We are looking for an ambitious early stage investor to join our growing team. You might be working in the startup ecosystem, either working within a startup or in an advisory role, or already working in an early stage fund. Or you might be an angel investor looking to get into VC. Or you may have another set of experiences that position you well to identify and support brilliant founders and help define the next wave of Rampersand’s growth. If this sounds like you – or someone you know – we’d love to hear from you.

About us

Rampersand has been actively investing in Australia and New Zealand since 2013, writing some of the earliest cheques into companies like Sendle, Skedulo, Expert360 Cake Equity, Goterra, JigSpace and more than 20 others. Our team is made up of talented people from all kinds of backgrounds but the one thing we all share is ambition. For us, this ambition is to back visionary founders building unicorns (or more specifically for us dragons) at the earliest stages and do it in a way that is uniquely ours — with insight, support, passion and compassion (we’re not ruthlessly ambitious, we call ourselves ruthfully ambitious!).  

We choose to partner with visionary companies built by the most promising founders and their teams, and when we do, we roll up our sleeves to help them achieve success, through a game changing Series A round and beyond. You can read more about us and what we do on our blog and get to know our team here.

The opportunity

With a new fund we have fresh capital to deploy and an ambition to quickly grow the portfolio, and the value of that portfolio, and we are looking for someone who is able to hit the ground running while still eager to learn and develop new and better ways to operate (this is a high growth role).

As an Investment Associate you will have the freedom and responsibility to uncover exceptional founders, execute on investments and support those founders as they build highly valuable businesses, working alongside the existing Rampersand team. You will contribute to a culture that cares deeply about the success and wellbeing of the founders we partner with and delivering returns to the investors who have trusted us with their personal capital, as well as the development and leadership of your fellow teammates.

What you’ll be doing

As a member of our team, you will gain broad exposure to all aspects of venture capital including:

• Uncovering startups and ambitious tech founders building the next successful tech business’ in Australia and New Zealand 

• Contributing to the assessment of the 100+ investment opportunities we see every month

• Advocating for and challenging investment opportunities in an articulate and thoughtful manner in team meetings and at the investment committee

• Working closely with some of Rampersand’s portfolio companies and founders, helping monitor their performance, offering advice, insight and introductions to help support their growth

• Building your network of angels, investors, operators and founders and supporting the rapid growth of a sustainable, inclusive Australian/NZ tech ecosystem, in particular via The Giant Warm Intro

• Working with the team to continuously improve and enhance the experience for Rampersand founders and investors

About you

We’re open to anyone who shares our passion for discovering and supporting founders. This role is perfect for someone who is both analytical and imaginative, commercially minded, people-centric and who genuinely loves and understands the startup journey.

These are some of the core skills that we believe make for a great early stage tech investor:

• The curiosity and ability to understand how new technology and/or business models could disrupt a market, and the pathways and processes of business-building;

• Understanding and empathy with a founders’ capability and the traits that tend to deliver success and rapid progress

• Capability to determine the problem to be solved and interrogate the proposed solution and its defensibility;

• Assess and validate a company’s go-to-market strategy, the value proposition and the target market;

• The ability to context switch over the day, and sometimes each hour; and

• Have a set of transferable experiences that can add value to founders (whether we invest or not). 

• A clear communicator, team player and collaborator

• Self-drive and ambition to for individual and shared success

Working at Rampersand

The role is full time and you’ll be based in Sydney or Melbourne with the flexibility to work from home while spending time with the team and the founders in the portfolio. You’ll also travel to startup events around Australia and join our team get-togethers for strategy sessions and celebrations.

You will share in the success of the Fund – Rampersand’s carry programme includes all team members.

Diversity and inclusion

Rampersand celebrates diversity and we’re committed to being inclusive in how we hire and work together and working towards closing the funding gap for underrepresented founders. We actively encourage the same across the ecosystem founding and running The Giant Warm Intro.

From our experience and within our team, there is no conventional path into VC. We believe in order to attract and invest in the best startups we need a team of diverse people. We need people that can add different experiences, thoughts and skills. Perhaps you come from a strategy role, or maybe you are a product manager within a growing or established tech company, or you have been a founder, or maybe it’s something else. No matter your background, we strongly encourage you to apply even if you are not sure you fit all of the criteria we’ve mentioned. 

We run blind screening by Sapia, a startup we’re proud to have in our portfolio, to remove unconscious biases from our recruiting process.

How to apply

Complete our application form below 👇🏾 The questions that you might want to prepare for are:

• What interests you about joining a Venture Capital fund?

• What experience do you have that will be valuable in assessing whether to invest in a startup or helping them achieve growth/success?

• If you were to recommend a startup for Rampersand to invest in, what startup (that has raised up to $5m already) would that be? Why?

• Describe your ideal work environment for you to be successful and engaged?

• Can you share an example of a time your manager or a senior stakeholder disagreed with you. What was your response?

You’ll hear from us with an outcome towards the end of July 2022 or as soon as possible. If you make the shortlist, we’ll ask that you attend a video or in person meeting. We can’t wait to meet you!