Approach

IKIGAI AI Ventures — an agentic engineering & venture‑building studio in Sydney.

My practice runs under the name IKIGAI AI Ventures for a specific reason. I will only take on a brief, a build, or a board seat where the answer to all four of these is yes — and I run the same test on every venture we build out of the studio.

A.

What I'm passionate about.

Practicing my problem solving abilities and bringing my vision and taste to life. Using my skills in agentic engineering to deliver ventures end‑to‑end, writing about why they work, and teaching it back. Vision and strategy in the morning, agentic code in the afternoon, family in the evening.

B.

What I'm good at.

Operator and agentic engineer who can both think and build — pairing the rigour of a top‑tier consultancy with the muscle memory of a founder who ships. Twelve years of reps across PE, FMCG, B2B SaaS, and now Artificial Intelligence and Agent‑first venture‑building.

C.

What the world needs right now.

Improving the human condition — reducing friction to health outcomes, and educating the next generation on the next frontier of human intelligence.

D.

What I'll be paid for.

Agentic engineering, building through frontier models. Senior strategic mindset, AI architecture, and turning Board‑level ambition into a 100‑day plan an SLT will actually run. Advisory and board seats; AI‑native operating model design; commercial diligence and value creation for PE / VC portfolios; selective founder collaborations through Malo Studios.

·About

Three careers in one, on purpose.

I spent seven years at McKinsey learning what good engines look like, two years at HelloFresh learning what it costs to drive one, and a year at home learning what I actually wanted to do next. Now I'm building, with my wife as co‑founder.

Co‑founder of IKIGAI AI Ventures in Sydney — an agentic engineering and venture‑building studio — and Frollie, an FMCG company in Jakarta. Most of my time goes to one or the other; the rest goes to my daughter Ava and the writing on this site.

I'm available for the kinds of conversations where my three‑career arc is the point — board seats, advisory mandates, founder‑to‑founder collaborations, and investors who want to think out loud about how AI changes the operating model of their portfolio.

Lucas Zhu
Hangzhou · 2026
2026 →
Co‑founder, IKIGAI Studios (Sydney) & Frollie (Jakarta)
2024–25
Director of Strategy, HelloFresh ANZ · $1B+ ARR
2017–24
Sr Engagement Manager, McKinsey & Co · PE · TMT · B2B SaaS
Edu
UNSW BIS · Distinction · Co‑op Scholarship
Tsinghua School of Economics & Management · 4.0 GPA
Side
Captain · Australia men's national dragon‑boat club · World Champs HK
Family
Co‑founder & wife · daughter Ava (18 mo) · Jakarta ⇄ Sydney
Avail
Open · advisory · founding · board · select consulting