In a week when Victoria’s startup community is reeling, it would be easy to believe the story is only about loss.
The Victorian Government has confirmed it will wind down LaunchVic as an independent agency and consolidate its functions with Breakthrough Victoria and Invest Victoria, as part of a public sector overhaul.
On paper, this is framed as “backing Victorian innovation” and “bringing together two key entities to strengthen our innovation ecosystem”. The government points to more than 4,300 startups and over $1.5 billion in private capital unlocked since 2017 as evidence that its approach has worked.
But for many founders, investors and operators, the announcement lands very differently. Industry leaders called the decision “devastating” and “crazy”, pointing out that LaunchVic’s nine years of work helped grow Victoria’s startup community to more than 3,800 companies valued at $143 billion, a 29-fold increase since LaunchVic began.
For women founders in particular, this moment is more than a line item in a budget. It is a critical inflection point.
LaunchVic has been one of the few public institutions willing to back women founders at scale, notably through the Alice Anderson Fund, a women-focused co-investment vehicle that became the envy of other states.
As several founders have pointed out in the days since the announcement, this was one of the last remaining government-backed investment programs specifically designed for women-led startups.
At the same time, the broader picture for women founders remains stark. Deloitte and SBE Australia’s Accelerating Women Founders report found that only 22% of Australian startups are founded by women, and just 0.7% of all private startup funding in FY22 went to solely women-founded teams.
So where do we go from here?
Strategic alignment to support women
Against this backdrop, a quiet but important piece of good news has emerged.
After more than a decade at the forefront of women’s entrepreneurship, SBE Australia is passing the torch to a new alliance between community platform One Roof and scale-up advisory and capital firm March Collective. Building on SBE Australia’s decade of proven success, this collaboration is driven by a shared commitment to intensify support for women founders, creating a single, seamless pathway to drive the next generation of growth in a challenging funding environment.
SBE Australia has built a proud legacy, celebrating its profound impact on the Australian economy and the lives of women entrepreneurs. The organisation’s programmes have successfully supported over 260 startups and 120 scale-up businesses, which have collectively raised more than $2 billion in capital and achieved 21 exits. This work has contributed significantly to the Australian economy, including $1 billion in total value-add and nearly 4,900 full-time equivalent roles in 2020-21 alone.
As SBE transitions out of direct program delivery, that work does not end.
“This isn’t just about combining programs; it’s about connecting the dots to create a full-circle support system,” says Renece Brewster, Partner at March Collective and an SBE alumnae. “SBE Australia has laid a strong foundation for women founders, and now the support that will be provided by One Roof and March Collective will be instrumental in bridging this gap, equipping women-founded businesses with the resources, networks, and expertise they need to thrive and scale.”
One Roof: building the foundation, community-first
One Roof will now helm SBE’s early-stage programs Explore (Ideation) and Evolve (MVP), embedding them in an established, purpose-built community for women in business.
As a digital membership platform, One Roof has been bringing together thousands of women entrepreneurs nationally for nearly a decade, offering curated connections, expert-led learning and peer accountability. The integration of SBE’s early-stage programs means women with a strong idea, but limited networks or confidence, can access a proven curriculum and community without having to navigate a fragmented maze of support.
“Women founders do not need more hoops to jump through,” says Frances Goh, Co-Founder of One Roof. “They need a visible pathway, trusted partners and rooms where the right doors open. By bringing the legacy of SBE, One Roof and March Collective into one connected ecosystem, we are making it simpler to find the support, capital and community that move businesses from idea to impact at speed. Our north star is more women building category-defining companies and more women owning meaningful equity in Australia’s future economy.”
In practical terms, this means women at the earliest stages can access high-quality resources, a national network and clear next steps, something that will only become more important if state-backed programs narrow their focus or disappear.
March Collective: Scaling businesses beyond the startup phase
The second half of the pipeline is where many women-founded businesses hit a wall: the scale-up phase. While support for women founders has grown, it has largely concentrated on early-stage activity, leaving a significant gap in capital and strategic support when companies are ready to grow rapidly.
March Collective is designed to support this “post-startup gap” that is crucial for the growth stage, moving beyond the early-stage foundational work provided by One Roof and the former SBE programmes.
The strategic importance of March Collective is underscored by the involvement of former SBE Australia CEO, Nicole Cook, who now serves as a Managing Partner at the firm.
“Getting a business off the ground is a huge achievement, but the real test is in the scale-up phase, a moment often marked by a lack of capital and strategic guidance,” says Nicole Cook, former CEO of SBE Australia and now Managing Partner at March Collective. “March Collective was created to fill that gap. Partnering with One Roof and March Collective means we can now provide an uninterrupted flow of support, ensuring that founders have the expert advice, strategic capital and high-trust community they need to truly go the distance.”
It’s worth noting that the Explore and Evolve programs were both enabled by significant LaunchVic grants and March Collective’s predecessor, SBE Advisory, received $100,000 in funding to launch. This new partnership is the compounding effect of that early investment in women-led innovation.
Why this matters more now
The government’s review acknowledges that Victoria’s innovation entities, including LaunchVic and Breakthrough Victoria, have played a “valuable and effective” role in improving access to knowledge, skills, networks and capital. Yet the solution proposed is consolidation and cost-cutting at precisely the moment when we should be doubling down on what works.
For women founders, who already receive a tiny fraction of private capital and smaller median deal sizes than all-male teams, shrinking public infrastructure without a clear, women-focused replacement risks turning back the clock.
The alliance between SBE, One Roof and March Collective is not a silver bullet. It does not replace a state-backed investor like the Alice Anderson Fund, nor should it let governments off the hook. Public capital still matters, especially where markets under-serve women, First Nations founders, migrants and regional entrepreneurs.
What this partnership does offer is something Victoria cannot afford to lose as LaunchVic changes shape: continuity, community and a clear pathway designed by and for women founders, from first idea to major scale.
It is a reminder that ecosystems are built in layers. Government agencies may come and go. Budget lines rise and fall. But when experienced operators, alumni networks, investors and communities choose to work together over the long term, the impact compounds.
A call to action, not a eulogy
This is not the moment to eulogise LaunchVic and move on. It is the moment to ask, very specifically, who will carry its most important work forward, especially the work that serves those furthest from power and capital.
The answer will not be a single entity, public or private. It will be a network.
SBE Australia’s decision to entrust its programs to One Roof and March Collective is one example of how that network can evolve with intention, rather than fracture under funding shocks. It is an invitation to investors, corporates, philanthropists and yes, governments, to plug into an existing, proven pipeline for women founders instead of rebuilding from scratch.
If Victoria wants to keep the jobs, economic value and global reputation that LaunchVic helped unlock, it cannot treat women founders as an afterthought. It must back the places where they actually are – in communities, cohorts and programs built by people who have walked the journey.
LaunchVic may be winding down. The work of backing women founders cannot.
- Frances Goh is the cofounder of One Roof, a purpose-built community designed to support women entrepreneurs and business owners
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