Australia’s Black Nova announces $10m fund to power rocket-fuelled growth startups

Black Nova, Australia’s newest venture capital fund, announced a $10-million close of its first fund, with the potential to raise the amount to $20 million by the end of the year.

The fund will invest in early and growth-stage companies at the pre-Seed, Seed, and Series A stage, according to the announcement.

Black Nova will focus on technologies and solutions related to enterprise and software applications. In addition, the VC firm is also setting aside 25% of its fund to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals ethical impact investments.

The firm has already completed investments in 23 local startups to date, which cut across various industries in the B2B sectors, such as Remote Social and Functionly. Black NOva’s initial cheque sizes range from $100,000 to $1 million.

Black Nova is co-founded by Matt Browne and Darcy Naunton, who bring their expertise from a successful exit with WHS software Donesafe in 2020, with a vision to establish a hands-on fund ‘for founders, by founders’.

According to Browne, Black Nova embraces a ‘boring is better’ mentality when it comes to investing.

“Our focus is on taking what is traditionally considered ‘un-sexy’ and ‘boring’ enterprise-focussed startups, and moulding these opportunities into returns that are out of this world,” Browne stressed.

The majority of the firm’s portfolio companies are faced with the arduous task of having to sell into big enterprises with long sales cycles. As a genuine founder-first VC, Black Nova sees tremendous value in embedding itself into their business.

“No other VC fund of our size and stage has so many experienced venture partners,” Browne said, adding that the fund is already on track to see huge returns.

“It’s testament to the fact we have a successful operator-heavy VC model that is primed for growth. We intend to continue to raise over the course of next year and look forward to seeing more incredible Australian start-ups get the funding they deserve.”