Australia-based fund manager Main Sequence Ventures has added A$132m ($94.8m) to its Csiro Innovation Fund 1 from investors including aerospace and defence equipment manufacturer Lockheed Martin, the Australian Financial Review reported on Tuesday.
University of Melbourne, superannuation fund Hostplus and Singaporean government-owned investment firm Temasek also contributed to the fundraising, which increased the size of Csiro Innovation Fund 1’s to $167m, $23m above its original target.
Main Sequence Ventures was set up specifically to manage the Csiro Innovation Fund, established in 2016 by research institute Commonwealth Scientific Research Organisation (Csiro) and Australia’s federal government.
Csiro committed $21.5m to the fund, taking the capital from its royalties on wifi, the wireless networking technology invented by the institute, while the government injected $50.3m.
The fund specifically invests in domestic spinouts and small and medium-sized enterprises, with a particular focus on quantum computing, health, space and agricultural technology. It is led by general partner Bill Bartee and the team includes partners Mike Zimmerman and Phil Morle.
Main Sequence Ventures’ nine portfolio companies include Q-Ctrl, a quantum computing spinout of University of Sydney, and nanosatellite technology developer Myriota, which completed its $15m series A round in March this year.
Zimmerman said: “We are feeling upbeat. We have seen over 1,000 investment opportunities so far and we have backed companies that have raised follow-on rounds and attracted co-investors and they have added about 100 jobs.
“We are targeting a portfolio of 25 to 30 companies and we have backed nine companies so far.”
– The original version of this article appeared on our sister site, Global University Venturing.