Renowned tech investor and founder Alan Jones has joined Third Hemisphere, a tech and finance PR company, as Tech and Investments Director. The appointment comes as the sector is expected to jump from $167 billion to $250 billion by the end of the decade, and Jones brings over 25 years of experience to the role.

Jones, a co-founder and partner at venture capital firm M8 Ventures, will split his time equally between M8 Ventures and Third Hemisphere's growing portfolio of deep tech and finance companies, fund managers, incubators, accelerators, and tech industry leaders. With over 30 investments in his personal portfolio, including Canva, Pollenizer, Startmate, and Blackbird Ventures, Jones will bring current, frontline experience to his advisory work with Third Hemisphere's clients.

Third Hemisphere offers public relations, investor communications, investment, and strategic advice for scale-up, pre-IPO, and publicly-listed tech and finance companies. Its client list includes the likes of MONEYME, Australian Ethical, Volt Bank, SocietyOne, Xref, Gelion, and OMG. The company has already 4xed since Jeremy Liddle brought his financial and business-building expertise to the team four years ago, and it is expected that Jones will help continue this rate of growth in line with the tech sector and as the IPO market picks up later this year.

Third Hemisphere founder and Managing Director, Hannah Moreno, said, "Alan is held in incredibly high esteem across the entire tech and investment community, for both his generosity and kind-heartedness, and for his prolific track record in helping to build the Australian tech ecosystem." Jones is not only renowned for his tech investment portfolio, but also for his previous experience in the media and tech industries, including roles at Hill & Knowlton, TEDx, CarsGuide, WordPerfect, and Blackie McDonald managing Australian and international clients including IBM, Austrade, Intel, MSN Australia, Telstra On Australia, Macromedia Asia Pacific, Bay Networks, Macromedia, and Avid Technology.

Jones was the editor of Australian Macworld Magazine, co-founder of digital agency The New Agency, and founder of consultancy Doing Words. He worked at News Digital Media, was Yahoo!'s first product hire in Australia, and produced online editorial at Microsoft Australia for early MSN products in what became ninemsn. Jones sees 200+ tech investment deals each year as a lifetime ecosystem entrepreneur-in-residence, and has been significantly involved in programs such as Startmate, BlueChilli, Catalysr (where he is acting Chair), Remarkable, Moonshot, muruD, Collider, University of Technology Sydney, Monash University, and the Sydney School of Entrepreneurship.

Jones is a sought-after conference speaker, panelist, and contributor to the Australian Financial Review, The Australian, the ABC, Smart Company, InnovationAus, and Startup Daily. He is also passionate about issues such as social justice, climate action, equality, using entrepreneurship and technology to change the world for the better, and the power of storytelling and news media influence to accelerate these pursuits.