David Booth, Blackbird/Ex-CEO On Deck: Building Global Tech Communities

David Booth is an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) & investor at Blackbird. That means he gets to both sit on the investments team in NZ — on the lookout for ambitious Kiwis doing their life's work, wherever in the world they may live today; and also build cool stuff... in his case communities, products you'll be seeing more of soon. He's a community builder at heart, and gets a kick out of making connections. For nearly 7 years he did this at extreme scale as CEO of On Deck — where they've helped 1000+ companies get started, find their first customers, hires, and investors, and raise over $2bn. He stepped back to Chairman in Jan '24 to make way for a new chapter - for him, and for the company. Previously, he's carved out a career and professional expertise at the intersection of product, investment, and law/legal ops. He led investment operations at AngelList in ~2014/15, international growth & product at Carta in 2017, worked with some of the world's most innovative investors and incubators in between. He's made over 300 investments as a GP of On Deck's venture funds, scout for VC firms, angel investor and fund LP. Topics: Key lessons from building global startup communities How community building influences investment decisions Rising sectors in the NZ ecosystem #NZtech #StartupNZ #KiwiFounders #DeepTech #CleanTech #VentureCapital