A list of the most active and promising VC investors in Australia. The list includes both, early stage and mature venture capital firms that are looking to invest, advise and develop innovative technology businesses in Australia.
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Top Venture Capital Firms in Australia
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1. Artesian VC
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Artesian Capital Management is an alternative investments management company, which was spun out of ANZ Banking Group's capital markets business in 2004, with backing from ANZ Private Equity. Artesian's founding partners, purchased ANZ's stake in 2005. The company has subsequently been fully owned by partners and staff.
Since 2004,Artesian has managed specialiset funds focused on credit arbitrage and relative-value strategies across global financial markets.
In 2008, while continuing to manage credit relative value investment strategies from its New York, London and Singapore offices, Artesian began to make principal investments in seed/early-stage ventures from its offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Shanghai.
In 2011, Artesian launched the first of its early stage venture capital funds and now manages AUD +255m. Artesian's VC strategy is to partner with best of breed accelerators, incubators, angel groups and university programs. In 2017, Artesian launched its China VC Fund with a USD 50m cornerstone investment industry super fund Hostplus. Artesian will soon launch a Southeast Asia VC Fund.
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Website: www.artesianinvest.com
Founded: 2004
Total fund size: $65.5M
Artesian VC's most notable exits include Instaclustr, Shareablee, and Jayride.
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2. Blackbird Ventures
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Blackbird Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in inherently global Internet businesses formed by Australians. We back world-class founders who are setting out to make a difference in the world. Blackbird Ventures itself is a collection of Australia’s most successful startup founders and Silicon Valley’s top investors who want to helpyou succeed on a global stage. Blackbird’s fund investors are the founders of some of Australia’s most successful technology companies like Atlassian, Campaign Monitor, Aconex and more. They’re not only investing their money but also their time to help you succeed. Because we are looking for companies who are striving to be the best in the world we can help with introductions to our Silicon Valley networks, providing access to further expertise and capital. We provide equity capital for all stages from seed, series A and later stage.
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Website: www.blackbird.vc
Founded: 2012
Total fund size: $791.7M
Blackbird Ventures's most notable exits include Redbubble, LIFX, and Zoox.
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3. Square Peg Capita
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Square Peg is a venture capital fund that invests in Australia, Israel, and Southeast Asia investing in any round.
The fund supports outstanding entrepreneurs solving big problems in a unique and differentiated way. The company is a group of individuals united by a passion for technology and its potential to change the world. It partners with outstanding entrepreneurs that are building online and technology leaders of tomorrow and support them by leveraging their decades of experience building, investing in, and advising technology businesses, from start-up to multi-billion dollar public enterprises. We focus on Australia and New Zealand, South-East Asia, and Israel.
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Website: www.squarepegcap.com
Founded: 2012
Total fund size: $1B
Square Peg Capital's most notable exits include Uber, Fiverr, and PropertyGuru Group.
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4. AirTree is a venture
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capital fund with a mission to support the most ambitious Australian and Kiwi technology entrepreneurs who are defining the trajectory of our society. As one of the largest VC funds in the region with over half a billion dollars under management, AirTree aims to back startups from the earliest moments in their first fundinground, often pre-revenue, and has the firepower to continue supporting successful companies over multiple, subsequent rounds.
AirTree’s 2014 and 2016 vintage funds are both performing in the top quartile of US VCs. They include early investments in break-out companies such as Prospa, Secure Code Warrior, Pet Circle, Canva, Athena, Brighte, Joyous, Thematic, Transcelestial, Expert360 and A Cloud Guru.
With the largest and most experienced venture team in the region, AirTree offers founders much more than just money with their suite of value-add services including recruitment, expertise, connections and advocacy.
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Website: www.airtree.vc
Founded: 2014
Total fund size: $1.1B
AirTree Ventures's most notable exits include Prospa, Xplor, and Paxata.
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5. Investible
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Investible is an early-stage venture capital firm backing the visionaries advancing humanity through technology. Its mission is to connect ground-breaking companies with the capital, expertise and networks they need to realise their potential on a global scale.
Founded in 2014 and with offices in Sydney and Singapore, its unique approach toearly-stage tech investment globally sees its VC Funds co-investing alongside members of Club Investible, an active, global investor community. Its group portfolio includes more than 100 early-stage companies across 9 countries and 20 sectors.
