Leading entrepreneurs and two major superannuation funds will combine forces to launch Australia's biggest-ever technology start-up venture capital fund, with more than $200 million set aside to back growing companies.
The new fund will be managed by Blackbird Ventures and has been backed by 96 technology entrepreneurs including Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes, as well as two major superannuation funds, First State Super and Hostplus Super. It will target tech companies that would previously have headed overseas in search of bigger investments and will exclusively back Australian companies.
Mr Cannon-Brookes said the fund represented a major breakthrough for the Australian technology community and would be a big boost for the vibrant start-up sector. 
"Between this new fund and all the others, there is so much of a gap there is daylight; it's both really exciting and also weirdly, a bit of worry for the Australian tech ecosystem that the gap is so big," Mr Cannon-Brookes told The Australian Financial Review.
The new Blackbird fund is more than double the size of the next-largest Australian tech fund, Daniel Petre and Craig Blair's AirTree Ventures at $60 million. Australia is also home to Square Peg Capital, which has not disclosed the amount of money it has and is a collective of investors rather than a fund, which spreads its investments across Australian, Israeli and West Coast US companies.
Australia's start-up ecosystem and early-stage venture capital scene has been growing in sophistication for several years.
However, promising companies regularly relocate to larger start-up communities such as Silicon Valley, New York, Tel Aviv or London to access later stage capital, characterised as cheques of $5 million or more.
Other tech entrepreneurs backing the Blackbird fund include Aconex co-founders Leigh Jasper and Rob Philpot, RedBubble founder Martin Hosking, founding investor in Freelancer.com Simon Clausen and co-founder of retailmenot Bevan Clark.
"We want to help keep the good companies here; sometimes they have to move but we don't want limited access to capital to be the reason any more," Blackbird Ventures managing partner Niki Scevak told the Financial Review.
The tech start-up community has long coveted the trillions under management by Australian superannuation funds but the few funds that did invest in start-up venture capital tended to avoid Australia's woeful track record with technology by opting to invest in US funds. This new fund marks a significant change of thinking from the super industry. Of the $200 million under management in the new fund, $145 million comes from the two super funds and the remaining $65 million from the 96 technology entrepreneurs. First State Super has invested $110 million and its chief investment officer, Richard Brandweiner, said it was a relatively low-risk but important move.
"It is a lot of money for the ecosystem but it's a tiny proportion of our $58 billion under management," Mr Brandweiner said.
"The super sector has become so large in Australia that we need to think about our impact beyond just returns for our members. This is also about investing in the country because we need lots of strong technology companies in the future."
While the super funds make up majority donors, investment decisions are made solely by the Blackbird managing committee: Mr Scevak, Rick Baker and Bill Bartee.
In an indication that the appetite for tech investment has soared, Mr Scevak said Blackbird raised the fund in four months. In comparison, it took them nearly two years and 500 meetings to raise the first fund three years ago.
The fund will have two sections: a $75 million replenishment of the core fund that has been in operation for almost three years and a new $127.5 million follow-on fund for cheques of $5 million and above for more established companies.
Blackbird's record with local start-ups is promising. The group co-ordinates an accelerator for early stage ideas, the initial fund for seed funding and now the new fund means it can feasibly follow a company the whole way through its life cycle. Its first fund has invested in 13 companies with two successful exits, and only one of its start-ups failed and shut down completely in its two years.
The fund is designed to boost the local ecosystem by backing companies with worldwide visions.
Unlike many non-US funds, Blackbird has a ruthless focus on companies with global growth potential, rather than companies making Australian versions of successful overseas models.
Its existing investments include design software Canva, cryptocurrency platform CoinJar, human resources insights software CultureAmp and education software Edrolo.
Mr Scevak said it would be following the same approach in selecting investments for the new fund and that about 70 per cent of capital would likely go to business software makers, while the rest was earmarked for more outlandish bets such as the cryptocurrency tilt it made with Coinjar.
"This fund is for people with companies that they're going to stick with for decades, that will be their life's work, who never sell out and want to change the world," Mr Scevak said.
Key pointsThe new fund is backed by 96 technology entrepreneurs and two super funds.
It will target companies that would have headed overseas.