A review of publicly available data on capital raises undertaken by Victorian startups and scaleups over the past five years shows that 385 firms closed 510 investment deals, worth a combined total of $790 million.
Commissioned by LaunchVic, the dandolpartners review also found that:
- The median seed investment was $100,000 while the median angel investment was$250,000 and the median venture capital deal was $2,000,000.
- Commerce and health related startups raised the most amount of capital across all funding stages while health and education startups raised the largest amount from VCs.
- In dollar terms, 2016-17 was the most lucrative period, with the 385 startups and scaleups under examnation raising a combined total of $457.77m.
- The five firms with the largest capital raises in 2016-17 were CultureAmp ($30m), GetSwift ($29m), Unlockd ($23m), Airwallex ($20.3m) and Vinomofo ($19m).
As part of this research undertaking, LaunchVic has developed a database of investment into Victorian startups and scaleups.
LaunchVic CEO Dr Kate Cornick said that while the review represents the most comprehensive look at the Victorian investor landscape to date, the findings – published in the Victoria Startup Investment Snapshot (November 2017) – still don’t provide a complete picture.
“We are calling on Victorian startups and scaleups to check, and where appropriate, update the database with information about their funding rounds so we can ensure the data is shared with global databases such as Crunchbase,” Dr Cornick said.
“These global databases are where many angel investors and research agencies go to understand the strengths and talent within a particular startup ecosystem, so it’s important we are putting our best foot forward in terms of our global investment profile.”
Only half of the 510 investment deals examined as part of this review were recorded on global investment databases. LaunchVic has advised that it will work with Crunchbase in the coming months to ensure that Victorian startup and scaleup investments are being replicated at a global level.
Public data sources used to inform this review included Crunchbase, AngelList, ASX listings; media, publicised portfolios of VC funds and desktop research of the ‘Mapping Victoria’s Startup Ecosystem’ report released in August.
