Since first investing as part of their Series A two years ago, we have been fortunate to be a small part of Euc’s journey, watching the business grow from a fledgling ‘house of brands’ startup to a disruptive healthcare powerhouse.
Andrew Bogut is one of Australia’s basketball legends, who is tight-lipped on the total value of his growing business portfolio — but said “it starts with an M”. He is a member of Athletic Ventures — an investment syndicate started by GWS Giants midfielder Matt de Boer. The group is comprised of 40 elite Australian athletes. Some of de Boer’s latest names to be revealed are world champion surfer Joel Parkinson, Tokyo Olympics gold medallist Bronte Campbell, Tokyo Olympics sprinter Steven Solomon and NSW Swifts Super Netball star Briony Akle.
Athletes can bring a lot to the field of play. And more and more athletes are becoming passionate about supporting and investing in founders. It’s fantastic to see as in many ways, the founder journey is very similar to the athlete journey. Here are a few unconventional ways athletes could be a great teammate for your company.
High performance culture, drive thru and 100% clean menu – The athletes behind Athletic Ventures tell why they are backing GYG to reinvent fast food. From Wallabies Captain, Michael Hooper, NBA Cleveland Cavalier and Australian Boomer, Matt Dellavedova to Australian Netballer and NSW Swift, Maddy Proud...
Fusion Sport has closed a $5.5 million funding round as the company’s AMS and performance platform Smartabase is increasingly adopted by the world’s top military, Olympic and professional sporting organizations. The raise was led by Sydney based venture capital fund Equity Venture Partners (EVP) with participation from Adrian DiMarco, founder of TechnologyOne, and newly formed Athletic Ventures. Returning investors include former Wallabies Captain John Eales and Brisbane Broncos Chairman Karl Morris OAM.
Around 25 professional Australian sports stars have banded together to form a new investment syndicate with the aim of dipping their toes into the start-up investment world and learning more about business along the way. Those involved in the newly formed Athletic Ventures include NBA player Matthew Dellavedova, Australian cricketer Mitchell Starc, Wallabies captain and rugby union player Michael Hooper, and Greater Western Sydney Giants AFL players Matt de Boer and Toby Greene.