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 »
Last week we completed our end of financial year valuations for the Blackbird portfolio and communicated them to our investors. They’re down as you would expect in light of the public markets but with this blog post, we wanted to share in greater detail the process that we used to come to the valuations. The… Read more »
Australia is becoming the place to watch for venture capitalists looking for the next big thing in quantum technology. In the lingering shadow of the global financial crisis and dot-com crash, Vikram Sharma decided to establish Australia’s first quantum technology company. Born out of his research on quantum cybersecurity with the Quantum Optics Group at… Read more »
A new approach to investing in early-stage startups has been developed by former Stone & Chalk national head of community Cheryl Mack. Aussie Angels is an investment platform that lets sophisticated investors join experienced startup investors in syndicates backing the next wave of Australian startups. Investors can find and join angel syndicates to get access… Read more »
When the topic of regulations that need to change to increase angel investment in Australia, an excuse that often comes up is: “Retail investors aren’t prevented from investing in startups, there’s the 20/12 rule!” Well let me tell you why that’s largely unhelpful. I recently spoke with someone who told me they were looking to… Read more »
While there are commonalities among their criteria, startup investors don’t take a cookie cutter approach. The key to unlocking investment is understanding the stage of your startup. “In the race of life, always back self-interest; at least you know it’s trying,” the late former premier of NSW, Jack Lang, once said. Self-interest is defined as… Read more »
Big news dropped this week – Brisbane based video editing platform, Clipchamp, was acquired by Microsoft. The following is part of a lovely note sent out to all shareholders by one of the founders, Alex Dreiling, when trying to use my own words as an intro – I failed to find better words, so I am using… Read more »
When deciding what startups to back, investors would be smart to consider female-led companies. Research shows that startups with female founders consistently outperform those led solely by men, generating higher profits and higher returns on investment. A study by BCG and MassChallenge found that female-led businesses generated 12% higher revenues annually, using an average of… Read more »
Antler will pilot a new, exclusive investor platform in June Australian investors are the first to trial it It hopes to improve the Demo Day outcomes Antler is hoping to take venture capital investment to the next level, trialing a new investor platform from next month as part of the early-stage venture capital firm’s revamped… Read more »
Robo-advisor Unhedged has raised $500,000 in a pre-seed round ahead of the release of the fintech’s investor app. The round was backed by Canadian venture capital firm Loyal VC, plus 18 individual investors, predominantly through founder Peter Bakker’s MBA network. The raise is being used to build the headcount, as well as enabling the team… Read more »
Atlassian says it will invest US$50 million in early-stage startups, but the funds come with a catch – the ventures must all be working on projects that help build out the US-listed tech giant (Nasdaq: TEAM). The company’s US-based head of corporate development, Chris Height, said in a blog post on the company site that… Read more »
This week’s announcement that Buildkite has completed a raise at a valuation of $200 million was excellent to wake up to. It’s very exciting for me personally, because not only did I have a small role at the very beginning, but I’ve been able to witness the choices and events they’ve navigated over the past… Read more »
There’s one way to lose a potential investor before you even start: demand that they sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).
In the words of Benjamin Franklin, a small leak will sink a big ship. The 20c change from the $4 we hand over for a coffee every morning can add up over time but, thinking them useless and wanting to get rid of heavy coins, most of us routinely waste our change.
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