Top 50 Manufacturing Startup Investors in Australia in December 2024

Uniseed was established in October 2000 as a $20 million joint venture between the University of Melbourne (UM) and the University of Queensland (UQ). This proof of concept fund (Fund-1) operated with significant input and support from the commercialization offices of the two universities (UniQuest and Melbourne Ventures Limited), with staff ofthese organizations making up the majority of the Investment Committee and leading due diligence and management of most investment opportunities. Over 20 investments, typically of $250,000 - $500,000 were made from this fund.A new $40 million venture fund (Fund-2) ran from 2005-15, with the addition of a third leading university, the University of New South Wales, and a major private institutional investor, the Westscheme superannuation fund. The founding universities (UQ & UM) also committed further funds. Australian Super took over Westscheme's essets and commitments in July 2011.With the start of Fund-2, an independent management team was established, consisting of the CEO and three Investment Managers; one at each university catchment. The Investment Committee was restructured, with dedicated committees established for biotechnology or other technologies. The nominal investment limit was increased to $2.5 million to allow participation in follow-on funding rounds so as to preserve Uniseed's equity position.On 1 November 2015, Uniseed started its third and largest fund (Fund-3) with the addition of the University of Sydney and the CSIRO to the Universities of Queensland, Melbourne and NSW. This followed three high profile exits in the preceding 14 months (Fibrotech; Spinifex & Hatchtech). Each of the five partners committed $10 million over 10 years to the new fund (total fund $50 million).Uniseed’s partner research organisations spent nearly $4 billion on research, making up over 40% of the total research spend at 67 research organisations in Australia. Together, these organisations accounted for nearly 500 invention disclosures (34% of total) and 500 new registered IP rights filed (45% of total) over the same period(2013 National Survey of Research Commercialisation). Unlike private venture capital funds, Uniseed is dedicated to the needs of its research partners, and committed to servicing them consistently over the long term, irrespective of the short term conditions in external capital markets. It works in very close partnership with the research partner commercialisation companies and staff, providing a valuable adjunct to the capabilities these companies and staff provide. They in turn provide a best-practice commercialisation service tailored to their respective organisations. These companies are able to leverage to great effect the scale of operation and expertise of the Uniseed network.The fund is run with commercial discipline, ensuring independence and financial rigor in its investment decision-making processes. Success is measured by a balance of return on investment (including the flow of funds for research to further the commercialisation of intellectual property generated within the research partner catchments), the establishment of viable start-up companies, the generation of research income for research partners and the improvement of partner commercialisation processes.

Blackbird is a venture capital fund based in Australia and New Zealand. We invest in every type of technology from software to space, unified by the biggest of ambitions.

Uniseed was established in October 2000 as a $20 million joint venture between the University of Melbourne (UM) and the University of Queensland (UQ). This proof of concept fund (Fund-1) operated with significant input and support from the commercialization offices of the two universities (UniQuest and Melbourne Ventures Limited), with staff ofthese organizations making up the majority of the Investment Committee and leading due diligence and management of most investment opportunities. Over 20 investments, typically of $250,000 - $500,000 were made from this fund.A new $40 million venture fund (Fund-2) ran from 2005-15, with the addition of a third leading university, the University of New South Wales, and a major private institutional investor, the Westscheme superannuation fund. The founding universities (UQ & UM) also committed further funds. Australian Super took over Westscheme's essets and commitments in July 2011.With the start of Fund-2, an independent management team was established, consisting of the CEO and three Investment Managers; one at each university catchment. The Investment Committee was restructured, with dedicated committees established for biotechnology or other technologies. The nominal investment limit was increased to $2.5 million to allow participation in follow-on funding rounds so as to preserve Uniseed's equity position.On 1 November 2015, Uniseed started its third and largest fund (Fund-3) with the addition of the University of Sydney and the CSIRO to the Universities of Queensland, Melbourne and NSW. This followed three high profile exits in the preceding 14 months (Fibrotech; Spinifex & Hatchtech). Each of the five partners committed $10 million over 10 years to the new fund (total fund $50 million).Uniseed’s partner research organisations spent nearly $4 billion on research, making up over 40% of the total research spend at 67 research organisations in Australia. Together, these organisations accounted for nearly 500 invention disclosures (34% of total) and 500 new registered IP rights filed (45% of total) over the same period(2013 National Survey of Research Commercialisation). Unlike private venture capital funds, Uniseed is dedicated to the needs of its research partners, and committed to servicing them consistently over the long term, irrespective of the short term conditions in external capital markets. It works in very close partnership with the research partner commercialisation companies and staff, providing a valuable adjunct to the capabilities these companies and staff provide. They in turn provide a best-practice commercialisation service tailored to their respective organisations. These companies are able to leverage to great effect the scale of operation and expertise of the Uniseed network.The fund is run with commercial discipline, ensuring independence and financial rigor in its investment decision-making processes. Success is measured by a balance of return on investment (including the flow of funds for research to further the commercialisation of intellectual property generated within the research partner catchments), the establishment of viable start-up companies, the generation of research income for research partners and the improvement of partner commercialisation processes.

