Telstra Ventures, the venture firm backed by Australia-based telecommunications firm Telstra, has raised a third, $350m fund.
Telstra Ventures will use the $350m to invest in pre-growth and early growth companies in sectors such as climate, consumer and cybersecurity.
Formed as an internal unit in 2011, Telstra Ventures has made 88 investments, 17 of which turned into unicorn-status companies. The unit later transitioned into a hybrid corporate VC firm to increase its independence whilst retaining strong ties to Telstra.
Steve Schmidt, general partner of Telstra Ventures, spoke to GCV earlier this year about the unit’s hybrid setup, commenting: “Telstra didn’t want this just as a strategic playpen and they certainly weren’t going to lose money for Telstra shareholders. We had to be very responsible with the capital and ultimately show we were delivering a return on investment.”
The firm has more than $925m in assets under management and has achieved 26 exits, including US-based cybersecurity platform CrowdStrike, which went public on the New York Stock Exchange following a $612m IPO in 2019.
Telstra Ventures Fund III’s investments already include US end-to-end API security software Cequence, which raised $60m in a series C round in December 2021, and LambdaTest, the US-based quality testing cloud platform which raised $45m in a series C round in March this year.
“The platform of services we have built over the last decade is what makes us distinctive and different,” says Mark Koertge, managing partner at Telstra Ventures. “We will continue to invest in building a platform of services that deliver value beyond our initial investment. Our hustle starts when the ink is dried, and the series is closed. We become confidants and we deliver real value.”