🚀 More moonshots
Australia's deep tech startups have the potential to become global leaders — if they can get adequate funding and support to commercialise their innovations.
It's well established by now that startup success begets startup success. But Australia's biggest startup success story to date, Canva, which is in the process of a massive secondary share sale and on track for an eventual IPO triumph, could have an even more profound impact on the Australian ecosystem than previously thought.
Many in the community are hopeful the liquidity from Canva exits won't just give birth to the next wave of promising Australian startups. It could also underpin a shift away from this country being viewed mostly as a breeding ground for software-as-a-service (SaaS) businesses to being capable of churning out deep tech companies solving even more complex problems (with potentially even more lucrative rewards).
Deep tech has been a key area of focus for us at Capital Brief, and this week has been no exception. As my colleague and usual writer of Sweat Equity Bronwen Clune reported yesterday, high-profile investor Elaine Stead has joined CSIRO-backed Main Sequence as a principal, in one of the more notable VC people moves of the year.
Her first mission? “Reach humanity scale healthcare.” That is, invest in cutting edge startups working to “decrease mortality and improve quality of life for millions of humans”. One non-healthcare venture Main Sequence backs is trying to build the world’s most efficient solar panel. Another, Gilmour Space Technologies, is expecting to be the first Australian organisation to launch a satellite into space and eventually take a slice out of SpaceX’s market.
