Melbourne seed VC Skalata Ventures rebranded as Tall Order Ventures in September 2026, a month after CEO Rohan Workman and COO Maxine Lee completed a management buyout from co-founder Paul Little. Former Future Fund CFO Paul Mann joined the board as chair.
The firm went dark on new deals from March to August while rebuilding its sourcing and diligence process around AI. That five-month pause freed up what they estimate is 70% of partner time by automating first-pass screening. The timing worked: portfolio company Doohly sold to Canva for $30 million in March.
Tall Order manages 85 portfolio companies across three funds. External profiles list the latest fund at roughly $50 million. The firm positions itself as hands-on seed investor, offering embedded support alongside capital. Backing comes from Monash, Swinburne, RMIT, La Trobe, plus investors Carol Schwartz and Adrian Di Marco.
For sales professionals tracking ANZ VC portfolio hiring, the rebrand signals the firm is back in market. Workman said they are targeting founders with deep domain expertise who are rebuilding industries with AI. Lee added they are investing in companies that will need human touch at Series A, which typically means sales hires.
Worth noting: Skalata was founded in 2018 and team size sits between 16 and 28 depending on the source, small for a portfolio of 85 companies. The management buyout keeps operating cadence intact while shifting from founder-backed to management ownership.
The ANZ seed VC landscape has several firms promising founder support, but Tall Order competes on intensive engagement over cheque size. The AI rebuild and five-month pause suggest they are repositioning for a different type of early-stage company, one that ships with AI from day one.
For AEs and SDRs watching portfolio company hiring, Tall Order's 85 companies span industries being rebuilt with AI. That usually means early sales hires come later than product, but when they do, they are building from scratch. Check their portfolio page for hiring signals as they restart deployment.