Venture Capital updates and other news - Funding Strategies Connect August 2017

01 September 17

 Venture Capital updates and other news - Funding Strategies Connect August 2017


Dear Readers,

I attended the AVCAL / Future Fund Venture Capital (VC) workshop in Melbourne recently where I had a unique opportunity to hear from senior professionals at one of the world's leading venture investment firms.

There were a number of takeaways that I would like to share with you:

  • Venture Capital returns in the United States of America (US) over 20 years (20.2%) have outperformed US Private Equity (12.3%) and US Small Cap Equities (8.3%) and US Large Cap Equities (7.7%). These trends are driving inflows of capital into Venture Funds and early stage companies as investors seek better returns.

  • The amount of non-US VC investment is rising with China now dominating this space and challenging the US in terms of VC investment.

  • Australian Venture Capital fundraising has been increasing albeit off a low base with a large increase (ca. 40%) in investment in 2016 compared with 2015 with approx. $429m in Venture Capital being raised in 2016.

  • Funding Strategies and our investors are well placed to take advantage of these trends as we curate high growth investment opportunities that suit these capital flows.

As we have discussed in the last newsletter, we have a number of Early Stage Venture Capital Limited Partnership (ESVCLP) funds that investors can invest into to access these opportunities and/or investors can invest directly into high growth companies. Please contact us for more information.


In this newsletter I have included:

  • An introduction to CaroMel, Project 'Glucose Biosensor' and Haixi;

  • The latest news from CXi and Tooth Booth;

  • BlueMount Capital welcomes Flora Mok

  • An invitation for you to join us at the upcoming Executive Elite and ACBC events; and

  • An invitation from PwC's Nifty Forms: Take a look at the new Nifty Forms site

I also invite you to download our current deal list from our website (log-in required, membership is free).

Happy reading, and please get in touch if we can be of any assistance.

Mark Rainbird
Managing Director
Funding Strategies

Venture Capital updates and other news - Funding Strategies Connect August 2017