Start-up hub Fishburners names Martin Karafilis as chief executive

Start-up community Fishburners has appointed Martin Karafilis as its new CEO.

Former co-founder and COO of product recognition AI company Tiliter, Karafilis began the leadership role at Fishburners earlier this month on December 5.

Karafilis is also an investor and partner at KOA Ventures and was previously a guest lecturer at UNSW, and founder and CEO of sustainable finishing product company Karra’s Lures.

According to chair at Fishburners, Clive Mayhew, “Martin was a stand-out candidate with the requisite leadership skills that arise from co-founding multiple successful startups and taking various innovative concepts to launch and beyond. As the environment for startup founders continues to evolve, Martin’s deep understanding of the startup ecosystem and the challenges founders face will add real value to our engaged community and help navigate Fishburners’ success.”

Karafilis began his own start-up journey at Fishburners, telling media that he gave his first-ever pitch at the start-up hub.

“Hubs like Fishburners provide the foundation for Australia’s most promising and earliest-stage technology companies and our rapidly-growing national start-up ecosystem. I couldn’t be more thankful for this opportunity to give back and help the ecosystem grow, and I look forward to expanding Fishburners’ scale and impact through the Founders Hub platform, and other new initiatives,” he said.

Alan Jones, interim CEO at Fishburners who was been keeping the seat warm for Karafilis commented on the appointment in a Linkedin post this morning.

He said, “After briefly serving as Fishburners interim CEO, I’ve passed the leadership of Australia’s oldest and best-known tech startup community to a permanent CEO, Martin Karafilis. My focus will be on M8 Ventures in 2023.”

According to Jones, his experience with Fishburners followed a decade of involvement with the company in various capacities.

“I thank the members and team for making me feel so welcome during this time. Fishburners remains close to my heart, and I look forward to staying close as I chase my VC ambitions,” he ended.