SYD Ventures

SYD Ventures is a Sydney, Australia-based early-stage investment company founded in 2012 by serial entrepreneur Andrey Shirben. Distinct from a conventional venture fund, it describes itself as 'a startup company that just happens to invest in other startups,' prioritizing passionate, innovative teams and offering hands-on mentorship and strategic guidance alongside capital. The firm invests primarily at the pre-seed and seed stages, with a philosophy of backing 'people rather than ideas' and emphasizing interdisciplinary diversification, proactive investments and long-term partnerships in which it can be personally involved in building and scaling each venture. Check sizes typically range from $100K to $2M, and the firm generally participates as a co-investor. Although approached with hundreds of pitches each year, SYD Ventures invests in only a handful of teams meeting its stringent criteria, and its portfolio of roughly 21 companies spans Australia, Israel and the United States across sectors including enterprise software, fintech, space tech, consumer and food and agriculture technology. Its track record includes 2 IPOs and 4 acquisitions, with notable names such as Seebo, an IoT digital-twin platform acquired by Augury in May 2022; OpenLearning and Jayride, both ASX-listed; and FarmBot. The team includes founder Andrey Shirben and Gilad Grinbaum. By operating as an entrepreneurial, highly selective investor that embeds itself in each company, SYD Ventures backs a small, global portfolio of early-stage technology founders.