Jelix is an early-stage venture capital firm backing daring founders in Australia and New Zealand.

Transforming defence innovation through strategic partnership between the University of Adelaide (UoA), the University of NSW (UNSW) and industry partners, with support from the Australian Government Department of Education.

Melbourne Angels was formed in Melbourne, Australia in early 2007. Melbourne Angels is the leading group of private investors in Victoria who actively invest in early stage and growth technology companies.The group has a strong and experienced core of members that generate deal flow, are experienced in evaluation of business propositions and actas mentors for the other members and the entrepreneurs. The members vary in age, gender, ethnicity, profession and type of experience. All members have experience of success at being entrepreneurial.This award winning group is consistently one of the most active startup investors in the country.

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 specialised 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.

Formed in late 2006, the Brisbane Angels Pty Ltd is a large group of private investors who actively invest in early stage technology companies, usually in South East Queensland, Australia. The members are typically active or semi-retired former senior business executives, who apart from financial input can provide much needed value adding toinvestee companies through hands-on management experience and high level business networks.

ANU Connect Ventures manages two funds: The Discovery Translation Fund, which aims to support emerging businesses in undertaking crucial proof-of-concept work; and the $27 million Seed Investment fund for ANU-MTAA Super Venture Capital Partnership.Both funds have been established with the support of the ACT Government to invest in promisingcommercial opportunities arising out of the ANU research, other ACT-based research institutions and local R&D companies. More information regarding our investment funds and their criteria can be found in the Investment section.

Connecting innovation to the market.

We provide venture capital, expertise and advice to advanced manufacturing-focused Australian startups with global ambitions.

AirTree is a venture capital firm investing in Australian and New Zealand technology founders from seed stage or earlier.

Australian Business Growth Fund (ABGF) is a middle market private equity fund.

We work with inventors who are building something hard from their unique expertise in science. These inventors are building the industries that will thrive for the decades to come. We have a unique working model to accelerate a company's pathway to scale.

Investible is an early-stage venture capital firm backing the visionaries advancing humanity through technology in Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia and globally.

Right Click Capital - Australian Venture Capital Firm

Sydney Angels is a not-for-profit angel investment membership organisation. Since our establishment in 2008, they have stayed true to our mission of supporting the early-stage ecosystem by running processes and events that connect our investing members with promising early-stage companiesThey believe that encouraging smart investment in startupcompanies will benefit both our members’ portfolios and Australia’s emergent innovation economy.They see this as the ultimate win-win situation. Sydney Angels is led by an elected committee of ten volunteers who meet weekly. It is supported by an operations manager and alliance partners.

Michael brings over 20 years experience in strategy, business development and general management of technology startups and other high growth companies. Michael founded BuildingIQ in 2009 and served as its CEO until 2013. Prior to founding the company, Michael was a General Partner at Technology Venture Partners (TVP), a leading Australian venturecapital firm. Prior to TVP, he was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Altos Ventures, and a senior executive at iOwn Holdings, a leading Internet mortgage company (sold to Citigroup in 2001). Previously, Michael worked with Bain & Company and Goldman Sachs. He holds a BA with Honors from Amherst College and an MBA from Stanford Business School.

Anzu Partners is an investment firm that focuses on industrial and life science technology companies with the potential to transform their industry. Anzu's portfolio support platform is dedicated to drive results beyond our initial investment and establish long-term relationships. We team with entrepreneurs to develop and commercializetechnological innovations by providing capital and deep expertise in business development, market positioning, global connectivity, and operations. .Co-founders Whitney Haring-Smith, David Michael, and David Seldin launched the firm in 2014 in Washington, District of Columbia.

We back trailblazing entrepreneurs who transform the world with industrial 3D printing.

Working on something fresh. Also, Partner @Acceleprise & columnist @TheNextWeb.

Carthona Capital is a hands-on, proactive, and thematic venture capital investor based in Sydney, Australia that invests globally.

Qualgro is a venture capital (VC) fund based in Singapore that provides funding to tech startups across Southeast Asia, in areas like Data, Software, and AI.