Investible is also building Greenhouse, a new Climate Tech ecosystem dedicated to accelerating the collaboration, adoption and impact of climate technologies on a global scale. Greenhouse, a flagship initiative supported by the City of Sydney, will be a leading contributor to the region’s contribution to the global Climate Tech sector.
Investible is a member of the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative; a commitment by international asset managers representing over $43 trillion to support the goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner.
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Website: www.investible.com
Founded: 2014
Total fund size: $174.1M
Investible's most notable exits include Freelancer Technology, Wisr, and Brandscreen.
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6. Carthona Capital
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Carthona Capital is a hands-on, proactive, and thematic venture capital investor based in Sydney, Australia that invests globally.
Carthona Capital was founded in 2014 when a group of like-minded venture investors came together to invest on a deal-by-deal basis. Since then, Carthona Capital has shifted to a more traditional venture capital fundstructure, and is now deploying its third fund with approximately $400m in funds under management from a mix of Institutional (Superannuation), Family Office and High Net-worth investors.
Carthona Capital likes to invest very early - their initial investment into a business is usually at the Pre-Seed, Seed, or Series A stages. Carthona then likes to follow-on strongly and continue to deploy larger amounts of capital as a business matures.
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Website: www.carthonacapital.com
Founded: 2014
Total fund size: $400M
Carthona Capital's most notable exits include Life360, Abra, and Airtasker.
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7. Kosmos Ventures
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Kosmos Ventures is one of Australia's largest and most active multi-strategy VC firms specializing in blockchain-based assets. We've been operating since 2017 and are an early backer for high-profile projects such as Algorand, Solana, Polkadot,
Oasis. We have an active stake in all major L1's and supporting these networks throughvalidator staking with our partners. Our focus has always been on large infrastructure projects, but we've also supported numerous successful DeFi and GameFi projects. Kosmos's full portfolio can be viewed at https://www.kosmos.vc/portfolio
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Website: www.kosmos.vc
Founded: 2017
Total fund size: $7.5M
Kosmos Ventures has had 2 exits. Kosmos Ventures's most notable exits include Loopring and Evernym.
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8. Reinventure
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Reinventure is pioneering Founder-First Corporate Venture Capital. They champion founders who have the vision, ambition and hustle to transform an industry across Asia-Pacific and beyond, propelling them with the support of a top 20 bank globally.
With $150 million under management and Westpac Banking Corporation as its largest limited partner, Reinventure is focused on uncovering, investing in and nurturing scalable early businesses in FinTech and adjacent areas that will be the future of the industry.
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Website: www.reinventure.com.au
Founded: 2014
Total fund size: $137.3M
Reinventure has had 9 exits. Reinventure's most notable exits include Coinbase, Hmlet, and SocietyOne.
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9. Clinton Capital Partners
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Clinton Capital Partners is a VC advisory business that specialises in raising capital and growing shareholder returns, for early stage technology companies and their investors.
In addition, we invest our own funds to align company, investor and advisor. We have completed >70 successful transactions, and crystallised 14 liquidity events.Clinton Capital Partners has a long and established track record of growing companies, raising capital, conducting mergers, and creating liquidity events. When raising capital, we feel early-stage companies underestimate the time involved, the distraction to the underlying business, and the importance of identifying the right culturally aligned investors for their journey.
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Website: www.clintoncapitalpartners.com
Founded: 2015
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10. Southern Cross Venture Partners
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Southern Cross Venture Partners was launched in 2006 by veteran venture capitalists who have managed and operated companies themselves. Southern Cross Venture Partners assist early stage technology companies that demonstrate the potential for exceptional growth and market leadership build significant businesses. The founding principle of SouthernCross is partnership -- they are passionately committed to doing everything they can to help their portfolio companies succeed. Their team has a strong record of utilizing their start-up and management experience, industry knowledge, network of business/customer relationships, and recruiting skills to assist in building significant shareholder value.
Southern Cross is currently investing in companies that fit their investment criteria. They prefer to act as lead or co-lead in the early stages where they have experience that can help build value rapidly. They do not have a minimum investment amount, however, a typical initial investment will be $2 million to $5 million with an ability to invest more money in later rounds.
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Website: www.sxvp.com
Founded: 2006
Total fund size: $370M
Southern Cross Venture Partners's most notable exits include Bigtincan, Omeros, and Quantenna Communications.
