2022 was a tough year for many, but in tough times our true characters are revealed. I was inspired by Ben Armstrong’s post to reflect on and celebrate the growth and collaborative nature of startup Aus/NZ, especially what I’ve seen last year. Australia is the lucky country, and our luck hasn’t run out. For the… Read more »
Leading law firm Herbert Smith Freehills advises some of Australia’s most successful tech companies on investment deals, including Atlassian, Mr Yum, Carma, Sonder, Culture Amp, Linktree, Who Gives A Crap, :Different, Pearler and Instant Checkout. After the dramatic shift in venture capital in 2022 following an exuberant two years during the pandemic, HSF venture capital… Read more »
In this essay, we are imagining a pitch from an early stage deep tech company, probably still working inside a university. An investor red flag might not be obvious to a founder. Why would it? They build up over years as signals of weakness and they are best avoided. Knowing what they are makes it possible to… Read more »
Angel investor community Innovation Bay is opening a Brisbane chapter Horizon is moving to agnostic deal flow Queensland founders can apply to pitch via Dealum Innovation Bay, the longest-running community for technology startups, scale-ups and investors in Australia and New Zealand, is launching in Queensland in 2023. Horizon, the 20-year-old organisation’s angel investor community, has… Read more »
Melt Ventures has launched Australia’s first dedicated Advanced Manufacturing Venture Fund and is already near to first close. The Fund is investing in high-growth companies in the Advanced Manufacturing sector including clean technologies such as renewable energy and storage, automation and robotics, agriculture and transport, as well as advanced materials and space. The VC fund… Read more »
Southeast Asian climate tech venture firm Wavemaker Impact has named Monique Conheady as its new Venture Partner for Australia and New Zealand ahead of rolling out locally in 2023. The VC’s mission is to back build and back climate tech startups with the combined potential to reduce global carbon by 10% by 2035. Wavemaker Impact dubs them ‘100×100’… Read more »
Three weeks ago, we received an influx of incredibly helpful feedback from founders after Paul Bassat reached out to the community via this LinkedIn post. One recurring theme in the feedback that resonated with me was: telling founders you invest early is actually not that helpful. Founders asked: what does ‘early’ mean? What does ‘seed… Read more »
This is gold, I would read this blog post pic.twitter.com/vdPbq7n6YW — Jarrad (Moose) Lawrence (@JarradLawrence) November 3, 2022 I was playing around with a new AI that attempts to tweet like the author (you can try it out here) and Moose Lawrence posted this example, meant to be something that I’d be likely to tweet.… Read more »
Venture capital firm Blackbird has raised Australia’s first $1 billion VC fund, with superannuation funds once again cornerstone investors. The announcement comes just a week after Square Peg announced it had raised $860 million for its fifth generation of funds. Combined with another $700 million raised earlier this year by Airtree. that means the country’s… Read more »
Early stage VC firm Sprint Ventures has raised $8 million in the first close of its $50 million second fund. Managing Partner and entrepreneur Llew Jury said the second fund, called the Expansion Capital Fund, follows the success of their first $5 million Vintage Sovereign Seed fund in 2020, which has delivered a return on… Read more »
Australian VC Square Peg Capital has raised US$550 million (A$860m) for its fifth fund, which it plans to use to continue backing its existing portfolio companies in later stage raises. The new fund takes total capital Square Peg has raised in a decade to more than US$1.6 billion (A$2.5bn) using the funds to back companies… Read more »
Sydney doctor, founder and angel investor Dr Amandeep Hansra has joined the CSIRO’s deep tech investment fund Main Sequence as a principal. Dr Hansra, a Bondi GP, has been in general practice for nearly two decades and co-founded the investment syndicate Australian Medical Angels, as well as founing Creative Careers in Medicine, which provides consulting services… Read more »
Secondaries investment fund SecondQuarter Ventures has raised $83 million as a first close for its second fund, just 18 months after launching with its first $51m fund. With that initial capital already deployed, existing backers have doubled down chipping in more than $50 million towards fund two. Another $30 million has come from new investors,… Read more »
WinVC, the female investor-led initiative aiming to attract more women into VC investment roles is launching this Tuesday 18 October, with a discussion on the state of capital for women in Australia. Founders Andrea Gardiner, CEO & founder of Jelix Ventures; Ingrid Maes, founder & MD of W23; and Michelle Deaker, founding partner & MD… Read more »
Given the current economic conditions, it’s gotten a lot harder for startups to raise the kind of funding rounds that were once the norm a few years ago. Either by choice or because they haven’t been able to close a round, this has led many startups to consider whether the VC path is actually the… Read more »
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