Following Australian Startups and Tech Trends

Today we showcase the story of a man who has been a successful angel investor and is now as a VC helping a lot of Australian businesses to realize their dreams. Nick McNaughton who is based in Canberra, ACT, Australia is running a VC portfolio, under the  Blue Cove Ventures umbrella. Let us explore a bit further how Nick is helping others and what he thinks about innovation coming out of Australia. This is what Nick has to say in his interview with me. • Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests? I am the CEO and Founder of Blue Cove Ventures . Blue Cove was established in 2007. I have a strong heritage in IT Investments and have a long track record of helping to build and grow software and web companies. Before founding Blue Cove Ventures, he was co-founder of the blog marketing company behind Zookoda . In March 2007 Zookoda was sold to PayPerPost Inc. the leading marketplace for Consumer Generated Advertising. From 2002-2004 I was Director - Asia/ Pacific for ...

Background: I have undertaken this report to explore, learn and analyse the local online search and directories market to understand the developments that are taking place in this area. There are more than 18 players, from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to large corporations trying to get some share of this market. The main focus of this report is on Sensis and its competitors and how it can reinvent itself in a rapidly changing local market. Note: This report can be downloaded as a PDF from here . Introduction: Australia’s online search and directories market is rapidly growing and to this date, there are 18 players in this market segment , worth $235 million as reported last year (2007). It is expected to reach $532 million by 2010. Sensis, (owned by Telstra) is a dominant player in the directories market and Google in search. The online search market only represents a portion of the much larger local online advertising market. The local online advertising marke...