what is your role at noa?
At noa, I split my time between deal sourcing, investment due diligence, and portfolio management. I also lead the firm’s focus on construction technology and deep tech businesses.
what is your backstory?
I started my career as a pizza delivery boy and a part-time assistant to a real estate agent before earning a degree in Psychological Science and teaching myself to code. Growing up in Sydney, Australia (where the two local obsessions are surfing and real estate), I naturally graduated and then spent several years on the investment team at a real estate fund. During my years in real estate, I never stopped writing code and I always felt the draw to technology despite loving investing, so venture capital was the obvious path.
what excites you about built world tech?
The built world is the physical stuff that surrounds us all the time. It provides us the comforts that allow us to shift our focus from survival to innovation, which in turn allows us to move forward as a society. Built world advancement requires a combination of all major disciplines from engineering, material science, and robotics to software and psychology.
what do you like to do in your spare time?
Video games, tennis, skiing, art, software engineering, and reading sci-fi.
what’s your favourite city and why?
Tokyo - the city blends old and new unlike any other. Walking around Tokyo, you find hyper-modern skyscrapers, anime themed cafes, and robotics interposed with ancient shrines and restaurants run by the same family for 400 years (with an unchanged menu). I feel this reflects the best of humanity, which is an obsession with progress and efficiency, while also retaining the essence of our past.