Mick Liubinskas - Bio

Jul 13, 2021

min read

Two Line Bio

Mick Liubinskas is a climate tech advisor, investor and industry leader. He helped accelerate the Australian climate tech industry by launching Climate Salad, which grew to 700 climate tech companies and a community of 10,000 supporters.

Short Bio

Mick Liubinskas is a climate tech advisor, investor and industry leader. Mick is the Co-Founder of Climate Salad, a community of 700 climate tech companies and 10,000 supporters which is helping accelerate the Australian climate tech industry

He has been founder of startups, incubators and accelerators with Pollenizer, Startmate and muru-D. He's a big believer that Australia will play a huge role in building climate solutions. He's also been a strong advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion. He's written two books and is completing a Masters of Sustainable Development and spent 3 years living in San Francisco. Mick is a happily married dad of 3 kids, who loves cooking, surfing and football.

Long Bio

Mick Liubinskas is a climate tech advisor, investor and industry leader. Mick is the Co-Founder of Climate Salad, a community of 700 climate tech companies and 10,000 supporters which is helping accelerate the Australian climate tech industry

He has been founder of startups, incubators and accelerators with Pollenizer, Startmate and muru-D. He's a big believer that Australia will play a huge role in building climate solutions. He's also been a strong advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion. He's written two books and is completing a Masters of Sustainable Development and spent 3 years living in San Francisco.

Mick programmed his Commodore 64 at age 8, installed business computer networks at age 17, raised capital for a business at 22 and ran marketing globally for Kazaa at 26.

For the past 18 years he has co-founded 4 technology startup companies, including three years in San Francisco. This has included evaluating 1,000’s of ideas, building first products, getting first customers, launching globally, raising capital, closing businesses, selling businesses and all the emotional rollercoaster rides in between.

In January 2017, while in San Francisco Mick decided to focus the next major portion of his life towards climate action. He began working with cleantech and sustainability companies through the University of Berkeley, Stanford University, Singularity University and y-Combinator.

He moved back to Australia with BCG Digital Ventures in 2019 to work with Asia Pacific corporates on climate and impact businesses. In 2021 he spent three months working with Investible Ventures on their climate tech fund, then started a Masters of Sustainable Development at Macquarie University and co-founded Climate Salad with his wife Karen.

Climate Salad's vision was for Australia to play an outsized role in helping the world get to nature positive. The goal was to help climate tech companies expand globally by helping them build teams, find customers and meet investors. Starting with just 12 companies at the start, the community now was over 700 companies, 125 investors, 1,200 members and 10,000 supporters. They have helped 100 companies grow globally with international trade missions to London, Paris, Singapore, New York and San Francisco, plus their Global Growth Programs.

Climate Salad also boosted the industry by producing annual Australian Climate Tech Industry Reports which have been read by 1,000's of investors, government and industry leaders in more than 65 countries. This industry report is now available as Australian Climate Tech Insights (ACTI) data platform which investors around the world use to keep up to date with Australia's highest potential companies.

Mick also wrote a novel to inspire teenage girls into the world of STEM, called She’s Building A Robot. It is accompanied by a series of interviews with women with careers in robotics, technology, science and maths.

Some other notable contributions to the Australian technology industry:

Pollenizer (co-founder) started 25 companies.
Startmate (co-founding investor and mentor) which invested in over 200 companies.
Spreets (advisor and investor) sold to Yahoo for ~$40m in 13 months.
muru-D (co-founder) which was Telstra’s tech accelerator which invested in 200 businesses across Australia and South East Asia
Wooboard (co-founder) - Acquired by a publicly traded company

Mick is known as Mr Focus due to his strong drive for starting small and fast, doing fast testing on the road to success and avoiding entrepreneurial distractions. He, Phil and the team from Pollenizer wrote a workbook called Startup Focus which sold 5,000 copies. Some more writing.

He also loves being a dad, surfing, playing football and cooking.

Climate Tech Projects for Mick

Climate Salad — community, tools and stories from climate tech companies
Climate Tech Industry Report - 2022 - the first ever in-depth analysis of the Australian and New Zealand climate tech industry.
Climate Landscape Report — global data, taxonomy and top 1,000 climate tech companies

Climate Tech Investments

‍Cecil Earth — unlocking the carbon value of millions of hectares of nature‍
Kapture - Carbon Capture and Use technology
Rainstick - higher yield agriculture through use of indigenous practices
Conry Tech - new technology for more energy efficient air conditioning
Sicona Batteries - new battery chemistry and technology
Sundrive - highly efficient photovoltaics
MGA Thermal - thermal energy storage in low emissions, multi use energy bricks
EnergyLab — climate and clean technology-focused accelerator‍
Startmate — technology accelerator with a big climate tech focus
Via Angelist syndicates - Terra.do, Phoenix Hydrogen, Akua, Spira, Elio, Tynt, Alga Biosciences