Dave McClure, founder of leading US start-up tech accelerator program 500startups, recently spoke to Rose Powell of the Australia Financial Review.
Full Article here

Extract:
…it is the smaller end of the scale, the early seed stage capital investors, that Mr McClure said needs to shed their timidity and take more risks, for the sake of the ecosystem and their own wallets.

Mr McClure said there should be less investments in the hundreds of thousands range, and more of millions of dollars. He warned that in a global game less daring players would soon be left behind. “Our biggest winners weren’t winners for years, it’s never obvious someone is going to be amazing”, Mr McClure said. “That’s always the case. No one thought Dropbox, AirBnB and Uber were as excellent as everyone does now when they were two or three.”

He said the task in picking winners required a willingness to take a chance and accept that some would fail.

“Out of a hundred teams we back, five might become rock stars and 15 do all right,” he said.

“Everywhere that investors complain about a lack of options in the little guys, I’ve found talent. In Australia, if early founders want to be part of the big returns, they’re going to have to take risks with their companies”, Mr McClure told The Australian Financial Review.