Steve Baxter is an Australian investor, entrepreneur, and television personality. He made his name as an Entrepreneur and now it seems that he is making a name for himself as an investor as well as he is one of the “sharks” on the popular reality show Shark Tank Australia.
Early Life
Steve Baxter was born in 1971 in the remote town of Cloncurry, Australia. He grew up in a place called Emerald in the Central Highland Region of Queensland.
He then moved to a place called Rockhampton with his family and was enrolled in the North Rockhampton State High School.
However, when he was in Year 11, he left school at the young age of 15 and started working in the army. This was an apprenticeship program that Baxter got attracted to and became a part of.
Joining the Australian Defence Force, he got exposure to working on repairing electronic equipment, compasses, and binoculars. Therefore, his initial stay in the army was based on doing a variety of technical work.
Steve Baxter’s Net Worth
As of 2018, he has an estimated net worth of $50 million(no clear data). It has been reported that the value of the start-ups that he has invested in has already exceeded $100 million in valuations.
Some of these are still in their early stages which only makes it clear that his net worth is set to rise tremendously in the coming years.
Having been part of the sale of one of his companies for such a high price line, there is no doubt about the large numbers in his net worth.
However, he has invested in many companies with some of them not even being known publicly which makes it difficult to specifically tell what his net worth is.
Career
He worked for quite some time in the army but Baxter had some bigger life goals in mind. At the age of 23, he took a very bold risk of putting all of his life savings of $11,000 into launching his first start-up company that was focused on working as an Internet Service Provider.
He thus started the company from his home in Adelaide and named it SE Net. This was at a time when the Internet was not mainstream as it is present today. If this venture had turned sour, Baxter would probably have had to start his life all over again.
But by working hard on his company and gradually building the company by reinvesting any profits, the company started to see great growth.
Eventually, over time, the company established a big customer base crossing the critical mass needed for any business. The company would eventually be acquired by UUNet.
He then started his next big venture. This time, he partnered with his good friend and Australian technology entrepreneur Bevan Slattery to launch his second start-up, PIPE Networks.
The company formally started operations in the year 2001. With more experience by his side, along with Slattery, the company grew to great heights as they were one of the leaders in their fields.
Later TP acquired the company for an amount of around $370 million in approximate value.
He has also worked for Google as a leading Technical Program Manager where he has overseen a project to deliver high-speed telecommunications systems across North America.
This was before the company had been sold with Baxter deciding to have a more passive role at PIPE Networks. In recent years, he has focused on his own ventures again after his stint at Google.
In 2012, he launched a company called River City Labs in Brisbane which had the unique idea of creating a co-working community where aspiring entrepreneurs could work without high-end costs they couldn’t afford.
In 2013, he co-founded Right Pedal Studios, a mobile gaming accelerator, and StartupAUS an advocacy group for Australian tech startups.
He has now become a venture capitalist who prefers to invest in start-ups in their early stages and guide them toward becoming leaders in their respective specializations.
Personal Life
Baxter has three daughters with his wife Emily. Reflecting on his childhood, he says that If he had to go back, he would have finished high school.
He mentions how being a high school dropout made it a lot more difficult for him. He is also an aviation enthusiast and q qualified private pilot.