Startup.Standup.Minimum Viable Comedy
The high-stakes collision of startups and stand-up comedy.
Event Partners
Raising Funds For
From Pitch to Punchline.
Get ready for a high-stakes collision of the startup ecosystem and live stand-up comedy. On Wednesday 14th October at the Sydney Comedy Club in Moore Park, Startup.Standup. pulls 12 brave founders and VCs out of the boardroom to trade their pitch decks for punchlines.
Merrick
Watts.
Hosted by Australian comedy icon, radio, and TV presenter, Merrick Watts - bringing three decades of stage instinct to keep the night moving, tight, and a little bit dangerous. Merrick is currently living the founder journey himself, navigating the highs and lows of launching Posca Hydrate into the Australian market.
The lineup.
Founders, investors and operators who swapped the pitch deck for the mic. Five minutes each. No slides, no safety net.
Brendan
Angel Investor · TEN13
Brendan is an Angel Investor, Venture Partner at TEN13, and for one night only, a standup comedian bringing the chaotic reality of the startup world straight to the stage. He has invested in two different 17-year-old founders. Both named Liam. This is not a joke. His new book for Harvard Business Review Press is 'How to invest in 17-Year-Olds Named Liam', which is a New York Times bestseller. Catch him live at The Sydney Comedy Store on 14 October as he injects Chinese Peptides on stage (for comedic research purposes only), explains how the Everlab Protocol helped Elon Musk have 12 kids, and solves global population decline all in a 5-minute set. Venture-scale returns guaranteed.
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Dhanish
Immutable
At 20, Dhanish featured on Forbes leading a global eSports company. He's been managing his decline ever since: consulting, strategy at SEEK, and now Immutable + two side ventures at once... which he calls a portfolio and everyone else calls a problem. He's in stealth mode though, so please forget all of that.
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Minnie
Beauty-Tech Founder
Minnie is an Assyrian-Australian beauty-tech startup founder who describes herself as far from a perfectionist and will happily work her latest favourite skincare product into casual conversation, completely unprompted.
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Trent
Founder · Hemexa
Trent is a serial founder who has launched enough companies to confuse both his accountant and his family. He is currently building Hemexa, a health platform designed to help people better understand their bodies, mostly because, at 43, he suddenly became very interested in whether his own was still working. When he is not building companies, Trent is usually talking about building companies, worrying about building companies, or registering another one to help manage the anxiety caused by the others.
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David
Customer Success Manager
David is a Customer Success Manager, comedy enthusiast and loving father - in that order. David loves the intersection between order and chaos - which is why he's drawn to both comedy and startups. It may also describe fatherhood but right now, that's entirely chaos.
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Yaniv
VENTURE PARTNER · MAYBE
Rudyard (Ruddy) Jones, identical twin of local founder Yaniv Bernstein, is a Venture Partner at GOAT Ventures... prior roles at Enron, Theranos, and British American Tobacco. Leader of the "Investors Lives Matter" movement.
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Stefan
Antler
Stefan is a professional talent scout for unicorns — the business kind, not the horned kind, though he'd probably fund the horned kind too if the deck was good enough. Based in Greater Brisbane, he spends his days at Antler (the VC, not the luggage company) hunting for pre-seed founders with the same intensity most people reserve for finding a parking spot at Westfield on a Saturday. His LinkedIn headline reads "Looking for pre-seed, future unicorn founders and startups to invest in," which is corporate-speak for "please pitch me, I am begging you, my calendar has room." With 7K+ connections, Stefan has officially hit LinkedIn's version of a black belt — enough clout to be dangerous, not enough to stop accepting random invites from wannapreneurs. He doesn't want to tell you he was an early employee at two US unicorns and had a bunch of crazy startup experiences. Just like in that TV show, Silicon Valley, which triggers his PTSD. He's trying not to be "that tall poppy". Fat chance, OG...original gringo :-) In short: if you've got a pitch deck and a dream, Stefan's DMs are open. If you're a unicorn founder in the making, prove it!
