Former JP Morgan banker Ashleigh Greaves has joined boutique Queensland B2B VC Tribe Global Ventures to manage investor relations. Greaves already has a strong track record on that front having spent several years within the Corporate & Investment Bank (CIB) at J.P. Morgan in New York where she managed relationships with hedge funds and quantitative trading managers.… Read more »
Victoria’s Walter & Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) for medical research as built a $66 million venture capital war chest to back medtech startups over the next decade, turning the institute’s work into commercial biotech companies. The strategic investment fund, 66ten, managed by WEHI Ventures, will back pre-Seed and Seed rounds in the hope of bridging… Read more »
Australia’s first dedicated pre-seed venture fund, Maxine Minter’s Co Ventures, has closed its first fund after hitting its $5 million target. Co Ventures Fund 1 is the result of nearly two years of work by Minter, who started fundraising in September 2022, before announcing the launch of her fund in April 2023. The support from… Read more »
Victorian startups will have eight new early-stage venture capital (VC) funds to hit up for cash, seeded with $300,000 each from LaunchVic. All up, $2.4 million in grants will go to the VCs, including some from Sydney, to open shop in Victoria. They are: Australian Medical Angels, Ecotone Partners, Era VC, Flying Fox Ventures, Mandalay… Read more »
Buoyed by the sale of its stake in Employment Hero late last year and with more exits on the horizon, pioneering Sydney VC fund OneVentures says it will return around $100 million more to investors over the next eight months as it looks to raise a new $200 million fund. OneVentures founding partner Dr Michelle… Read more »
Square Peg is raising for a sixth fund, as well as a new “Opportunities Fund 3”, seeking a combined $840 million, but cofounder Paul Bassat has promised more money will go back into investor pockets than they will invest in the years ahead. Twelve years on, Bassat said in Square Peg’s half-yearly update to June… Read more »
If the belief that having more women in venture capital will help address the chronic underfunding of female founders, then a new initiative backed by the Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) will make the Sunshine State the room where it happens. Getting more women in Queensland’s VC industry is the aim of 77 Venture Fellows, which… Read more »
A single deal that saw Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund sling $300 million at 15-year-old exchange traded funds (ETFs) manager Betashares in mid-June has plumped up Australia’s venture capital turkey in the final quarter of the 2024 financial year, hiding an otherwise disappointing three months for local startups. Data compiler Cut Through Venture included government-backed Temasek’s… Read more »
Venture capital funding for NSW startups began to decline in the first quarter of 2024 after swallowing two-thirds of all Australian investment in 2023, according to new data from funding analytics firm Techboard. Startup investment in the first quarter of 2024 had slowed with $761 million invested across 82 deals recorded over the first three… Read more »
First Australians Capital (FAC) has garnered $20 million in commitments for the first close of its Catalytic Impact Funds. Managing Partner Brian Wyborn said said the investors included long-standing cornerstone supporter Paul Ramsay Foundation, an anonymous Melbourne-based trust, and the Cages Foundation. “We’re thrilled to announce the first close of this fund, bringing together values-aligned… Read more »
Telstra’s appetite for venture capital (VC) investing is waning, and the telecommunications giant is looking to sell out of the $1.35 billion fund that no longer bears its name. Sydney and US-based Telstra Ventures has changed its name to Titanium Ventures, having been founded in 2011 and spun out of Telstra in 2018. Announcing the… Read more »
Specialist agtech venture capital firm Tenacious Ventures has attracted support from investors such as Tesla chair Robyn Denholm and RBA board member Carol Schwartz, securing $18 million in commitments for the first close of its second fund. Tenacious Ventures Fund II has a $50 million target and will maintain the existing focus on early stage… Read more »
I speak to hundreds of Australian founders every month from all backgrounds pursuing a wide range of businesses. However, there is one unifying view from them all: how hard it is to raise the necessary capital to scale and grow. There’s a counter-intuitive irony here; historically, the best venture returns have come from the vintages… Read more »
The Queensland government is backing in specialist venture capital firm Pollination in a new fund for local climate and nature technology startups. Pollination’s Climate and Nature Impact Venture Fund has kicked off with the Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) as cornerstone investor through the Queensland Venture Capital Development Fund (QVCDF). It’s been a busy week for… Read more »
Brisbane early and growth-stage venture capital fund Sprint Ventures is among four new VCs to be backed by the state government’s Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) as part of an ambitious plan to invest in more local startups. The QIC-managed Queensland Venture Capital Development Fund (QVCDF) is the cornerstone investor for Sprint Fund 3. It follows an initial… Read more »
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