Blackbird targets $1b VC fund; Square Peg, AirTree also ready to raise

“Even as we raise larger funds, we’re relentlessly focused on investing earlier and earlier. 2022 is shaping up to be a big year for fundraising across Aussie VC, which is great to see. The industry is really growing up, and we expect to see a whole new generation of local start-ups flourish in the coming decade.”

Square Peg, which has returned $650 million to investors so far, is expected to be kicking off chats with investors early in 2022, also raising its fifth generation of funds.

It’s understood the new raise will be bigger than the $600 million figure raised for its fourth fund, which took its funds under management to $1.4 billion, but likely only modestly larger.

Typically, AirTree opts for smaller funds than its peers Square Peg and Blackbird. Its last fund raised in 2019 was $275 million, but with Series A raises and follow-on rounds continuing to get bigger and bigger, we wouldn’t be surprised to see them raise a larger figure. After all, it’s got the likes of Go1, Canva, Pet Circle and Athena in its portfolio.

Conversations for its new fund are understood to already be underway, but nothing will be finalised until the new year.

Ian Beatty and Leigh Jasper’s SecondQuarter Ventures is another outfit slated to do the rounds in early 2022.

The country’s only dedicated secondary fund is tipped to cement its authority over this part of the local market, raising a substantially larger sum than it’s $51 million-odd first fund. Word is it’s already got plenty of inbound interest, so the group is unlikely to have any trouble finding backers.

It has amassed positions in well-known names including Canva, Assignar, Athena, Culture Amp and SafetyCulture.

The tech types are also tipping a fresh wave of new sub $50 million early stage funds to emerge in 2022.

Already Rampersand has announced it is raising a new $40 million-odd fund, and in the last two years groups like Flying Fox Ventures, Archangel Ventures, AfterWork Ventures and Galileo Ventures have emerged as new names in the early stage scene. It’s expected there’s more to come.

With 120-odd groups backing Aussie start-ups and scale-ups between the local VC funds, active international players like Tiger Global and Accel Partners, and the investment houses like Washington H. Soul Pattinson and Perennial, it’s lucky there’s so much capital to deploy around.