Blackbird Ventures Research
Investment Thesis
Blackbird is Australia and New Zealand's most significant venture capital firm, founded in 2012 by Niki Scevak and Rick Baker. The firm's mission is to back "wild hearts with the wildest ideas, right from the very beginning" — investing in exceptional founders with big ambitions and supporting them from inception through all subsequent rounds.
Unlike many regional VCs, Blackbird explicitly positions itself as stage-agnostic, following founders from pre-seed through late-stage growth. The firm's stated philosophy is "investing in companies, not rounds," maintaining long-term relationships and conviction through multiple funding events. This approach has produced outsized returns: a 36.09% net IRR across all invested capital as of August 2025, with a portfolio valued at $9.9B from 174 companies.
Blackbird's thesis is deliberately founder-centric rather than sector-specific. They back novel ideas that "don't easily fit a category" — from enterprise software to space, consumer to quantum computing. Their common thread is the quality, ambition, and resilience of the founding team, not a narrow thesis about which markets they prefer. As Niki Scevak wrote in "The Blackbird Master Plan" (2018), the firm aims to be a "magnetic force for founders" — building a community around exceptional ANZ entrepreneurs who are building globally ambitious companies.
Stage Focus
Blackbird invests primarily at pre-seed and seed stages for new investments, with 80% of new investments in 2025 going into pre-seed or seed stage companies. They also maintain significant follow-on programs through a separate "Follow-On Fund" that writes larger cheques at Series B and beyond.
In 2025, check sizes ranged from a $149K pre-seed to a $60M Series F, demonstrating the full spectrum of their investment activity. They deployed $357M in 2025 across 20 new and 31 follow-on rounds (51 total).
Check Size
- Pre-seed first check: $150K–$500K
- Seed: $500K–$5M (average ~$3M per round)
- Follow-on (Series B+): Up to $60M+
- Range across 2025 investments: $149K to $60M
The firm runs two complementary funds: a Core Fund for early-stage first rounds, and a Follow-On Fund for growth-stage investments at Series B and beyond.
Lead Tendency
Blackbird frequently leads rounds, particularly at the seed stage. They led Marloo's $10M seed (September 2025), the Aquila seed round (renewable energy, 2025), and have historically led many seed investments in their portfolio. At later stages, they often participate alongside lead investors but leverage their ownership position to maintain influence. In 2025, they held approximately 34% ownership of Marloo after both rounds.
Recent Activity
Blackbird is actively deploying from Fund 6 (first close of approximately A$700M in August/September 2025), building on their record-breaking A$1.03B fifth flagship fund from 2022. In 2025, the firm deployed $357M into 51 investments — a 55% capital increase over 2024. Key 2025/2026 activity:
- Led Marloo's $10M Series Seed (September 2025) — AI operating system for financial advisers; previously backed at pre-seed in April 2024
- Participated in NextWork's US$4.45M seed — cloud infrastructure learning platform
- Participated in Baseten's Series E alongside IVP, Capital G, Nvidia, and Greylock
- Participated in Gilmour Space's A$217M Series E (January 2026) — the company achieved unicorn status and completed its first orbital rocket launch attempt
- Invested in Kimia's seed round (April 2026)
- Portfolio milestone: Halter became a unicorn at $1B valuation in June 2025 (Series D), subsequently raising at $2B (Series E)
- Portfolio exit: Ortto acquired by Canva (April 8, 2026)
- LP returns: $728M returned in 2025, cumulative returns exceeding $2.3B
Portfolio Highlights
Blackbird's portfolio spans 174 companies across Australia and New Zealand, with 8 unicorns and 40 centaurs ($100M+ valuation):
- Canva — Design platform; most valuable private tech company ever founded in Australia
- Airwallex — Cross-border payments infrastructure; global fintech unicorn
- Culture Amp — Employee experience platform; HR tech unicorn
- SafetyCulture — Operations platform for frontline teams
- Halter — AI-powered virtual fencing for livestock management; unicorn ($2B valuation, 2025)
- Eucalyptus — Digital healthcare platform
- Bugcrowd — Crowdsourced security platform
- Dovetail — User research platform
- Gilmour Space Technologies — Orbital rocket and satellite company; unicorn (A$217M Series E, Jan 2026)
- PsiQuantum — Silicon photonics quantum computing
- Leonardo AI — AI image generation platform
- Marqo — Open-source vector search engine
- Fleet Space Technologies — Space communications and sensing
- CarbonChain — Carbon accounting for heavy industry
- Cortical Labs — Biological neural networks on chips
Team
Blackbird is led by co-founders Niki Scevak and Rick Baker as Partners. Key investment partners include:
- Nick Crocker — Partner; previously founder and operator background
- Phoebe Harrop — Partner
- Michael Tolo — Partner
- Samantha Wong — Partner; led Marloo investment, wrote 2025 Year in Review
- Tom Humphrey — Partner; author of influential "SaiS" thesis on AI transformation of software (April 2026)
- Robyn Denholm — Board Member (also Tesla Board Chair)
- Alex Apoifis — Partner, COO
- James Palmer, Max Meyer, Silk Kadala — Principals
Decision Process
Blackbird uses an Investment Committee process. Their stated timeline is "between a couple of days to a couple of weeks" from first conversation to term sheet. Notably, no warm introduction is required — founders submit pitch decks directly.
Process: pitch deck submission → feedback within one week → initial conversation → due diligence → IC presentation → term sheet and onboarding.
Founder Preferences
Blackbird backs founders with the "biggest ambitions" who are building globally from Australia or New Zealand. They value founders willing to tackle uncertainty, demonstrate technical depth or domain expertise, and have a track record of execution. They are especially drawn to novel, unconventional ideas.
Geographic requirement: Founders must have a strong connection to Australia or New Zealand — based there, previously resident, or having a co-founder from either country. Physical location post-investment is flexible.
They invest pre-product and pre-revenue: 80% of 2025 new investments were pre-seed or seed. In 2024, 85% of new investments were into pre-seed/seed stage.
Geographic Focus
Australia and New Zealand. Backing ANZ founders building companies with global ambitions.
Fund History
| Fund | Vintage | Committed (AUD) | Net IRR | |------|---------|-----------------|--------| | Fund 1 | 2013 | A$29M | 50.12% | | Fund 2 | 2015 | A$193M | 38.51% | | Fund 3 | 2018 | A$261M | 29.66% | | Fund 4 | 2020 | A$647M | 15.89% | | Fund 5 | 2022 | A$1,033M | 13.10% | | Fund 6 | 2025 | A$700M+ (first close) | Active |
LPs include AustralianSuper, Hostplus, HESTA, Aware Super, and the Australian Government Future Fund.