Team
Partners
Dr Michelle Deaker
Founding & Managing Partner
| Location: Sydney, AU
Michelle is a Founding Partner and the Managing Partner at OneVentures. She serves on the investment committees of OneVentures funds and has led the capital raising activities for the firm. Her focus today is in the technology growth practice, though she has also worked extensively across both healthcare and technology investments.
With over 25 years of experience building and investing in high-growth technology companies in Australia and the US, she has a proven track record in global business expansion and Australian R&D. Michelle has led or co-led and been a Director of key investments in companies such as Employment Hero ($2B valuation, 13x ROI, Returned 1.5x Fund II), Phocas (10x EV growth), Smart Sparrow (acq. Pearson Learning), My Mobile Data (acq. ASX: AYS); Hatchtech (Lic. to NYSE: RDY) and unicorn Vaxxas. She chaired the board of Employment Hero until December 2023 and continues to serve on its board, as well as the boards of Phocas and Buildkite.
A current member of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Payment Systems Board, Michelle is also a former board member of Australia’s National ICT Centre of Excellence (NICTA, now Data61), Seven West Media (ASX: SWM) and served on the NSW Government’s Digital Economy Taskforce.
In the lead up to founding OneVentures, Michelle worked for a leading family office on their alternative investments, served as an entrepreneur in residence at Southern Cross Venture Partners and was an angel investor. Prior to her investment career, Michelle was a business entrepreneur and founder, including one of Australia’s first fintech companies, E Com Industries (www.giftvouchers.com) (acq. LSE: ReD, 4.6x, 70% IRR), IT services business, Networks Beyond 2000 and a tertiary tutoring business.
Michelle is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and Chief Executive Women (CEW). She was a founding advisory board member of Head Over Heels (now Apropela), supporting women entrepreneurs, and served on the advisory board of the Indigenous fund Ochre Ventures.
In addition to these roles, she lectures in the Australian Investment Council’s Foundations of Private Capital Venture Capital Course and is a Co-Founder of WinVC, a non-profit women-led initiative supporting the career trajectory of women investors in venture capital.
Michelle holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours), a Master of Science and a PhD in Applied Science.
| BSc(Hons), MSc, PhD
Portfolio Board Roles
In the news
13 February 2024
This VC firm has hit a landmark – and it’s payout time
News, The Australian Financial Review
12 December 2023
How a Sydney VC made 13 times its money on one start-up investment
News, The Australian Financial Review
31 August 2021
OneVentures takes VC industry lead on ESG investment and oversight
Announcement, Media Release
25 July 2021
Tech sector demands a plan to escape lockdown crisis
News, The Australian Financial Review
25 July 2021
Forget unicorns, OneVentures has a start-up dragon
News, The Australian Financial Review
04 July 2021
Hivery scores debt from OneVentures in 10th credit deal
News, The Australian Financial Review
02 March 2021
HR tech firm raises $45m amid remote working boom
News, The Australian Financial Review
22 February 2021
Cash Seek-er: Employment Hero seals funding round
News, The Australian Financial Review
16 February 2021
Newcastle-based software start-up Coassemble raises $1.5m
News, The Australian Financial Review
Other Ventures
Michelle’s previous board appointments include NICTA (now CSIRO’s Data61) and Seven West Media (ASX: SWM) along with OneVentures portfolio companies Smart Sparrow (Chair, acquired by Pearson), Hatchtech (Alt, Asset sale Dr Reddys (Nasdaq: DRL)), Vaxxas (Obs) and My Mobile Data / Sourse.AI.
Notable portfolio exits include part-sale of Employment Hero at 10x money. She has also served in advisory board roles with NSW Government’s Taskforce for the Digital Economy, Heads over Heels (supporting women entrepreneurs) and Australian Investment Council Venture Capital Working Group. She regularly provides lectures and working groups to finance and MBA students on venture capital including for the AIC, mentors new VC fund managers with a focus on female-led organisations and is a founding member of WinVC (Women-in-VC).
Dr Paul Kelly
Founding Partner & Director
| Healthcare
| Location: Sydney, AU
Paul is a Founding Partner of OneVentures, leading the Healthcare and Biotechnology practice. He serves as Fund Lead and Chair of the Investment Committee for Healthcare Fund III and is a voting member of the Investment Committees for Funds I, II, III and V.
