We may look like other venture funds, but we’re built differently. We invest our own capital. That shapes how we operate.
Founded by former founders, we approach companies with a practical understanding of what it takes to build.
We invest in people first. We seek founders with the ambition and capability to build enduring, category-leading companies.
Infinitely inquisitive since 2018
"Our experience with them was unlike any VC we'd met. Transparent in their thinking. Transparent about how they arrived at the valuation, they walked [us] through the spreadsheet line by line. That level of openness told us something important before a term sheet ever landed: these were people who wanted to build with us, not negotiate at us."
We invest at any stage and do secondaries. Inception, Seed, Series A and beyond. We also buy founder and secondary shares where it makes sense, regardless of whether we’re already on the cap table.
We don’t have fund horizons. The best companies compound over time. We stay with them as they do.
We are industry agnostic. While we have experience in areas like advertising, marketing, legaltech and media, we invest wherever we see strong founders and clear insight.
What matters most is backing founders with integrity who are building companies that last.
What we look for
These are some of the things we look for. But we break rules when it matters. If you don’t necessarily tick all these boxes, please drop us a line regardless (it does not need to be a warm intro!)
Our portfolio companies
View the full Shearwater portfolio
Drive media effectiveness by using Digital Twins to simulate the best creative and content combinations in real time.
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A consumer insights platform that enables marketing and innovation teams to rapidly test ideas with real consumers and make faster, data-backed decisions.
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A platform that uses AI to convert unstructured speech data from recorded conversations into high-quality, compliance-ready business documents
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Lyka is Australia's freshest dog food, delivered. Healthy, cooked meals for puppers living their best life. Lyka offers custom subscription plans of nutritious, freshly cooked dog food, delivered to consumers' front door.
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An AI-native platform that applies human judgment and cultural nuance to curate tasteful recommendations for cultural discovery.
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A workflow management platform that empowers SMB manufacturers to replace manual spreadsheets with a streamlined system for real-time job tracking, accurate quoting, and efficient inventory management.
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Meet the Shearwater team
We’ve all sat on your side of the table and built our own businesses. With Shearwater, we’re investing our own capital and experience to help you build a generationally great business.