Funding News: Sydney based Equity Venture Partners launches its Second Fund

Peter van Bruchem

Sydney based venture capital manager Equity Venture Partners (EVP) has closed its second fund, with $35 million earmarked for early stage investments in Australian business-to-business (B2B) software companies.

The new fund builds on a long track record for the EVP team. As the earliest investors in startups such as Hotelclub, Siteminder, Rezdy, Shippit and Deputy, the team counts some of Australia’s most successful startups amongst its portfolio of 22 businesses.“It is now self-evident that Australian software companies compete successfully on a global stage,” says EVP co-founder Howard Leibman. “Having been on this journey with several in our portfolio, our focus for Fund II will be to identify early the next generation of Australian B2B software companies with potential to become global category leaders.”

Leibman points to EVP portfolio company Deputy, which recently announced an Australian record Series-B capital raising of AU$110 million. “We’ve worked closely with Deputy since 2015. We’ve seen the team grow from 20 to 200 and the customer footprint expand across almost 100 countries. Deputy continues to deliver exceptional ongoing growth and is clearly emerging as a global leader in workforce management software.”

“We look for companies operating in global markets, with products that integrate deeply into their customers’ core business processes. We back exceptional founding teams, typically with industry “insider” experience, early commercial traction and a vision for product led growth. We invest early growth capital and work closely with our founders through the scale-up process.”

EVP have made four investments in Fund II, namely Fusion Sport, Pendula, Uptick and Deputy.

“Each of these companies has the potential to become dominant in its category,” says Leibman.

“We are excited both by the strong early performance of Fund II and by the ever increasing number of Australian software startups with truly global prospects.”

For more information about EVP please visit: www.evp.com.au

12 February 2019

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