Blackbird hits $193m final close on Australia VC fund

The venture capital firm hit the $100 million hard cap on the core vehicle in April, having originally targeted A$75 million. The top-up fund reached a first close of A$125 million at the same time. The fundraising process is now complete, and the corpus stands at A$161 million, Rick Baker, a co-founder of Blackbird, told AVCJ.

The dual-vehicle structure was introduced for Fund II in 2015, partly to accommodate large investments from superannuation funds First State Super and Hostplus, which contributed A$101 million and A$35 million, respectively. This capital was spread across both funds, with the core vehicle closing at A$75 million and the top-up at A$125 million.

First State and Hostplus have both re-upped for Fund III, and they have been joined by Future Fund. This marks the first investment in an Australian venture capital player by the domestic sovereign wealth fund, which already has substantial allocations to VC and high growth small businesses through its international portfolio. Other LPs include approximately 100 individual investors, most of them technology entrepreneurs.

Since raising Fund II, Blackbird has seen one of its portfolio companies – graphic design platform Canva – achieve a $1 billion valuation after raising a $40 million funding round led by Sequoia Capital China. Blackbird and Felicis Ventures also participated. The deal was seen to justify Blackbird's strategy of investing start-ups that are global from the outset and supporting them across multiple rounds.

The firm was founded in 2012 by Baker, formerly a portfolio manager at MLC, and Bill Baree, managing director of Southern Cross Venture Partners. Blackbird continues to back businesses in areas like enterprise software, where there is a clear cross-border angle, but it is also active in hardware. Investments this year include Propeller Aero, a manufacturer of drone-mounted analytical equipment, and space technology start-up Fleet.

Blackbird is not the only Australian venture capital firm to adopt a core fund-opportunity fund structure to attract superannuation money: AirTree Ventures raised A$250 million in 2016 with support from two super funds. The other local VC player to achieve scale, Square Peg Capital, secured A$234 million last year but for a single-tranche structure.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Fundraising
• Venture
• Technology
• GPs
• Australia
• Blackbird Ventures
• Venture
• Future Fund
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