Acorn Capital Specialist Emerging & Microcap Investment Management. We research and invest in the most attractive Australian based emerging or microcap companies.

OIF is a venture capital firm focusing on partnering with entrepreneurs building businesses.

The Global Health Investment Fund (GHIF) is a $108 million social impact investment fund designed to provide financing to advance the development of drugs, vaccines, diagnostics and other interventions against diseases that disproportionately burden low- and middle-income countries. GHIF supports late-stage innovations for public health challengessuch as malaria, pre-eclampsia, cholera, HIV and river blindness, with an emphasis on infectious diseases and maternal/infant health issues that cause significant morbidity and mortality in resource-limited settings. GHIF may also make investments that improve or expand access to existing products—such as developing pediatric formulations of approved therapeutics or improving the stability of widely-used global health vaccines.As an investment fund with a limited time-horizon, GHIF seeks opportunities that have a high probability of successful commercialization within two or three years. Products with “dual market” potential are of greatest interest; i.e., those that will have a clear impact on public health in developing countries but also have value in high-income countries. High-volume / low-margin products, such as essential vaccines, are also of significant interest.GHIF employs a range of investment structures including mezzanine debt, convertible debt, preferred equity and project financing with an average investment target of approximately $10 million per project. Each GHIF project must advance the Fund’s social impact objectives and demonstrate the ability to achieve commercial success.

ACAC Innovation provides angel investment, mentoring and support to game-changing startups. We work with founders to turn their innovative ideas into successful businesses.

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation invests using a commercial approach to overcome market barriers and mobilize investment in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and low emissions technologies. They seek to catalyze and leverage private sector funding for the commercialization and deployment of clean energy technologies necessary for thetransition to a carbon-constrained economy.

The Breakthrough Victoria Fund is a $2 billion investment by the Victorian Government to drive investment in research and innovation.

Archangel is an early stage venture capital fund based in Australia. We work with great founders and investors to build game changing companies together.

Early Stage Venture Capital (VC) Firm

Connect your energy with Origin Energy - an Award Winning Electricity Provider & Gas Supplier. We also offer NBN internet, LPG, and custom solar solutions

Stoic VC is an early-stage venture fund backing founders at the forefront of University Innovation. We partner with Uniseed to accelerate the commercialisation of university research across the ANZ.

Prior to MVP, he was Vice President at Arbor Advisors, leading their highly successful entry into the digital media and interactive marketing industries. He advised clients in a number of industry-leading transactions, such as the sale of WorldClass Strategy to EducationDynamics, the sale of ReliableRemodeler.com to Quinstreet, the sale ofInvestopedia.com to Forbes Media, and the sale of Interest.com to Bankrate.Sandy is a regular speaker at industry conferences, including Ad-Tech and LeadsCon. He received his B.A. in Psychology and M.S. in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University.

South Australian Venture Capital Fund - helping build dynamic and innovative South Australian startups / scaleups and accelerate their growth to a national and global scale.

DHL is a division of the German logistics company Deutsche Post DHL that provides international express mail services. Deutsche Post is a large-scale logistics company operating around the world. DHL provides world market services both in sea and air mail.DHL was primarily interested in offshore and inter-continental deliveries, but the successof FedEx prompted its own intra-U.S. expansion starting in 1983. DHL aggressively expanded to countries that could not be served by any other delivery service, including the Soviet Union, Eastern Bloc, Iraq, Iran, China, Vietnam, and North Korea.Deutsche Post then effectively absorbed DHL into its Express division, while expanding the use of the DHL brand to other Deutsche Post divisions, business units and subsidiaries.Originally founded in 1969 to deliver documents between San Francisco and Honolulu, the company expanded its service throughout the world by the late 1970s. DHL was founded in 1969 and is based in Bonn.

Coca-Cola Amatil manufactures and distributes both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages along with ready-to-eat snacks. Coca-Cola Amatil is one of the largest bottlers and distributors of non-alcoholic and alcoholic ready-to-drink beverages in the Asia Pacific region and one of the world’s larger bottlers of The Coca-Cola Company’s range ofproducts.

A grant program offered by AusIndustry as part of the Australian Government’s National Innovation and Science Agenda

Bunge is a global agribusiness and food company operating in the farm-to-consumer food chain. The Company is engaged in oilseed processing, producing and supplying fertilizer to farmers in South America, and selling packaged vegetable oils worldwide. The Company conducts its operations in three divisions: agribusiness, fertilizer, and food andingredients. These divisions include four reportable business segments: agribusiness, fertilizer, edible oil products and milling products. Its agribusiness division is an integrated business principally involved in the purchase, storage, transport, processing, and sale of agricultural commodities and commodity products. Its fertilizer division is involved in every stage of the fertilizer business, from mining of phosphate-based raw materials to the sale of retail fertilizer products. Its food and ingredients division consists of two reportable business segments: edible oil products and milling products.

