Australia's Athena Home Loans gets $48m Series C

Square Peg Capital, Salesforce Ventures, AirTree Ventures, and Hostplus also participated, as did NAB Ventures, the VC arm of National Australia Bank (NAB). It is AustralianSuper's first direct investment in a start-up and comes just under a year after a A$25 million Series B led by Square Peg.

Athena was founded in 2017 by former executives from NAB as an online platform to help homeowners refinance their mortgages with better loan terms through the superannuation sector and other non-bank lenders. The company claims to be able to save clients A$60,000 during the life of their home loans and is said to have facilitated more than A$500 million worth of loans to date.

AustralianSuper’s investment reflects a recent wave of local pension funds reengaging with VC after experiencing disappointment in the asset class a decade ago. The firm has two VC relationships in its home market, including AirTree and healthcare-focused Brandon Capital. Co-investments typically fall beyond the current scope of Athena in a range of $50-100 million per transaction. 

"The fund is increasingly finding attractive opportunities in venture capital, along with the other investments we’re making in smaller-sized Australian companies," Shaun Manuell, a senior portfolio manager at AustralianSuper, said, according to The Australian Financial Review.

Investment in later-stage Australian start-ups has experienced momentum in recent years as homegrown technology companies begin to play higher-profile roles in a local business culture traditionally dominated by primary industries. Recent fintech activity in this trend includes enterprise payments services provider Airwallex achieving unicorn status with a $100 million Series C.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Financials
• Technology
• Expansion
• Australia
• AustralianSuper
• Square Peg Capital
• AirTree Ventures
• HOSTPLUS
• NAB
• Financial Services