Blackbird raises $500m fund, taps Cannon-Brookes to drive expansion
Blackbird Ventures is now Australia's biggest venture capital firm after raising a $500 million fund to invest in Australia and New Zealand's top startups and has appointed Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes as it chairman to drive its expansion.
Partner Samantha Wong said Blackbird tried to raise a new fund every two years and even though COVID-19 "threw a bit of a spanner in the works" the venture capital firm was able to draw on its strong relationships with investors.
"COVID in the end turned out to be a delayer and not a permanent barrier," she said.
The Blackbird Ventures team: Nick Crocker, Rick Baker, Niki Scevak, Joel Connolly and Samantha Wong.
Blackbird was established by Niki Scevak and Rick Baker in 2012 and has invested in many of Australia's most successful tech companies including unicorns Canva, SafetyCulture and Culture Amp.
The new fund will comprise a $150 million core fund focused on Australian technology startups and a follow on fund with a broader remit. "Even though the funds are getting bigger we want to continue backing early-stage companies as well," Ms Wong said.
"The smallest cheque we have written is for $50,000 and our first investment in [graphic design platform] Canva was $US250,000, we are happy to invest pre-product and pre-revenue for the most ambitious founders and most ambitious ideas."
Ms Wong said bringing Mr Cannon-Brookes on as chairman showed how Blackbird was pursuing innovation and gave the firm the perspective of someone who has scaled a company rapidly. Blackbird is planning to almost double in size to 40 people by the end of 2021.
"When you think about VC we talk a lot about investing in really ambitious founders but people don't tend to innovate or be as ambitious themselves about being such a great business," Ms Wong said. "It's a good opportunity for Mike to help grow the next generation of baby Atlassians."
Mr Cannon-Brookes said Blackbird was both a startup, an investment firm and an "incredibly talented" group of people backing ambitious founders. "I share with the team a deep belief that the world change comes from entrepreneurs who are wildly wrong, then wildly right," he said.
The new fund is backed by the Future Fund, Australian Super, HESTA, institutional clients of Cambridge Associates, First State Super, Telstra Super, as well as international investors Cendana Capital, Greenspring Associates and Pavilion Capital.
Blackbird owns a 14 per cent stake in Canva and as at June 30 it had committed $1.24 billion in capital across its funds making it Australia's largest venture capital firm.
It said the net internal rate of return of every dollar of invested capital in all Blackbird funds was 46.7 per cent.
The new fund is Blackbird's fourth and sees all of the venture capital firm's 22 employees becoming owners of the Blackbird management company and general partners Ms Wong and Nick Crocker brought on as equal partners.
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