With a passion for seeing New Zealand tech shape the future; a talent for ‘joining the dots’; and deep experience interrogating complex financial data, meet Conal…  

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Why venture capital? 

“I wanted to do something that has the potential to reshape New Zealand’s economy. As a country, we have tended to rely on a few key primary industries, we need to shift New Zealand’s economy to be more diversified and innovative. Venture capital is how we encourage that.” 

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More importantly, why GD1?

“I like GD1’s focus on New Zealand based startups with global ambitions. GD1 is growing rapidly and with the raise of Fund 3 we have a great opportunity to build on the previous success of GD1 backing New Zealand’s start-up ecosystem.”

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What do you do at GD1, 9-5?

“I analyse potential portfolio companies with the goal of finding companies that match our investment mandate. That includes everything from their product, go-to-market strategy, expansion plans, competitive landscape, product and pricing strategy. This pre-screening and due diligence often includes interrogating very ‘young’ data sets and joining the dots so that GD1’s Investment Committee have a more complete picture of each potential portfolio company. Due to the huge variety in the tech ecosystem, no two companies or days are the same.”

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What makes a good Investment Analyst?

“Curiosity. There is a lot of ambiguity when it comes to startup data and an ability to think outside of the box is key when it comes to making accurate assumptions and assessments around more qualitative and subjective data.” 

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What’s your superpower?

“Dealing with ambiguity. Arriving at a quality recommendation isn’t just a matter of working through a number of rigid steps. Rather, it’s approaching a problem from multiple angles and integrating different sources of data.”

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What gets you up in the morning?

“Meeting and supporting interesting, ambitious Kiwi companies.” 

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If you won the lotto, what would you do? 

“I’d probably bounce around Europe for a while.” 

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What would you say to someone wanting a career in venture capital? 

“Get involved in the startup ecosystem, whether that’s working in a startup, or attending events. Become interested - because that’s what opens doors.” 

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