Galileo Ventures Research
Investment Thesis
Galileo Ventures is an Australian pre-seed and seed venture fund founded in 2020 by James Alexander, Hugh Stephens and Julia French. Their manifesto centers on the "emerging founder" - the unproven, scrappy, overlooked entrepreneur who, fuelled by new technology, will build tomorrow's market leaders. The firm's stated view is that the Australian venture stack is top-heavy: pre-seed has historically been left to unstructured angels, and Galileo exists to professionalize that layer of capital. They back founders, not markets, and are explicit that being the first institutional cheque - often the first money in - is the whole job, not an option they hedge.
Sector Focus
Galileo invests across AI, software and hardware, with a specific appetite for physical and deeptech products that most funds skip ("if it is hard to build, that is usually the point"). Categories where they currently see strong opportunity: AI & agentic, robotics, enterprise software, deeptech, critical technologies, climate, marketplaces, consumer, and digital health. Live proof points of the hardware/deeptech appetite are Kite Magnetics (electric aviation motors) and Andromeda Robotics (companion robots).
Stage Focus
Pre-seed through seed. Roughly 80% of Fund I's 25+ investments were first-cheque. They will lead or anchor a seed round and then help run the next round; they explicitly do not tranche investments - if they believe, they write the full cheque.
Check Size
Typical pre-seed cheque: A$200k-500k. Seed cheques run up to A$1m where they lead or anchor the round. Follow-on/pro-rata reserves are preserved into Seed and Series A.
Lead Tendency
Often leads or anchors the round as first institutional money in, then supports the founder through the next raise (Series A intros, deck and data-room work).
Recent Activity
Galileo announced the first close of Fund II ("Expansion") in August 2026, cornerstoned by Innovation Victoria with LPs including Brad Feld, Michael Donohue, Andy Hamilton, Artesian, and Nicola Kaldor of Lorne Capital. Fund II targets roughly A$30m, doubling down on the Fund I thesis with cheques of A$250-500k at pre-seed and up to A$1m at seed, primarily across Australia and the Bay Area. The first disclosed Fund II investment was a US$350k pre-seed check into Fluent BCI, a brain-computer-interface startup building a subscalp neural interface (InScribe) that decodes intended speech, also announced in August 2026.
Portfolio Highlights
Fund I backed 25+ companies in four years. Notable follow-on validation: Relevance AI (AI agents) raised a Series B led by Bessemer Venture Partners with Peak XV, Insight Partners and King River Capital; Andromeda Robotics raised a Series A led by Forerunner Ventures with Rethink Impact, Artesian and Main Sequence; Tixel (ticket resale marketplace) raised a Series B led by Touch Ventures; Kite Magnetics raised a Seed+ led by SQM Lithium Ventures. Two portfolio companies, Fora Therapy and Steppen Fitness, have been acquired. Nearly 40% of the portfolio is based in Victoria.
Team
- James Alexander, Co-Founder & Managing Partner (Sydney / San Francisco) - founded INCUBATE at the University of Sydney, Australia's first multi-university startup program, expanding it to five universities and 200+ launched startups. Previously an engineer at startups including pre-VC Atlassian. Board Observer for Relevance AI.
- Hugh Stephens, Co-Founder & General Partner (Melbourne) - bootstrapped Schedugram/Sked Social to a profitable platform used by 10,000+ brands without VC funding before becoming an angel investor and then co-founding Galileo. Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia. Advises Tixel and is Board Observer for Zendir.
- Julia French, Partner (Sydney / San Francisco) - joined in late 2024 as first head of platform, promoted to partner end of 2025. Silicon Valley veteran who has worked directly with founders of Atlassian, Dropbox and WhatsApp, and with firms including AirTree and Sequoia; has personally invested in 125+ startups.
Decision Process
Three general partners, all former operators, run the process directly - no associates between founders and a decision. Their published process: same-day submission, a reply within 48 hours (including a plain-English reason for a no), a 45-minute partner meeting in week one, diligence (customer calls, technical diligence, references) in week two, and a term sheet or a clear no by week three.
Founder Preferences
Galileo names three founder archetypes it looks for: the "hungry builder" (learns fast, ships before ready, out-works incumbents), the "scientific operator" (deep research turned into a product the market didn't know it could have), and the "domain native" (lived the problem for years and is rebuilding the industry from the inside). No warm intro is required and pre-incorporation founders are welcome; cold email and a working prototype are enough to start a conversation.
Geographic Focus
Australia-first (Sydney and Melbourne) with an active San Francisco arm, and Fund II LPs based in Australia, Singapore and the US. They will invest outside Australia where it makes sense, and most founders have a strong Australian tie.