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DesignCrowd, backed by AirTree and Starfish Ventures, has begun preparations for an equity raising that is expected to top its previous rounds, Street Talk can reveal.

It is understood the design marketplace and subscription business has tapped RBC Capital Markets’ technology bankers to consider its options. It is early days, and potential investors are yet to be sounded.

Sources said the raising was being driven by DesignCrowd’s need to provide liquidity to early pre-IPO investors, and would more likely than not be targeted at bringing in a US growth investor.

However, founder and CEO Alec Lynch, told Street Talk he wasn’t focused on liquidity for any particular shareholder group, and the incipient capital raising would include a primary sleeve and potentially a secondary sell-down.

DesignCrowd has been around since 2008, and pitches itself as “the world’s #1 custom design marketplace” with more than 600,000 designers who have served 100,000-plus business customers. Its design-related services range from logos, business cards, email signatures, letterheads and flyers to social media posts and YouTube banners.

Its last reported raising in 2021 – although there would have been a few cash calls in the three years since – led to it bringing in $10 million from the who’s who of the Aussie pre-IPO set, including Perennial Value Management, Alium Capital, Ellerston Capital, Regal Funds Management and CVC.

DesignCrowd is preparing to head to the dealmaking circuit at a time when technology dealmaking is beginning to thaw.

And overseas investors, ranging from Swiss PE giant EQT Partners to Americans Accel-KKR and Thoma Bravo, have been hunting for promising technology names on Australian shores.

Read the full story tomorrow and more on the Street Talk page.

• Singapore-headquartered Campana Group, backed by Japanese giant Mitsui, is getting cosy with a little-known ASX-listed tiddler as it sets its sights on a $400 million reverse takeover on the local bourse.
• Global insurance giant Allianz SE has kiboshed a $150 million sale of its Australian premium funding business, pivoting to a $1 billion refinancing.
• John Wylie’s Tanarra Capital is in exclusive discussions to sell Perth-based INX Software to US technology investor Accel-KKR.

• Watch out, Luminis and Gresham. There’s a new boutique corporate advisory firm on the block.
• Listed landlord Mirvac had to stomach 20 per cent-plus discounts selling two CBD office towers.
• NAB Ventures invested in crypto custody business Zodia, after pulling the plug on funding a stablecoin known as AUDN.

Allianz’s Hunter Premium Funding was shopped with a $150 million price tag plus a $700 million loan funding requirement. The Deutsche-run sale process is now dead, and a $1 billion refinancing is under way.

Click here for the latest equity market wrap.