With over 30 years of experience in biomedical innovation, Paul provides strategic guidance to portfolio companies. He is Chair of Vaxxas and a Non-Executive Director for BiVACOR and Prota Therapeutics. Previously, he served on the boards of Hatchtech (Chair, licensed to NYSE: DRL), CharmHealth (acquired by ASX: CGL), Clinical Genomics (Enterix acquired by 3TM), Blade and Find Me.
As co-founder of Gemini Genomics (Nasdaq: GMNI), he led one of the UK’s largest biotech IPOs (US$250M valuation) before its merger with Sequenom (Nasdaq: SQNM). Earlier in his career, he co-founded Agamatrix, a bio-sensing medical device company operating in the US and Southeast Asia as well as Atomera (Nasdaq: ATMR). As CEO of Orchid Cellmark (Nasdaq: ORCH), he drove a tenfold valuation increase and significant revenue growth.
Paul began his career as a researcher and endocrinologist at St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney before transitioning into biotechnology. In the US, he held executive roles in leading biotech and medical companies driving the growth of several industry leaders.
He has authored over 100 publications in leading journals and is a Non-Executive Director at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, a member of the UNSW Medicine Dean’s Advisory Group and serves on the Advisory Board of the Australian Government’s Australia’s Economic Accelerator (AEA) program.
Paul holds medical degrees from UNSW and is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.
| MBBS(Hons), MD, FRACP
Portfolio Board Roles
In the news
29 November 2023
US FDA Grants the BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart IDE Approval for First-in-Human Early Feasibility Study
Media Release
18 June 2023
Vaxxas opens world-class manufacturing facility to produce needle-free vaccine patch
News, Announcement
07 October 2021
Blade Therapeutics Announces Publication of Preclinical Evidence Supporting Neuroprotective Effects of Proprietary Calpain Inhibitor in a Rare Inherited Neurodegenerative Disease
Media Release
02 June 2021
Preclinical studies from Vaxxas and Collaborators Reveal Potential of Vaxxas’ Novel High-Density Microarray Patch (HD-MAP) to Effectively Deliver SARS-CoV-2 Spike Vaccine
News, Media Release
Nick Gainsley
Partner & Director
| Growth Credit
| Location: Sydney, AU
| BSc(Hons), AMCT
Portfolio Board Roles
In the news
19 September 2022
Venture Credit in Australia — Our first report alongside the Tech Council of Australia
Blog Post
18 November 2021
E-bike subscription service Zoomo raises $60M Series B to disrupt last-mile delivery
News
20 September 2021
Selling a company as easy as posting an eBay listing
News, The Australian Financial Review
Sarah Meibusch
Partner
| BAgrSc(Hons), M.P.S, GAICD | Location: Brisbane, AU
Sarah is responsible for sourcing life sciences companies and actively shaping their future. She applies her global executional experience and entrepreneurial passion to nurture their success. Her enterprise level leadership experience has been forged over 20 years in a wide spectrum of organisations, including start-up, private companies, ASX and NASDAQ-listed companies, a multi-national pharmaceutical company and university research organisations.
Prior to OneVentures, she was the Asian Business Development lead for Shire Pharmaceuticals (now Takeda), a global specialty pharmaceutical company. Sarah identified technologies and developed collaborations across Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan including playing a key role in sourcing the $300M Fibrotech deal announced in 2015.
Sarah has held senior management roles at Progen Pharmaceuticals, The University of Queensland’s QAAFI institute, Beef CRC and Pyxis Genomics. From 2011-2017 she led the development of the new UQ QAAFI research institute from 32 people to 450 people and a financially profitable position within 5 years. This included leading the negotiation of a complex $70+M staff transfer and research agreement for QAAFI between the University of Queensland and the Queensland Government. In 2012, Sarah spearheaded the IP asset assignment and company wind-up of 20 year $168M Beef Co-operative Research Centre, involving five universities across five state jurisdictions, MLA, CSIRO and Meat and Lamb NZ and pastoral companies. At Progen Pharmaceuticals, Sarah worked collaboratively with the CEO and CFO over several years to secure a total financing of ~$125M via five capital raisings for oncology drug development, and in 2008 led the $22M acquisition of an oncology drug discovery company.
