Tim Heasley

I'm not one to tread the same path just because it has always been trodden and I don't fear change because it’s uncomfortable. Instead, I'm excited by alternatives, and delight in discovering new and more efficient ways to do things which so often leads to disruption of the status quo.

My role at Artesian allows me to give free and full expression to this somewhat contrarian approach. Because, at Artesian we invest in startup businesses whose raison d'être is simply to disrupt the inefficient, comfortable incumbents in a range of industries. But, to give full voice to this, we believe our approach should be as innovation, even disruptive, to our own venture capital industry as we expect our investments to be. So, rather than adopt the traditional stock picking VC approach that has provided such disappointing results over recent years, we have built Australia’s first AFOF which will invest in as many as 1,000 Australian startups over the next 5 years giving investors a proper portfolio exposure and the opportunity of the sorts of returns US investors are receiving. Not only that, but investors will get incredible strategic benefits with unparalleled visibility into the very disruption that will shake up the incumbents.

We have also built Australia’s first equity crowd-funding business, VentureCrowd, which has invested over $6 million in Australian startups so far and recently expanded into property thereby allowing Australian’s to invest fractionally in property. In time, we plan to expand VentureCrowd’s offerings into credit and other asset classes as the disruption of inefficient intermediaries continues apace.

Whether you want to talk about investing, structuring a new and innovative fund or other disruptive ideas for the debt or equity markets, I’d be happy to hear from you.

I live in China now (and that’s more exciting than one can convey in a profile)