Like many of the portfolio companies we support, 2021 was a break-out year for Archangel Ventures. We’re proud of what we achieved this past year and look forward to building on this momentum to reach new heights in 2022!

Snapshot:

• Made 24 investments in 18 of Australia’s best early stage companies (17 in our 2021 Fund and 7 via syndicates)
• Invested across a wide range of industries, including health, fintech, logistics, recycling, ecommerce, AI and Web3. 
• Led and arranged 4 rounds, as well as invested in 3 solo rounds, showcasing our ability to form conviction early and act decisively. 
• Made 6 follow-on investments to support the continued expansion of our portfolio leaders 
• Supported 47 founders - 20% of the teams had a female founder and 50% from diverse backgrounds. We remain committed to initiatives supporting inclusion and breaking down barriers to diversity in our industry (including in our own team).
• Invested alongside a range of leading foreign and domestic investors including Tiger, Insight, Blackbird, Portage, OIF, Perennial, CSIRO, Ordinary Capital, Investible, Upswell, Flying Fox, Ten13, Scale and others.
• Continued to build our team and scale our platform to achieve our goal of becoming Australia’s best pre-seed and seed VC firm.

In early 2021, we successfully raised our first annual fund. We have now deployed >90% of that capital across 17 investments in 15 early stage companies. Additionally, we also raised 7 syndicates in 2021 to double down on our portfolio winners and capture follow-on opportunities for our investors in hot rounds where we secured excess allocation.  

Our investments span a range of sectors. We have done this to diversify fund exposure, but also to capture underinvested opportunities that don’t usually receive VC funding in Australia (eg tech enabled manufacturing). 

In 2021 we led or arranged 4 rounds, as well as investing in 3 solo rounds, showing the team's ability to reach conviction quickly and find suitable additional capital for our early stage founders. Many of our coinvestors this year were leading foreign and domestic VCs, including Tiger, Insight, Blackbird, Portage, OIF, Perennial, CSIRO, Ordinary Capital, Investible, Upswell, Flying Fox, Ten13, Scale and others. We continue to build a great reputation for providing a positive signal to VCs in later rounds and supporting early stage founders from the very beginning. We are committed to deploying the majority of our funds at the earliest stages and our investment decision making, processes and culture continue to be built around this strategy.  

This year we supported 47 founders from across Australia. Of the founding teams we backed, 20% had a female founder and 50% were from diverse backgrounds. We remain committed to supporting diversity of background and thought and breaking down barriers to inclusion in our industry. 

Over the course of the year many of our portfolio companies raised money and shared exciting developments with the market. Atelier announced a $3M raise and a $100k competition to bring the next big beauty brand to life. Bardee raised $5M to continue their push toward a more circular economy and build out their green processing plants turning food waste into fertiliser and feed. Heaps Normal announced an $8.5M round and added a lager to their product portfolio. Fresh Equities continues to shake up financial services and ranked 4th in the 2021 AFR fast starters. Relevance AI raised US$3m to continue building their developer first vector platform to unlock insights from unstructured data. 

Whilst public success is always great validation for hard work - all these achievements are but a small drop in an ocean of work that all of our portfolio founders put in every day and we feel incredibly proud of all of them and privileged for the opportunity to watch their passion and creativity up close and play a very small part in realising their vision for a better world.   

If you're a founder in need of capital or an investor interested in a diversified fund of Australia’s best early stage opportunities please reach out to the team or via the form below. We’d love to hear from you.