Spencer Maughan is a Visiting Fellow in the US Studies Centre's Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program. He is a partner with Finistere Ventures a specialist AgTech venture capital company based in Silicon Valley.

Previously Spencer has been an entrepreneur-in-residence at Kleiner Perkins (KPCB) working alongside members of the Green Growth Fund on AgTech opportunities and as an investor at Venrock, a venture capital firm with >$2b under management. Spencer’s investment focus has been centered on technology-driven companies that intersect with sustainability and agriculture.

Spencer has a BSc and PhD in Genetics from the University of Melbourne where he was a Melbourne Research Scholar with funding from Bayer CropScience.

Upon finishing his PhD, Spencer was named a Marie Curie fellow at the University of Cambridge (UK) within the Institute of Biotechnology. While at Cambridge, Spencer’s work on malarial drug-resistance type proteins received a commendation from the UK Houses of Parliament.

Spencer also holds an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business where he was the American Australian Association’s Macquarie Bank Fellow.