{"id":40539,"date":"2023-10-20T15:08:38","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:08:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/the-state-of-play-for-australian-vc-in-2016-weve-gone-from-scorched-earth-to-green-shoots-startupsmart-2\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:08:38","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:08:38","slug":"the-state-of-play-for-australian-vc-in-2016-weve-gone-from-scorched-earth-to-green-shoots-startupsmart-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/the-state-of-play-for-australian-vc-in-2016-weve-gone-from-scorched-earth-to-green-shoots-startupsmart-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The state of play for Australian VC in 2016: \u201cWe\u2019ve gone from scorched earth to green shoots\u201d – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With four $200 million funds and a pipeline of new startup success stories, 2016 is set to be a flagship year for the Australian venture capital market, Blackbird Ventures co-founder Niki Scevak says.<\/p>\n

Australian venture capital has been built from the ground level in recent years and is beginning to come of age, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve gone from scorched earth to green shots,\u201d Scevak tells StartupSmart.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are now a group of funds that understand technology markets and products and have the long-term belief needed to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n

An industry coming of age<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Four of the biggest VC funds ever seen in Australia were launched last year<\/a>, with Blackbird, Blue Sky Venture Capital<\/a>, Square Peg Capital<\/a> and Brandon Capital all announcing $200 million raisings.<\/p>\n

As these funds begin to deploy capital to local startups, the market will inevitably begin to compete with the world, Blue Sky Venture Capital investment director Elaine Stead says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve heard many people comment recently that the number of large funds being raised makes them a little nervous that the market is saturated for capital,\u201d Stead tells StartupSmart. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAs Australia competes well with, or even outperforms, the US in terms of innovation outputs, I\u2019m confident there is still a lot of room and need for capital.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am hugely optimistic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scevak agrees, saying this will be the big challenge for the VC sector in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m confident we\u2019ll have a bunch of successful local funds but as the story of the many great startups built in Australia spread wider around the globe the real test will come in competing against the premier Silicon Valley names who will invariably invest in Series A rounds after they have great success in later-stage local rounds,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

While the VC landscape is developing at a rapid rate, Square Peg Capital co-founder Tony Holt says there\u2019s still a lot of work to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still have a long way to go relative to other markets but everything that has happened in the last six to 12 months has been really positive,\u201d Holt tells StartupSmart.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cTime needs to pass \u2013 it\u2019s not an overnight solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

What to expect from the $200 million funds in 2016<\/strong><\/h3>\n

With all the $200 million funds either closed or on the verge of closing, this year will see large deployments of venture capital into the Australian startup ecosystem.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a significant capacity to invest,\u201d Holt says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re excited about the state of the ecosystem and what\u2019s happening to it. We entered 2016 with a really positive mindset.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had interest that has exceeded our expectations. We\u2019re certainly in a position where we are investing from the new fund.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blackbird is on the hunt for founders that are ready to scale globally, Scavek says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to invest in ever more ambitious Australians who are aiming to be the best in the world, not the best in Australia,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe invest \u2013 and have invested since we started \u2013 in eight to 10 companies per year. This won\u2019t change because the markets are down or the markets go up. We have no more special knowledge than anyone else so we won\u2019t try to time the markets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll simply invest in the best entrepreneurs at a pace that we think makes sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blue Sky Ventures will be looking to close its own $200 million fund by the end of the year and is on the verge of fully deploying its previous fund after it was closed only eight months ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a strong signal of the deal-flow quality and volume we are seeing at the moment,\u201d Stead says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year we will be relentlessly focused on delivering investor value.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have three investments in the works right now which I look forward to sharing with everyone when we can talk about them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen we will focus on developing deal-flow for our third fund so we can hit the ground running when it closes.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

With four $200 million funds and a pipeline of new startup success stories, 2016 is set to be a flagship<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40539"}],"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=40539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}