Australian tech investors’ mega bet on unicorn Canva is about to be tested | nickbonyhady
Rough arithmetic on the figures seen bysuggest that late last year Blackbird’s 15 per cent stake in Canva accounted for more than 75 per cent of the value of all its investments, which across funds raised between 2012 and 2020 had a net asset value of about $7 billion.
Each of the funds stressed that even without Canva, their performance is strong compared to competitors in Australia and abroad. And it is typical in venture capital for one or a few great bets to carry many other investment decisions, given high failure rates are expected among start-ups. At a lower valuation, Canva would still be an impressive pick for the funds that have invested in it, especially Blackbird, which got into Canva early and repeatedly backed it over many years.
He said AirTree was disciplined in its investments, had accounted for valuations returning to long-term averages, and had paid the right price to reflect markets at the time deals were done. Paul Bassat, who co-founded jobs site Seek in 1997 and then Square Peg in 2012, toldhe was broadly confident in the decisions made while the market was very hot, pointing to stakes in companies that had good internal economics and reserves of money, but also conceded times would be harder.
When everything goes well , the start-up grows and eventually achieves an “exit” - either through an initial public offering on a sharemarket, or through a sale to a bigger company. The venture funds and their investors usually book a significant return on their initial investment.“Whilst multiples have contracted, we aren’t seeing anything to suggest that the quality of companies being formed in Australia and New Zealand is diminished,” Scevak said.
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