{"id":38309,"date":"2023-10-20T14:55:36","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/aussie-vc-firm-blue-sky-ventures-takes-part-in-13-million-startup-deal-as-it-looks-to-break-into-asia-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:55:36","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:55:36","slug":"aussie-vc-firm-blue-sky-ventures-takes-part-in-13-million-startup-deal-as-it-looks-to-break-into-asia-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/aussie-vc-firm-blue-sky-ventures-takes-part-in-13-million-startup-deal-as-it-looks-to-break-into-asia-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Aussie VC firm Blue Sky Ventures takes part in $13 million startup deal as it looks to break into Asia – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ben<\/div>\n

Blue Sky Ventures has participated in a $13 million dollar funding round in a fast-growing Thailand-based startup as the Australian VC firm looks to expand its reach into Asia.<\/p>\n

The firm has taken part in\u00a0a $13.6 million co-investment deal in aCommerce alongside the likes of Indonesian fund MDI Ventures and a Switzerland-based market expansion company.<\/p>\n

Blue Sky Venture Capital director Ben Dunphy says that over the past year the firm has started to build its network in the Asia region.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re living in the Asian century,\u201d Dunphy tells StartupSmart.<\/em><\/p>\n

This first investment will pave the way for Dunphy and his team to leverage some of the exciting new startup developments emerging in Australia’s neighbours.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrimarily, our goal is always to invest in amazing Australian founders but about 40% of our portfolio now is North America,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

And the firm\u00a0plans to diversify this further with Asia-based ventures.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople think of South East Asia as just China and India but it\u2019s not one market, it\u2019s six different markets with very different cultures and technologies,\u201d Dunphy says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s great opportunity for growth there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The open door to Asia for Australian VCs<\/h3>\n

Much like Australia, a spike in new startups in South East Asia has led to an emergence of high-growth ventures\u00a0looking for venture capital funding.<\/p>\n

But with the pool of experienced VCs proving to be quite limited in the region, many local founders are forced to turn to the US to find them, and\u00a0Dunphy says this opens a door for\u00a0Blue Sky Venture Capital and other Australian investors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in a very unique position as a western country on the doorstep of Asia,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a real dearth of capital there for later-stage investments.\u201d<\/p>\n

In breaking into Asia, Dunphy says he looked\u00a0at a few different startups before choosing to partner with aCommerce.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur first investment had to have really strong conviction,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never want to invest in a company where we can\u2019t add value and where we feel like we\u2019re just passive value.”<\/p>\n

aCommerce provides technology, marketing and logistics services through its ecommerce platform for retailers, and boasts clients like Nestle, Groupon and L\u2019Oreal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re a market leader,\u201d Dunphy says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re building real infrastructure to support the growth of ecommerce.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision to go with aCommerce was fuelled by its strong market positioning, the establishment of 10 warehouses with more than 1200 employees, and\u00a0a “tremendous management team”, he says.<\/p>\n

In an attempt to double down on promising developments like aCommerce, Dunphy says Blue Sky\u00a0will continue to watch the region\u2019s startup sector and invest in more high growth ventures\u00a0.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still a very early stage market, you\u2019re only just starting to see really exciting trends emerge,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really about forging that link between Australian and Asia.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that we only want to invest in South East Asian businesses, we also want Australian businesses to attack that region.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<\/em>SoundCloud<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blue Sky Ventures has participated in a $13 million dollar funding round in a fast-growing Thailand-based startup as the Australian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38309"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}