Main Sequence, the Australian deep tech investment fund founded by Australia’s national science agency CSIRO, has raised AUD$450 million at the close of its third funding round, surpassing the milestone of AUD$1 billion in total funds under management.
The venture capital firm boasts large institutional funds, wealth groups and top-tier climate investors, including Hostplus, LGT Crestone, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, Temasek*, NGS Super, Australian Ethical Investment, Daiwa Securities Group and The Grantham Foundation.
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Founded in 2017, the firm has backed 53 companies including Regrow, Advanced Navigation, and Q-CTRL. The Australian deep tech companies supported by Main Sequence have created over 2,100 new jobs, and the market value of those companies has grown to over AUD$6.8 billion.
“We embark on an extraordinary journey with this fund, guided by two key imperatives. First, decarbonisation—we want to ensure more translation of climate research into the solutions urgently needed to address our environmental impact. Alongside this, we are advancing critical technologies central to Australia’s national interest including cybersecurity to protect citizens and infrastructure, quantum computing to unlock new possibilities, and advanced semiconductor technology to fuel innovation,” Main Sequence partner Mike Zimmerman said.
“Our focus remains on big, global challenges that need scientific backing, patient capital and long-term vision to solve. The community we have created around this mission cares deeply about finding and scaling solutions to planetary problems like decarbonisation, feeding a growing population and enabling the next intelligence leap. Thanks to their support, we have the flexibility and fortitude to back and build breakthrough companies grounded in research, and help them actualise their impact for decades to come.”
This is the third fund from Main Sequence, following its $240 million original fund and $330 million second fund which closed in 2018 and 2021 respectively.
Main Sequence’s approach pairs deep scientific knowledge with the industry expertise and capital funding required to build entire industries and ecosystems around solving a global-scale challenge.
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“Our last fund saw the launch of five Venture Science startups—Endua, Eden Brew, Quasar Sat, Cauldron, and Samsara Eco. We are keeping up this momentum with Fund 3, pioneering new frontiers in biotechnology and plan to continue co-founding new companies at the bleeding edge of exciting advances in food and fibres with Fund 3,” Main Sequence partner Gabrielle Munzer said.
“We are continuing to harness the forces of entrepreneurship and research to address the ‘Valley of Death’. We see incredible promise in pre-seed investments and our involvement with Australia’s Economic Accelerator, CSIRO’s ON Accelerator and University accelerator programs like UNSW Founders’ SynBio 10x program means we can deepen our focus on unearthing cutting-edge ideas.”
