Australian seed investor launches $50m global fund

The new vehicle joins Followtheseed’s dedicated Australia fund, which launched in 2015 with a target of A$50 million ($38.4 million). In a statement the firm said it recently closed that vehicle, though did not specify the closing size, and also said it has already received pre-commitments for over 60% of the global fund. There are plans to launch an Israel-focused fund within the next few months.

Followtheseed expects to make 100-120 investments from the global fund, committing between $500,000 and $2 million per company. Investments are expected to center on global technology start-ups with strong growth potential creating habit-forming products and services, such as gaming, messaging and e-commerce.

The firm uses proprietary software to predict future adoption rates for potential investees’ products. It claims to be able to detect likely hits at earlier stages than other VC firms. While investors typically do not feel comfortable backing a software company until it has a few million users, Followtheseed says it can flag opportunities based on the behavior of the first few thousand customers.

The firm was founded in 2015 and has offices in Sydney, Beijing, Tel Aviv and San Francisco. Its investments so far include US-based enterprise security developer Workspot and Australian educational staffing software provider Class Cover.

"Our global reach will provide investors with unique access to diversified quality deal flow from Israel, Silicon Valley and Australia and make it possible for ventures to expand to the US and Asia, especially China," said Followtheseed founder Curt Shi. "When a company like Workspot, which is based in the Silicon Valley and already has access to top tier VCs, chooses us to join their growth journey it proves our team and network offers a real added value to everyone involved."

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Fundraising
• Venture
• GPs
• Australia
• seed