People always ask me why I didn't become a VC, but I think I'm just too much of a finance guy.

Hi, I'm Kal. I'm the managing director of Mighty Partners.I started my professional career at Macquarie Capital here in Sydney, before moving to San Francisco. Collectively, I spent about six years at Macquarie, and eventually, when I was in San Francisco, being surrounded by the energy of the startup ecosystem and the high growth companies, I decided to make that leap myself and joined an early stage company called State's Title, which was an insurance tech business. I think that, banking into that was a massive leap.

So after about two and a half years at States Title, I decided that I want to do my own thing and I started a online fitness platform that was called OnPodio. After, like, a bunch of years of starting my own businesses, having a few exits under my belt, at the end of the day, I was still a finance nerd at heart. And so I was, keen to bring those two worlds together. Something that scratches that finance itch, but also has the startup entrepreneurial business aspect to it.

Australia is seeing a much more mature startup ecosystem where we're seeing a lot more late stage founders and late stage companies who could raise capital from a venture capital fund, but that's too dilutive for them. But the traditional Australian banking system is just too rigid for them. there's a huge gap in the middle where businesses are left without smart, non-dilutive capital, Mighty exists to fill that gap.

Mighty Partners exists to provide venture debt and growth capital to high growth companies. So for me, this is the perfect intersection of everything I've done. Structured finance, operational leadership and building companies.

Mighty isn't just a lender. It's the kind of partner I wish I had as a founder.