Catalysing Funding For Startups In Victoria

The number of startups in Victoria has more than tripled since 2017 to more than 3,800, but access to early-stage venture capital and seed funding remains a barrier.

LaunchVic addresses this market challenge through targeted funds and programs that catalyse investment and seed funding in Victoria’s early-stage startups. By fostering connections with angels and supporting venture capitalists, LaunchVic creates more investors for startups in Victoria.

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Two girls sitting in a meeting room attending a LaunchVic's female founder event for the Alice Anderson Fund

LaunchVic Startup Funds

LaunchVic runs two targeted investment funds focusing on underserviced areas in the startup ecosystem.

The Alice Anderson Fund for women entrepreneurs
The Hugh Victor McKay Fund for agtech founders, in partnership with Agriculture Victoria

Both funds operate in a sidecar structure. That means LaunchVic co-invests in startups with private investors like VCs and angels, and does not lead the round. This approach provides essential seed funding and supports early-stage ventures.

Alice Anderson Fund

Between 2018-2021 only 4% of Australian VC funding went to women-founded startups. LaunchVic is working to change things with the $10 million Alice Anderson Fund, a sidecar fund that co-invests in women-led startups with private sector investors.

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Hugh Victor McKay Fund

The Hugh Victor McKay Fund is a sidecar fund for Victorian AgTech startups run by LaunchVic with funding from Agriculture Victoria. The fund will co-invest between $100,000-$200,000 into at least ten early-stage AgTech startups over the next 12 months.

LaunchVic Funded Angel Investor Groups

An angel investment network is a formalised group of angel investors that collectively evaluate and invest in entrepreneurial ventures.

LaunchVic has funded ten angel networks to establish in Victoria and invest in startups, enhancing the availability of seed funding and venture capital for local entrepreneurs.

The Playbook Angel Network is a syndicate of experienced founders and operators who want to lean in and support the next generation of founders.

Ecotone Ventures is a climate-focused Angel Network based in Victoria connecting the growing number of climate-conscious investors to early-stage ventures with climate solutions.

Cut Through Angels is an angel group from startup aggregator Cut Through Venture. The fund is industry agnostic and technology-centric.

Australian Medical Angels is predominately made up of practising clinicians that offers both clinical validation and invaluable links to the healthcare industry for Victorian-based HealthTech Startups.

Flying Fox aims to back teams solving big problems in large markets that are undergoing macro shifts, with a preference for solutions that bring people together, improve everyday life, or address physical and environmental health.

Scale Investors is Australia’s first and only network of angel investors committed to investing in and empowering exceptional women entrepreneurs.

Innovation Bay brings together a group of passionate investors to meaningfully connect and fuel the future of startups.

Archangel is an early stage venture capital fund investing in Australian startups. They work with great technology founders and investors to build game changing companies together.

Angel Partners is a platform for angel investors find, qualify and invest in early stage technology startups.

A wholesale investor syndicate dedicated to Australian hardware technology.

LaunchVic Funded VC Funds

VC Firms are investment entities set up to hold funds collected from other investors and invest on their behalf into startups or early-stage businesses with high growth potential. These investors can be institutions (superfunds, corporations) or high net worth individuals.

LaunchVic has funded 15 new Venture Capital (VC) funds to set up in the state and back local founders.

LaunchVic VC Support cut through ventures

Australian Medical Angels are a new early-stage VC fund focused on the next wave of medtech and healthcare startups.

Led by Nicole Kleid-Small and Amanda Goodman, the Planet Fund focuses on investing in early-stage climate tech startups via both equity and debt.

Era VC focuses on investing in early-stage transformative startups in the consumer products and associated technology ecosystem.

Led by Rachael Neumann and Kylie Frazer, Flying Fox Ventures has established a novel VC fund structure that will use Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) to hold multiple startup investments across different stages and sectors.

Mandalay Funds Management invests in high potential Australian agrifood technology ventures across Seed to Series A.

Pacific Channel invests in deep-tech pre-seed to early-stage companies within the future of food, health and the environment in Victoria.

SBE Australia invests in women-led startups.

A spin out of the MedTech Actuator, Synthesis Capital invests in early-stage, deeptech medical, health and wellbeing-related ventures, from pre-seed to series A+.

Australia’s first VC fund of funds with a focus on secondaries.

A DeepTech fund investing in healthcare, advanced manufacturing, cleantech, and agtech.

A platform making VC and startup investing accessible to retail and wholesale investors.

A VC fund supporting women-led startups from pre-seed to Series A.

A Sydney-based VC expanding into Melbourne to back local B2B and B2B2C startups.

A fintech-focused fund investing pre-product to IPO, led by Judy Anderson, Brian Collins and Up Bank Co-Founder Dom Pym.

A specialist early-stage fund focused on AI-native startups.

Venture debt

Tractor Ventures

In 2020, LaunchVic invested $300,000 in Tractor Ventures to establish Victoria’s first dedicated revenue-based fund (venture debt fund), targeted at early-stage revenue positive and self-funded startups.

Tractor Ventures provides a revenue-based alternative to traditional venture capital for startups that either do not want to, or are not able to attract VC funding.

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Investor Education

VC Catalyst

Delivered by the Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship at the University of Melbourne, the immersive VC Catalyst course focuses on providing the next wave of venture investors with the knowledge, skills, confidence and networks to invest in early-stage startups.

With LaunchVic’s funding the program has supported more than 140 investors to unlock a collective $117.96M million in startup investment since 2019.

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Other Ways Victorian Startups Can Access Seed Funding & Venture Capital

Accelerator Programs: LaunchVic funds a variety of startup entrepreneurship programs, or accelerators, for startups seeking funding. These programs teach startups how to access seed funding and connect them with investors in their network.

Investor Research and Data: Find investors for your startup with the Victorian startup database, powered by Dealroom.co, a free dedicated source of real-time data on the Victorian startup ecosystem.

Our startup database promotes Victorian startups to local and international investors and provides investors with an easy-to-use platform to find Victorian startups.

Discover and track Victorian startups, angel groups, venture capital firms, accelerators, and more.