Good evening,

There’s another VC fund hitting the capital-raising circuit.

The CSIRO-backed Main Sequence Ventures is in late-stage talks with institutional and high-net-worth investors for its third fund, which is expected to be about $300 million.

It already has its cornerstone investor locked away, with the Australian government once again supporting the fund, tipping in $150 million via its Economic Accelerator program.

It has a strong group of repeat investors in its first two funds, including Horizons Ventures, Hostplus and Temasek, so we wouldn’t be surprised to see these names pop up again.

But, the tech market has shifted substantially since Main Sequence closed its second $250 million fund in April last year, so it will be a test of investor appetite.

It’s also not the only fund on the circuit at the moment – Blackbird Ventures and Square Peg Capital are yet to announce the closure of their mega funds.

Elsewhere, Seven Group is considering going down the seldom-used exchangeable bonds route, linked to Boral, and a company owned by British asset manager Amber Infrastructure has acquired South Australian data centres operator YourDC for up to $100 million.

Also, the globe-trotting activities of Brazilian oil play Karoon Energy’s CEO suggest it has found an acquisition target.

Happy reading,

Yolanda Redrup, Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Anthony Macdonald
Street Talk Editors