An exclusive place to call home: The Pillars is Australia’s first private members club for tech entrepreneurs and investors

Australia’s first private members club for technology entrepreneurs and investors is entering the Sydney market with two missions: To drive innovation, connections and deals and to allow the country’s next pioneers to escape to an urban sanctuary with bars, lounges and restaurants.

Entrepreneur and angel investor Matthew Browne has watched Australia’s start-up ecosystem rapidly mature in the past five years as local innovators and financiers start to mirror the patterns he saw working in Silicon Valley. 

For Browne, the missing piece of the puzzle has been linking innovation and investment in a shared, non-pretentious space where ideas can flow as freely as fine wine or top-shelf whiskey. 

“I was always frustrated that Australia didn’t really have a place where innovators, predominantly from the technology sector, could get together with financiers and supporters and have a safe space to call home,” Browne, the managing partner of Black Nova Venture Capital, says. 

It was a sentiment shared by start-up specialist The Nudge founder Steve Grace and interior designer Emma Blomfield, who met Browne at Club of United Business. 

The three entrepreneurs were familiar with private members clubs overseas – such as The Battery, Whale Club and 1880 – but didn’t feel Sydney had anything similar that could effectively propel Australia’s innovation culture while allowing the brightest minds to escape and relax. 

Together with three other partners – Brad Delamare, Jonathan Lui and Cheryl Mack – they’re creating The Pillars, a first-of-its-kind private members club at one of Sydney’s premier heritage sites: 11 Barrack St. The building housed the city’s Commonwealth Bank from the mid-1800s and will retain the site’s history, while introducing modern touches. 

The Pillars’ four-level club is set to open in February 2025 and will feature fine dining and bar spaces, with culinary experiences curated by the Bentley Group, shared work and networking hubs, a wellness level, including an infrared sauna, cold plunge, ice bath and terrace, and regular events for members and international partners. Members will also have access to more than 80 global clubs through a partnership with Sonato Alliance. 

Its founders are currently spending millions finalising the Sydney space to ensure it strikes a balance between exclusivity when it comes to the calibre of its members and openness to different genders, cultures and creeds. 

“We don’t want the space to be so crowded that you can never use it in the way you want to use it, but we also want to have enough people in there so that it has a vibe and it creates a desire to keep coming back to meet new people,” Browne says.  

“Having the right people in the right space creates opportunity.”

Matthew Browne

“When people ask me what success will look like with the club, my answer is ‘we’ll have a space where people can build authentic relationships, not through networking, but by being members at The Pillars and those friendships or relationships will lead to innovation – be it new ideas, companies or projects – that put Australia on the world stage’,” he says. 

A long-awaited meeting of minds

For Browne and Grace, The Pillars concept has been more than three years in the making and has involved scouring more than 80 potential sites to find the right one to match their unique vision. 

“But it wasn’t until Steve and I got together with Emma, Brad, Jono and Cheryl that we felt like we had the right ingredients as a team to bring this to life,” he says.  

“It requires a village of people to get something like this on the ground,” he says. 

Each of the founding partners has links to start-up culture and innovation, but they also bring different skills to the mix, Browne, who has primarily worked in software development and funding, says. Grace has spent a large part of his career helping start-ups become unicorns; Lui co-founded AirTasker, Delamare is the CEO of Tank Stream Labs, and Blomfield founded and runs interior design company EB Studio.  

Their newest partner, Mack, is trying to democratise angel investing through her company Aussie Angels. 

“We all wanted to be part of something like this ourselves, but nothing exists, so we had to pioneer it.” Browne says. 

“It’s not a boys club.” 

Both Blomfield and Browne are quick to distinguish The Pillars and some of the traditional images we may conjure up of a private-members club – historically either dominated or exclusively attended by men. 

“It’s really important that we make it clear that this is an inclusive club – It’s not a stuffy gentleman’s club, which exist everywhere – unfortunately still in 2024.”

Emma Blomfield

Browne says there was universal agreement on the need for diversity to achieve the club’s aims. 

“I just want to get the best and brightest people into the room and with diverse opinions and diverse views, and it’s just about if we have a membership club full of white men, we’re going to have things that solve white men’s problems. We want to create things that solve global problems,” Browne adds. 

For Blomfield, the inclusivity is reflected in her design concepts. 

“We’re being especially conscious around fabrics and textiles to portray that everyone’s allowed to be in the club; it’s not too masculine, it’s not too feminine, it’s finding that right harmony between the two,” she says.

A vision coming to life

Between now and February next year, Blomfield and her team are furiously working on the final details to make The Pillars’ concept a reality. Given the building’s history, it’s been no small task, she says. 

“I think the fact that the building has so much character and heritage in itself has probably been the leading factor in how we’ve designed the space. 

“Being built in 1832 and then having multiple additions done to it throughout the 1800s, there’s just so much heritage there that we want to preserve. We’ve taken that and run with it, but then tried to add a modern twist,” she says. 

For Blomfield, it’s important for members to feel comfortable and proud to introduce their guests to the club. 

“It’s not a museum,” she says. “It is a welcoming space, with various rooms that allow you to go in and have a different experience. 

“There are clear demarcations within the rooms that signal ‘this is a relaxing space’, ‘this is a space where you go and work’, ‘this is a space where you bring friends’ and ‘this is a space for socialising’,” she adds. 

Much of that delineation comes down to the detail, Blomfield says. For example, the wellness space – which houses the terrace, infrared sauna, cold plunge pool, ice bath and yoga studio – will be fitted with amenities allowing members to go straight to work after a plunge or relaxation session. 

By night, other floors will host exclusive events, from fine dining experiences, hosted by The Bentley Group, to new luxury car launches, Browne says. 

Limited opportunities

Private members’ clubs are characterised by exclusivity, and Browne says The Pillars is no exception. 

The club has a member cap of 600 and a joining fee of $25,000. Browne says he’s aiming to have at least 200 members by opening day. 

“I think it’s hit a nerve in Australian innovation circles because there hasn’t been something like this, and there’s a real desire for it,” he says. 

“We’ve had hundreds of people express interest in joining, and have a considerable waitlist that we’re working through, and dozens of people that have already paid upfront and joined.” 

The club’s first 100 members will be invited to invest in The Pillars and join the committee to assess new applications. They will also have immediate access to more than 80 Sonato Alliance clubs globally. 

To be approved, prospective members submit an expression of interest, which goes through a review process by the core team of six founders.  

The next stage involves an interview and meeting with committee members, after which a decision is made. 

Once The Pillars is up and running, Browne has ambitions to potentially open a second club in Melbourne. 

“I think it’s always good to have a big vision, but you’ve got to execute on the first one first,” he says. 

Expressions of interest can be lodged at  www.thepillars.au