Chief Minister Andrew Barr says the fund will fill a gap in the ACT’s investor market. Photo: Ian Bushnell.
A new government-backed venture capital fund aims to support innovative Canberra start-ups, leveraging the ACT’s university sector to diversify the Territory’s economy.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr launched the ACTivate Capital Fund on Monday (3 November) at the Canberra Business Chamber’s State of the Territory event at the Hyatt.
Mr Barr said the new fund, which is now open to applications, would start with $23 million in committed capital, with capacity to grow to $50 million.
The fund is backed by a coalition of partners, including the ACT Government as the cornerstone investor, Epicorp as the General Partner, and UNSW Canberra and local family offices as Limited Partners.
Over the next five to seven years, the fund will actively seek out high-potential ventures, helping to grow emerging sectors and strengthen the ACT’s position as a hub for innovation, talent and investment.
A second funding round is planned in about 18 months.
Mr Barr said that ACTivate Capital, the ACT’s first Early-Stage Venture Capital Limited Partnership (ESVCLP), marked a major milestone in the ACT’s commitment to fostering innovation and entrepreneurship.
He said investments would focus on Canberra-based companies in early growth stages and innovation in areas such as renewable energy, cybersecurity, quantum, defence, and space, where the ANU, UNSW, and University of Canberra already have research capabilities.
The fund would be managed at arm’s length in accordance with investment guidelines, but the government would expect a return on its investment.
Mr Barr said it would fill a gap in the ACT’s investor market.
“We’re a relatively young and small city with not a big capital base, so we do need a degree of government involvement, and we also need to be able to leverage that to attract other capital from elsewhere in Australia and internationally,” he said.
Mr Barr said there were quite encouraging companies being spun out of the university sector.
“Our success as an economy is around being innovative and being able to commercialise the great ideas that come out of Canberra and particularly out of the university and public research sectors,” he said.
Mr Barr said that if the ACT economy was to diversify and become more sophisticated, then the government had to back the sectors that had the greatest capacity to make that happen.
He said the ACT had reached the stage, through the work of the Canberra Innovation Network, where the number of start-ups in Canberra had grown exponentially.
“Having effectively grown over a decade a very successful innovation network, and supported a range of accelerator programs and the like to get companies to a certain size, the venture capital fund will allow them to go from quite small, operating out of an office in the innovation network into something a little bit more,” he said.
Managing Partner at ACTivate Capital, Ken Kroeger, stated that the fund represents a significant step forward in advancing Australia’s innovation economy, reflecting a strong commitment to supporting emerging Territory businesses and connecting them to national and global markets.
“The Territory has already proven its capacity to generate world-class companies such as CEA, Instaclustr, Liquid Instruments, Quantum Brilliance and Seeing Machines, and there is an extraordinary depth of emerging talent and technology ready to follow in their footsteps,” he said.
“We have assembled an experienced and talented investment team with strong governance oversight to work with founders and our Limited Partners.
“The Activate Capital team are looking forward to working with exciting new opportunities that are investment-ready, leading to the next generation of high-growth, founder-led businesses born right here in Canberra.”
