Startup Daily TV: The story behind Australian startup funding in 2022

The second annual edition of The State Of Australian Startup Funding report was released this week, revealing that overall investment by around 30% to $7.4 billion last year.

The analysis, prepared by Cut Through Venture and Folklore Ventures, contained plenty of good news for founders with pre-Seed and Seed investments at record levels in 2022.

Fintech continues to be the most attractive sector for investors, attracting $1.3 billion, but enterprise and business software is growing strongly, reaching $1.2bn in 2022, and sectors such as climate tech are also attracting more cash.

Female founder participation hit an all-time high in 2022, but their share of funding dropped to its lowest level in recent years.

Pre-Seed and Seed startups founded by women took in significantly more funding, and 23% of all deals included companies with at least one female founder. However, total funding dropped to 10% — from 21% in 2021 — and they raised a median amount 39% lower than for all-male teams.

Deal numbers in 2022 were above 700 for the second year in a row at 712 – just 19 less than 2021’s 731.

The Cut Through Venture funding report found that 88% of surveyed investors reported longer fundraising processes, with 61% were taking longer to decide on investments, even when a strong appetite to invest remained.

More than a third (35%) of investors surveyed reported that early deals were more competitive than ever.

The full report is available for free at australianstartupfunding.com

Report co-author Chris Gillings, founder of Cut Through Venture and partner at later stage VC fund Five V Capital, and Folklore Ventures, founder and managing partner Alister Coleman joined Startup Daily editor Simon Thomsen on the Startup Daily show this week to talk through the key findings.

Click below to watch the interview.

You can turn into the Startup Daily show Monday to Thursday from 2-2.30pm on ausbiz.com.au, for the latest news in tech and startups.

If you can’t make it, then you can always catch up on what our guests had to say on demand via Startupdaily.net/tv or via ausbiz (it’s free to sign up).