Grand Challenges Canada is dedicated to supporting Bold Ideas with Big Impact® in global health. They are funded by the Government of Canada and they fund innovators in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and Canada. The bold ideas they support integrate science and technology, social and business innovation – they call this IntegratedInnovation®. They focus on bringing successful innovation to scale, catalyzing sustainability and impact. They have a determined focus on results, and on saving and improving lives.Grand Challenges Canada works closely with Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and Global Affairs Canada to catalyze scale, sustainability and impact. Grand Challenges Canada takes an evidence-based approach to development innovation to save and improve lives in LMICs. They are a platform for development innovation in Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) through their Saving Lives at Birth, Saving Brains and MNCH Stars in Global Health programs. They are also focused on helping the poorest and most vulnerable populations, for example those who suffer from mental illness.Since their launch in 2010, Grand Challenges Canada has supported a pipeline of over 700 projects in more than 80 countries. Their investments are producing results: Thousands of lives have been saved and over two hundred and eighty thousand lives have been improved, thus far. By 2030, these innovations have the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives and improve millions of lives.

77 Partners provides early capital, deep mentorship, and global connections to high potential founders in Queensland and Australia.

Technology investments for tomorrow's world

A global community who catalyzes builders of impactful companies

Duncan Alexander

The George Institute for Global Health is an independent medical research institute that helps to improve the health of millions of people worldwide. With projects in more than 50 countries, it has raised over 500 million dollars for global health research since 1999, and it has been ranked among the top 10 research institutions in the world forscientific impact by the SCImago Institution Rankings World Report in 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014.The George Institute for Global Health’s work includes preventing heart disease in India, improving healthcare for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, closing healthcare gaps in China, making roads safer around the world, preventing the complications of diabetes, changing decades old thinking about intensive care, improving outcomes among stroke survivors, using mobile technology to make healthcare accessible worldwide, and developing tools to empower people to improve their own health.The George Institute for Global Health was founded in 1999 and is based in Sydney.

Impact investment

Queensland Investment Corporation is an investment company.

Saar Gillai is an Independent board director at Xilinx, Semtech, and Liquid Instruments as well as a CEO advisor to multiple companies. Saar is also an executive mentor at Merryck. Previously, Saar was the CEO of Teridion, a SaaS startup focused on cloud networking, where he grew recurring revenue 50% YoY, and expanded the product line to go afterthe SD-WAN market.Before Teridion, Saar was the Senior Vice President and General Manager of HPE’s Communications Solutions Business (CSB), a global billion-dollar division with over 4000 employees. In this role, Saar integrated multiple units and acquisitions into one cohesive division focused on the Telco space. He established HPE as a key player in the software-defined next-generation service provider market and grew network virtualization revenue by over 10x within two years.Before running CSB, Saar spent two years as the Senior Vice President and General Manager of HP Cloud where he played a vital role in aggressively driving and consolidating HP's disparate cloud efforts into a full business unit with the number one market position in private cloud while working closely with F50 enterprises on their cloud adoption and digital transformation journey.Prior to HPE, Saar was SVP of Products and Solutions at 3com, where he played a key role in rebuilding 3coms enterprise offerings, driving the collaboration with H3C, a Chinese subsidiary, and ultimate sale to HP for ~$3B, achieving a 350% valuation increase in 18 months. In addition, Saar has held C level positions at Tropos Networks and Enfora; two startups focused on Wireless Mesh and M2M / IoT, and spent seven years at Cisco Systems in a variety of leadership positions, including VP of Engineering for the Wireless Networking business undevelopment and operations with Enfora, Inc., a wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) company. In addition, Mr. Gillai served for seven years in a variety of leadership positions with Cisco Systems, Inc., including as Vice President of Engineering for Cisco’s Wireless Networking business unit.

Supporting climate tech founders

Lightbank VC is a $700M AUM venture fund that invests in early-stage consumer, enterprise, healthcare, crypto, fintech and climate companies. It focuses on pre-seed, seed and Series A opportunities where they write initial checks between $250k - $5m. They have invested in over 150 companies such as Tempus, Udemy, Fiverr (NYSE: FVRR), Sprout Social(NYSE: SPRT), Boom Supersonic, Tastytrade (acq. $1B+), Extend, Attain, Paytient and Expel.