Australia's Square Peg adds partner
Australia-based Square Peg Capital has promoted James Tynan, a principal at the venture capital firm, to partner level. It brings the total number of partners to nine.
Tynan (pictured) joined Square Peg in 2020, having previously served as CEO of Australian incubator Startmate and marketing lead for US education technology company Khan Academy. His areas of expertise span education, climate, health, direct-to-consumer, and software.
Tynan’s first investment at Square Peg was to take the lead in a AUD 7.7m (USD 5.2m) round for Vow, an Australian cell-based meat company that makes combines the DNA of 22 species to a unique product said to be reminiscent of Japanese-style quail. Last November, it received a USD 49.2m Series A round.
"James builds conviction independently, rather than following trends, he looks at a company, a space, and forms an independent view on whether there is something there,” George Peppou, founder and CEO of Vow, said in a statement.
“He is more an operator than an investor and often is itching to jump in and help solve problems. He doesn't sit at arm’s length. He is the first to jump in and help – it’s rare and special. James is right there, shoulder to shoulder, helping fix whatever has gone wrong.”
Square Peg invests across Australia, Israel, and Southeast Asia with offices in Tel Aviv and Singapore, in addition to Sydney and Melbourne. It closed its fourth flagship early-stage fund and associated follow-on fund last October with a total of USD 550m in commitments, bringing assets under management to about USD 2.5bn.
The firm, founded in 2012, has about 40 staff, including 15 investment professionals. In the past two years, the team has approximately doubled in size with a mix of talent around investment, investor support, and founder support. This includes adding a head of talent, Rob Lamb, in 2021 to support both internal and portfolio hiring.
“For us, adding people is like making an investment. We are much more guided by cultural fit and alignment,” Tushar Roy, a partner at Square Peg and head of the Singapore team, told AVCJ earlier this year.
“I don’t think we have any desire to have 20-30 people in our investment team. As a firm, we have always leaned more toward being a smaller, tighter investment team, working as one across geographies.”
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