West Tech Fest unveils speaker lineup

Technology and innovation festival West Tech Fest has revealed its headline acts for the week-long program in early December, including Aaron Gershenberg who founded one of Silicon Valley’s early venture capital funds.

The co-founder and former managing partner of SVB Capital, Silicon Valley Bank’s fund management arm, Mr Gershenberg ran the division for more than 20 years, starting at the heights of the dot.com boom in 1999 to grow an asset base of about $US4.5 billion.

Other headline speakers include another Californian venture capitalist, Co Ventures general partner Maxine Minter, and two Australian startup successes SafetyCulture founder Luke Anear and Goterra founder Olympia Yarger.

Laying claim to be Australia’s longest running tech and innovation festival West Tech Fest starts on the first Monday in December, bringing together startup founders, business owners and prospective investors from across the country and beyond.

The main program will be staged across Perth and Fremantle, including a day at Port Beach, paying homage to the Western Australia’s tourist assets which have proved an attraction to technology financiers, especially the kite surfing clique amongst them such as US investor Bill Tai a co-founder of West Tech Fest who provided seed capital for former Perth startup Canva’s founders Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht.

Mr Gershenberg, himself a passionate kite surfer, said he was at West Tech Fest 10 years ago when he met the Canva duo.

“I loved the energy, entrepreneurial spirit, and potential, all while being surrounded by the unparalleled beauty of Perth,” he said.