Brandon Capital closes $439m fund with $150m leg up from the NRFC

Australia’s National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC) has committed $150 million to Brandon Capital’s sixth fund, pushing it to $439 million.

Brandon BioCatalyst Fund Six will back both late-stage and a slate of earlier ventures developing therapeutics, devices and vaccines, with roughly a third earmarked for seed and early-stage bets.

The NRFC’s contribution takes the government investment arm beyond its $550 million FY25 deployment target. Other investors in the BioCatalyst fund include Hostplus, HESTA, QIC, the WA Government and CSL.

Brandon Capital Founding Partner and Managing Director, Dr Chris Nave, said it was the firm’s “largest fund to date.”

“The NRFC’s investment is a vote of confidence in the future of Australian medical science, providing the opportunity for more of our local innovations to be developed into life-saving medical products, as well as creating jobs and income for the country,” he said.

NRFC CEO David Gall said the investment was a hedge against Australia’s chronic IP flight problem.

“Australia produces some of the world’s best medical research, but these promising discoveries are often lost offshore at the point of commercialisation and Australian medical manufacturing makes up only 0.3 per cent of the nation’s gross domestic product,” he said.

“Our partnership with Brandon Capital will help to ensure that more of Australia’s world-class medical innovation makes the full onshore journey from laboratory to commercial viability so that highly skilled jobs can contribute to Australia’s commercialisation of important medical innovation.”

Establishing the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund was Labor’s industrial policy centrepiece during the 2022 election, but it took most of the Albanese government’s first term before the money started moving.

Last November, the first $40 million investment in legacy mining equipment manufacturer Russell Mineral Equipment signalled the fund was truly open for business.

The NRFC has since invested a $13 million equity stake in Quantum Brilliance, a $25 million contribution to Myriota’s raise, $22.5 million for Vault Cloud, and a $32 million stake in Harrison.ai.

And in May, the NRFC tipped in $27 million for PolyActiva’s Series C alongside Brandon Capital.

A recent Audit Office report into the NRFC found its fund management was “partly effective” but that the board had “approved investments without finalising its investment strategy and stakeholder engagement framework”.