Australia's Alium raises $79m venture fund

The vehicle, known as Alpha, will make sector agnostic growth investments in listed companies across Eurasia as well as more catalytic venture-style deployments in private technology start-ups across Asia Pacific. Ticket sizes will range from A$500,000 to A$5 million.

Rajeev Gupta, a partner at Alium, said Alpha is currently considering a number of potential investments that combine artificial intelligence (AI) with film technology and customer services. He also identified Australasia as a highly prospective geography for media-related AI technology companies.

“We’re looking for businesses that others are generally not looking at in artificial intelligence and creative technologies,” Gupta said. “You find a lot of people looking at enterprise SaaS [software-as-a-service] or marketplaces, but our focus tends to be in businesses that are slightly edgier.”

Alium was founded last year with a view to investing in recapitalizations, placements and pre-IPO companies that have a niche focus on behalf of family offices and high net worth individuals. Investment activity began as early as April this year with participation in a A$26.7 million round for Australian start-up HealthEngine. This was followed in May with a contribution to a $23 million round for Australian advertising technology company Unlockd.

The firm is also raising a fund, known as Market Neutral, that invests large-cap stocks with a bias toward the US, Japan and Australia. The vehicle has about A$20 million in assets under management to date. 

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Australasia
• Fundraising
• Growth
• Venture
• Australia
• Asia
• Media
• Technology