VC Investment is becoming a serious Asset Class

Although Australia is in its first recession in 29 years, the startup investment scene remains active - with 3 new funds coming to the market focussed on Australia and New Zealand-founded startups .

The Australian Venture Capital Industry is coming into its own as an asset class - says Tony Surtees (Co-founder of Zeetings which was recently sold to Canva) at our BBG Innovation  Forum.

Amanda Price KPMG - head of High Growth Ventures - points out that Startup investment in Australia hit new highs over the first six months of 2020,  with 92 deals reaching US$944.7 million, up from US$627.3 compared to first six months of 2019 according to KPMG’s Venture Pulse report (circa 1% of global activity) See full Article  https://home.kpmg/au/en/home/media/press-releases/2020/07/australian-startup-investment-continues-rise-2020-despite-covid19-28-july.html - the article goes on to give details of Global VC Investment .

The standout Aussie Startup has been Atlassian Inc., which was founded in Australia about 19 years ago with less than $50k is now a $43 billion public company.

Aussie Funds loading up - getting ready to invest 

Square Peg cofounded by Justin Liberman and Andrew Bassat raised a A$350 million round in June (topping $1b with pension backing) 

Blackbird - cofounded by Niki Scevak, and Atlassian’s Mike Cannon-Brookes has  just raised  $500m  which now has  A$1.3 billion in total committed capital 

and 

Our Investment fund is  just finalising the  raise of its 2nd fund of 75m (see   https://bsivc.blogspot.com/2020/08/a-fresh-75m-for-australian-vc-our.html) for details of  what this amazing group of humans are doing ( Lawrence, Bella, Jeff,Dave and Jeremy )

Blackbird and Square Peg’s home run is its investment in Canva  of about $110 million part of capital rounds together  with with existing backers including Sequoia China , General Catalyst Partners, Square Peg , Felicis Ventures and Bond.

Canva now Has a $6 billion valuation in a funding round in June. 

Blackbird also invested in autonomous vehicle startup Zoox Inc., which sold in June to Amazon.com Inc. for more than $1 billion. 

All 3 like the edtech space - and together with Microsoft, Seek, Amazon and others have just backed GO1 in a $62m series C investment.

Edtech seems a hot space!!!! - it’s the #nexttechrevolution