Gareth Adams

I am working on building a growth capital firm focused on the consumer space which will have a team with extensive experience building consumer/luxury businesses. We have an initial team and are working on some initial investment ideas. More to come....

I believe that as nation we are the sum of all of our communities. We are only as strong as our weakest community. To truly help our communities in need we must empower them and give them the tools to help themselves. I believe the social enterprise model can be powerful in communities and have built a model that illustrates at a high level how a community could build businesses to service the community and in the process change the future direction of the community. It is not for me to build these businesses, it is for those in each community to do so. Each community will be different, however a key aspect of this approach is connecting the communities and enabling sharing of information and experience.

As a co-founder of R-U-Ontrak I have been responsible for every aspect of the business. To build a company which is solving such a big and complex set of problems requires the ability to manage a lot of moving parts, including the work of part time members of the team here and third parties in other countries. I had the initial idea while working on a health care service business, I did the market and customer research, and I developed the plan to build a platform for people and providers to improve communication and engagement and to use insights from their data to improve outcomes. We initially developed an iOS app targeted at a person with a significant, quality of life goal. The app was developed by a team in the Ukraine and then India, the app was launched in the US, Australia and NZ, and I worked with users to understand what we could improve. A key piece of feedback from the iOS app release was the real need for a website for providers. I designed the structure for the website after extensive discussions with market participants here, in the US and the UK. I went off to pitch the idea to raise capital to build the website and complete the platform with an Android version. The standard response I received was – build it, get customers using it and then come back and we will look at. With limited technical skills I figured the only way we would be able to get anywhere was if I learned how to code. So I did – a combination of paid courses, Stack Overflow and a lot of You Tube and I was able to do rudimentary coding. Myself and a colleague put together a basic website. I was able to find some money to hire some developers and now we have our platform. I have kept going through the support of my family and some friends - that is the how, the why is that I can see a big and expanding problem which needs a solution. We are part of the solution.

During a period of development work at R-U-Ontrak - we were working on making some changes to the app - I found I could have limited impact on the work done by the developers and so decided to look for a project to work on. I assisted CBUS on a part time basis with some work on their private equity fund of funds program. Very enjoyable experience and quite a surprise to see how much super funds have grown since when I began in the industry in 1994.

I was an advisor/coach in the Social Traders' Crunch program in 2015 and in 2016. The Crunch program was a six month long program for the founders of social enterprise start-ups. Social enterprise, as a model, has a lot of potential in Australia and it was a great experience working with the founders of the social enterprise start-ups and the Social Traders' team.

I have had an interest in the application of Urgent Care model in Australia since 2012. There have been a number of attempts to establish the model here and when I left IFM in 2014 I decided to investigate the potential for Urgent Care centres to be rolled out across the country. Over a period of around 18 months, I had numerous meetings with healthcare professionals, I also met with a number of private hospital operators, medical facility operators and radiology groups, and I concluded that the adoption of the US Urgent Care model in Australia would be difficult. I evolved the model I wanted to roll out, it would be a "pop-up", weekend only, injury focused approach that had access to x-ray, it would operate in existing medical facilities and it would be integrated into the existing healthcare system around each centre. In early 2016 I set up a company, I engaged a person to assist with operational issues, I engaged a group to build an app to assist with the management of injured people, I established an advisory group, I reached agreement to use three existing medical facilities on weekends, I reached agreement with two radiology providers to offer x-ray on weekends, I engaged a law firm to undertake a review of legal issues, I engaged a recruitment firm to find doctors, I worked my way through the large number of issues that exist in establishing a pop-up medicine concept in Australia, I built and revised financial models, and I developed a marketing strategy which was being implemented. In late March 2016 I had to suspend my plans to open at the three sites in early April 2016. Finding and retaining the right types of doctors is a significant issue and despite best efforts I was unable to guarantee doctors at the three sites each weekend. While not opening was disappointing, I think there are a number of organisations who would be able to overcome my major obstacle and deliver this service to a customer segment that would see value in the service.

I worked on a number of my own projects, with the intent of developing businesses when the concept was viable and I could identify partners to work with. I started with a list of ideas I wanted to pursue and progressively refined the list until all that remained was a project to start a weekend injury treatment service. I also assisted other people with their startups or growth businesses.

Responsible for three international private equity fund of funds from initial concept to the completion of the respective investment periods. Reviewed and recommended investment with advisers, in fund of funds and in funds that ultimately resulted in investment in companies across the US, Europe and Asia. In the second and third international programs a key focus was on growth and so I was responsible for investing a significant amount of capital in venture capital via advisers, fund of funds and directly into venture capital funds. Worked on three Australian focused private equity fund of funds. Reviewed and recommended investment in funds and co-investments in a group of companies in Australia. Reviewed and developed strategies for investment in regions (US, Europe, Asia), countries (US, UK, China, India, Germany, Australia), industries (consumer, healthcare, IT, agriculture) and in different stages of business development (venture capital, growth, buyouts, transformation). Responsible for the initial development and implementation of the investment strategy of an alternative debt fund. Worked on the selection of managers for a Commonwealth government pre-seed fund program and undertook a number of ad-hoc manager reviews for another Commonwealth government venture capital program. Involved in the organisation of two conferences over a number of years - one focused on investments and the other focused on venture capital. At IFS, which became IFM, I assisted colleagues advise superannuation funds on investments and monitor performance.

I spent three months of long service leave in 2012 working on a project I called the “Startup Australia Movement”. I was concerned that Australia did not produce enough globally focused, high growth businesses. The intention of the movement was to encourage more Australians to build high growth businesses and to better connect the ecosystem in Australia to assist entrepreneurs to succeed. As part of the project I engaged extensively with members of the startup community in Australia and in the US and with a range of people in the startup community in Canada, Europe and Asia. At the conclusion of my long service leave I wrote a plan for the development of the model in Australia and spent time discussing it with interested parties. I believed that for the movement to be successful it needed a well-regarded Australian tech entrepreneur to be the face of the movement. I spent a number of months looking for an appropriate person, but I couldn’t find a person who wished to take on such a role. I decided to put the project on hold in October 2012. The first document that is attached was written to provoke a conversation. The second document is a plan I wrote and gave to anyone who showed interest. It is good to know that so many good things have happened since then. We have seen in states and communities start up focused organisations, there are events to get people together, there is media focused on the area and we are seeing companies grow. One thing came out of my project that exists today - the organisation StartupAus uses the URL I acquired and gave to them - https://startupaus.org/. More can and needs to be done, but we are in a better place than we were in 2012.

Junior role assisting colleagues advise superannuation funds on investments and to monitor performance.