FUND
The $50 million South Australian Venture Capital Fund (SAVCF) is available to help build dynamic and innovative early-stage companies to accelerate their growth to a national and global scale.
The SAVCF will:
- enable innovative SA ventures to secure funding and accelerate growth into national and global markets, stimulating economic activity and job creation
- strengthen the competitiveness of local early-stage entrepreneurs and companies to attract private sources of co-investment from national and international investors, and
- earn a commercial rate of return for investors commensurate with industry standards for early-stage venture capital funds.
MANDATE
The SAVCF will consider initial investment in high growth and export potential companies that have at least demonstrated a market for their product or service and have either commenced generating revenue or can demonstrate customer validation and evidence a route to revenue generation.
Life science and biotech companies are exempt. In such cases, the SAVCF may consider initial investment once a company has demonstrated Phase 1 clinical trial results, or the equivalent stage for a medical device.
The SAVCF will not have any restrictions in terms of sectors or industries that eligible companies may participate in but requires the company to have 50% of its assets and 50% of its staff located in South Australia during a period that ends 12 months from the initial investment date.
INVESTMENTS
The SAVCF will assess opportunities on a case-by-case basis, but will be seeking companies that have the following characteristics:
- A large addressable market
- A product or service offering with a demonstrated ability to meet an existing or emerging market need
- A clear thesis on the sources of the business’ competitive advantage, and the sustainability/defensibility of this competitive advantage
- Ability to scale rapidly in a capital efficient way
- Led by a very high quality management team
- A clear path to a liquidity event
The fund is managed by Artesian Venture Partners, Australia’s largest and most active early stage venture capital firm. Artesian is a full stack venture capital firm focused on the Asia Pacific region with offices in Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore and Shanghai.
What
the Fund
Offers
SA INNOVATION
Artesian believes that the SAVC Fund will play an important role in supporting and empowering the SA innovation ecosystem.
In addition Artesian operates a variety of earlier stage agnostic and vertically focused seed to Series A funds that will also be able to deploy investments to early stage South Australian startups prior to being eligible for funding by the SAVC Fund.
Artesian’s co-investment VC platform collaborates with accelerators, incubators, angel groups, university programs, corporations and industry groups to supercharge and grow innovation ecosystems.
PRE SERIES A
The $50M SAVC Fund will target 10-20, $1-2M pre Series A investments into South Australian startups.
The Fund may invest in high growth and export potential companies that have at least demonstrated a market for their product or service and have either commenced generating revenue or can demonstrate customer validation and evidence a route to revenue generation.
Areas of interest include:
- Space
- Clean Energy
- Cybersecurity
- Defence
- Agrifood
- Health and Medtech
SERIES A
The SAVC Fund will make 5-12 $2.5M investments into Series A stage startups.
These investments will generally be follow-on investments into portfolio companies that the fund initially invested in at pre-Series A .
The SAVC Fund may lead the Series A investment round, but this is not a requirement for all investments.
CO-INVESTORS
Artesian’s platform model has demonstrated the ability to attract international co-investors for its portfolio companies. Artesian has:
- 400+ portfolio companies with 180+ having attracted another round of funding alongside an Artesian investment. Many have done multiple follow on rounds
- 600+ co-investment partners
- $450m co-investments generated alongside Artesian investment
EXITS
The Fund will work with portfolio startups to identify potential mergers and acquisitions, trade sales and IPOs.
Meet The INVESTMENT Team
DAVID ROHRSHEIM
PORTFOLIO
MANAGER
ALEXANDRA GRIGG
SENIOR PORTFOLIO
ANALYST
JEREMY COLLESS
MANAGING
PARTNER
LUKE FAY
MANAGING
PARTNER
ADELAIDE
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