Advisory firm Meliora founded by former media executive Clive Dickens, has moved into venture capital, backing three AI startups in Australia in a partnership with student-focused fund. NextGen Ventures.
Meliora Ventures, the company’s investment arm, has deployed around $1.5 million in total, including for two European generative AI startups with a business focus, Dublin’s Quickfind AI and Alludium AI.
The partnership with NextGen saw Meliora, which launched in May, invest in three local startups in recent months.
Sydney’s Relevance AI, the workflow automation scaleup which last month banked a $37 million Series B; Melbourne’s Fluency A, which automates process documentation and banked $1.5 million in pre-Seed funding in April; and Brisbane’s Blunge AI, which is developing ways to help users get better control of AI image generation through freehand drawing.
Dickens, who spent nearly six years at Optus as VP of TV and content, and four years as Seven’s chief digital officer, says his VC fund also brings deep technical insight, strategic product guidance and commercial introductions to the startups it backs
“The Gen AI race is not just between OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Google, Meta or DeepSeek. It’s also being driven by a huge range of AI startups who are now unlocking the potential of the large language models and turning them into tangible new products that are transformative for business and consumers,” he said
“These are focused, entrepreneurial teams solving real problems in highly innovative ways and are more important to the AI ecosystem and the future of business than ever before. This is where the creative intelligence of AI lives, and Meliora is backing it.”
NextGen Ventures, founded last year, by Monash and Melbourne uni alumni Mitchell Hughes and Jerry X’Lingson, has already raised 80% of its $2.5 million target, with Blackbird cofounders Niki Scevak and Rick Baker among its backers.
“We’re deeply grateful for the hands-on support from Meliora Ventures, who were one of our first believers in the fund,” Hughes said.
The VC’s cheque size is around $70,000, hoping to write the first cheque for student-founded startups.
Dickens is a fan of their plan.
“Big ideas don’t wait for decades of corporate experience,” he said.
They come from wherever there’s ambition, urgency and the freedom to think differently. NextGen Ventures is tapping into a raw pipeline of student talent, and we’re excited to be backing them not just through capital, but with strategic thinking and the right introductions.”
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