The quarterly deals have been counted, and the stats are in: while the first 3 months of 2018/19 financial year saw early stage funding rise to $1.08B across the country, in WA it fell back sharply …
Investment into West Australian early stage ventures fell to 7.3% of the total Australian market during the recent September quarter, according to Techboard’s latest quarterly funding deals report.
This amounted to $79M, nearly all of which – or 93% anyway – was through capital raisings or IPOs on the ASX for publicly listed companies, such as the $33M raised for Perth-based biotech AusCann (ASX: AC8).
Only $1.3M of WA investment came from private funding, across three deals: $1M for Pickstar, $210K from Shark Tank Steve Baxter into SpacetoCo and one other undisclosed deal for around $100K.
This shows slim pickings indeed for WA startups looking to fund their ventures or to scale up.
Elsewhere, private and VC deals across the country reached $571M, which might explain why local startups are foraging over east for funding, such as the recent QuizJam raising that was arranged out of Melbourne. Even SpacetoCo’s Shark Tank raising can hardly be described as a local deal.
As we know, deal flow is a lumpy business, and one shouldn’t get depressed – or overly excited for that matter – about one single quarter. There are many deals in the offing, and not all can be captured by Techboard.
However, the average private/angel deal amount in WA last financial year was almost $12M per quarter, so a grand total of three deals for $1.3M over a three month period seems woeful.
Let’s hope things pick up for the coming quarters, and we can spark some more local startups…
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You can read more details play with interactive charts on Techboard.