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Gopi
Engineer · Consultant · Dad
After failing as an engineer, a McKinsey consultant, and a B2B SaaS sales professional, Gopi is having a crack at yet another career: stand up comedy. Join him as he shares the struggles of being a dad, a role in which he is currently on a performance improvement plan.
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Rayn
Tech · Finance · Thought Leadership
Rayn was a tech guy, and then he became a finance bro. When the financial crisis hit, he pivoted to thought leadership on LinkedIn. Maybe comedy is next?
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Stacey
Deepfake Detective · Ex-Deloitte
Stacey is a teacher by trade, a film producer, and was, most recently, a partner at Deloitte. Her platform builds people's instincts for scams, fakes and deepfakes, which means she can spot a con in a second - a skill that has made writing her own pitch deck extremely difficult. Hobbies include vibe-coding and manifesting a 10x. Mother of two - one of whom she named Monty.
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Michael
Looks Like He Has It Figured Out
Michael is a tall ethnic guy who looks like he has life figured out...Until he opens his mouth.
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Kyle
American In Australia
American in Australia, came to drain government resources, stayed for the laughs.
Read moreRaising money for Forever Projects.
Forever Projects' mission is to end the Tanzanian orphan crisis by creating income for women. They fund a year-long support program built for women and run by locals, delivering nutrition for her baby, supplies to meet basic needs, weekly health and skills training, capital to set up a business, and a community of women around her. Income creation for women. Nutrition for their babies. Families together, forever.
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Strictly limited to 250 seats.
Book early for discounts, bring your friends along for a laugh, and remember... it's for charity!
The team.
Punchline Capital offers no venture capital, we trade in good times and stage sweat without the equity. We are five ecosystem operators who formed together with a single investment thesis: the world needs a laugh right now.
Michael Langford
Chief Entertainment Officer
Mike battles daily with the irony of supporting startups inside one of the world's largest enterprise companies. If he's not on a flight, you'll find him shilling Google Cloud credits on the mean streets of Surry Hills. He's on a mission to humanise tech through vulnerability, humor, and the occasional awkward silence. He knows the hustle firsthand as a two-time founder, notably running LOST Events in the early 2010s to bring boutique experiential music events to Sydney. He brings the strong spreadsheet skills required to pull this all together.
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Steve Grace
Hype Man
Serial founder Steve Grace has his hands in just about every corner of the Australian business landscape—spanning media, tech, recruitment, and premium real estate. To fill his remaining 15 minutes of free time, Steve hosts a trio of podcasts and serves as Punchline Capital's official hype man. He's basically the person you call when you need your startup to sound 200% cooler than it actually is.
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Caroline Kemp
Production Wizard
Caz brings over 15 years of festival administration and live production wizardry to the squad. Her agency, Produced By, regularly conjures up magical events for Google, proving she can handle high-stakes chaos with a smile. As the visionary behind Hot Jazz Picnic, she knows how to build world-class experiences while keeping corporate fluff and boring PowerPoint slides to an absolute minimum. As the lead event producer for Punchline Capital, she ensures every technical detail is choreographed to perfection so the founders can focus on their punchlines.
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Julie Trell
Chief Play Officer
As the Founder of Playful Purpose, Julie brings a unique blend of high energy and low ego to the team. She serves as the cohort's consistent point person throughout the training arc, leading dedicated workshops to failure-proof founders against stage fright. By leveraging improv principles and the yes, and mindset, she focuses on building the stage presence, vocal control, and delivery that turns nervous tech builders founders into relaxed, show-ready performers.
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Merrick Watts
Stage Commander
Merrick has spent three decades dominating Australian airwaves and stand-up stages, making him a black belt in live crowd control. In a brilliant stroke of life simplification, he decided to launch Posca Hydrate into the retail market because apparently, show business wasn't stressful enough. Merrick leads our Comedy 101 bootcamp, turning nervous founders into stage-ready legends while keeping the night moving as our premier MC.
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