Blackbird’s latest $1B AUD fund shows maturation of Australia, New Zealand venture scene • TechCrunch


Australia and New Zealand’s startup community will see more funding this year. Blackbird, a VC fund based in the two South Pacific countries, closed more than AUD$1 billion in funding on Wednesday, about $640 million, which the firm said was its largest Australian fund to date.

This is Blackbird’s fifth fund, and doubles the size of the VC’s last fund, which closed in August 2020. A number of institutional investors have participated, including pension funds such as Australia Super, Hostplus, Australia’s sovereign wealth fund, Futures Fund, New Zealand’s sovereign wealth fund and others. The New Zealand Growth Capital Partners Raised Fund, which is a government-backed fund.

A decade ago, most Australian, and particularly New Zealand, institutional investors were reluctant to put their money into tech startups. Their support reflects the maturation of the Australian/New Zealand venture capital space today.

“[Superannuation fund] Capital can go anywhere. It can tap into the best Silicon Valley VCs,” Sam Wong, partner at Blackbird, told TechCrunch. “And the fact that they’ve chosen to invest their money in an Aussie and Kiwi fund of this scale speaks volumes for the ecosystem and shows that we’ve earned our right on the international stage to manage that capital.”

According to Wong, it makes sense for pension funds to support the technology space because they have decades of experience and can be patient.

“What they really care about is high profits so that people can retire with dignity,” she said. “And when you have that long-term horizon, you can look for high-return assets that don’t have the same liquidity profile that public markets do. And that’s what we’ve found in the Australian superannuation system – they love the technology because it’s high growth and high returns. It’s a long day, and you don’t think it’s closed for 10 years.”

The fund is backed by more than 270 individual investors, many of whom are technology founders and operators that Blackbird has previously funded, the firm said. Those founders support the fund both with their own capital but also with their expertise, knowledge and connections, Wong said.

The total AUD $1 billion is comprised of three different vehicles: a $284 million (USD $182 million) main fund for pre-seed and seed-stage Aussie companies, an AUD $668 million (USD $472 million) follow-on fund to support Blackbird’s portfolio companies from “Series A to The last round of Canva” and NZD $ 75 million ($ 44 million) allocated to the New Zealand fund, which is mostly for pre-seed and seed stage companies.

Blackbird prides itself on cutting the first checks, which can range from $25,000 for a small pre-seed to $5 million in a seed round, Wong said. The firm’s mandate is to invest in founders with Aussie or Kiwi connections, which usually means they are based in those countries, but often ends up founding companies overseas. About 40% of Blackbird’s portfolio companies are headquartered in the US, said Phoebe Harrop, Blackbird’s principal.

The fund has made 18 investments in a wide range of industries, from AI to manufacturing to e-commerce. Last month, Blackbird invested in Sunder, an employee and student security company, and Spice AI, a data and AI-driven infrastructure platform.

Blackbird says it predicts tech companies will account for 20% of Australia’s GDP by 2032, up from 8.5% today, according to the Technology Council of Australia.

“We are here to change the culture of the Australian and New Zealand ecosystems, to bring about change at the national level,” Blackbird partner Niguse Ssevak said in a statement.



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