Sarah has a strong understanding of the pharmaceutical, medical device and healthcare industries including key inflexion points, intellectual property, regulatory and reimbursement strategies, business development options and strategic product management. She combines this with the ability to understand scientific information quickly and build credibility with technical experts and industry players. She is passionate about commercialising new technologies, and has the strategic vision and positive energy to deliver under tight timeframes in a team environment.
Sarah is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD) and currently holds directorships with Kira Biotech, QAAFI Advisory Board and Life Sciences Queensland. She holds Bachelor level science qualifications from the University of Queensland and a Masters from Cornell University and has completed a postgraduate course at Harvard Business School focusing on negotiation and decision making.
Portfolio Board Roles
Bevin Shields
Partner
| Growth Equity
| Location: Sydney, AU
Bevin leads OneVentures’ growth technology investment strategy for Fund V and Fund VII and serves on their Investment Committees.
With over 20 years of experience in technology investing, M&A and capital markets, Bevin provides strategic guidance to portfolio companies and sits on the boards of Lumary and MyPass. He specialises in driving growth through acquisitions, organic expansion and operational excellence.
Before joining OneVentures, Bevin was a Partner at Bailador Technology Investments, where he led growth-stage technology investments across Australia and New Zealand. During his tenure, Bailador achieved nine successful exits, delivering over $250 million in returns at an average 3.1x CoC and 25% IRR. Key investments included Rezdy, RC TopCo, Standard Media Index and Updoc.
Prior to that, Bevin was Head of M&A at Catapult Group, where he led acquisitions that expanded the company’s scale and market presence globally and secured over $150 million in financing. Earlier in his career, he was a graduate analyst in corporate finance at Deloitte and a vice-president in investment banking at the Royal Bank of Scotland, advising emerging companies across capital markets and M&A.
Bevin graduated with a Master of Commerce from the University of Sydney and is a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
| MCom, USYD BCom, USYD
Nigel Dews
Operating Partner
| Growth Equity
| Location: Sydney, AU
Nigel is an Operating Partner in the Technology team at OneVentures, supporting portfolio companies in the Growth Equity Funds with over 25 years of international experience in management consulting, startup leadership and scale-up execution.
He serves on the Investment Committees for Growth Fund V and VII, is Chair of Kepler Analytics, sits on the board of Flippa, and was previously on the board of Lumary and MyMobileData.
Nigel is a Founding Partner and Chair of GNG Partners, a boutique growth strategy consulting firm that combines operating leadership and top-tier consulting experience to collaborate with OneVentures’ portfolio companies to develop Growth Acceleration Plans.
Before joining OneVentures, Nigel held significant executive roles, including CEO of Vodafone Hutchison Australia, 3 Mobile and Fairfax Digital. As CEO of Message Media, he led its rapid growth through acquisitions, product innovation and geographic expansion, resulting in a $1.8B exit in 2021.
He began his career at the Reserve Bank of Australia and spent five years at McKinsey & Company, consulting across the USA, UK, Australia and New Zealand and later as a Partner at Port Jackosn Partners. Nigel played a pivotal role in launching Fairfax Digital, led the Hutchison-Vodafone Australia merger and led a tech infrastructure start up in the UK.
Nigel holds an Honours degree in economics and an MBA from London Business School.
| BEc (Hons), MBA
Portfolio Board Roles
Matt Sinnamon
Partner & General Counsel
| Location: Sydney, AU
Matt is a Partner and COO at OneVentures, where he leads legal, compliance, corporate finance, investor relations and marketing functions.
As General Counsel, Company Secretary and a Responsible Manager, Matt ensures regulatory excellence and robust governance. Matt also drives ESG practices across the portfolio, supporting founders and investors by implementing effective structures, aligning with industry standards and advancing sustainability goals.
With over 20 years of legal experience in financial services, he has held senior leadership roles both locally and internationally, including General Counsel & Company Secretary at Eclipx Group and Head of Legal, Compliance and Company Secretary at ING Bank Australia. His early career includes positions at Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Perpetual and Pitcher Partners.
Matt holds a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) and a Bachelor of Business (BBus) in Banking and Finance from QUT. Admitted to the Supreme Court of NSW and the High Court of Australia, he is also a Chartered Secretary and Public Notary.
| LLB BBus Banking & Finance