Trevor St Baker prepares to lead investment rounds with a new $200m venture capital fund

It’s planned that investors and superannuation funds will come on board as it raises a fund targeting Series A and Series B investments.

Energy billionaire Trevor St Baker has opened a second venture capital fund. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Billionaire richlister Trevor St Baker is opening a second venture capital fund – this time targeting an ambitious $200m goal which he plans to accomplish by the end of this year.

The fund will be opened under his investment arm, the St Baker Energy Innovation Fund, which has already deployed capital into two of its existing portfolio companies, including Evie Networks and Applied EV. The fund also plans to deploy and undisclosed amount of capital into AMSL.

Evie Networks has received $2m in funding and Applied EV has received a $5m injection.

The fund’s chief executive, Rodger Whitby, and chief investment officer Chris Hay announced the details of the second fund at a roundtable in Sydney on Wednesday, alongside executives from their portfolio.

St Baker Energy Innovation Fund chief executive Rodger Whitby.

Unlike the first fund, which was solely owned by the St Baker family, the second will bring on a number of limited partners.

Asked when St Baker expected to reach the second fund’s $200m goal, Mr Whitby said: “We probably picked about the worst time in the last decade to raise a fund, and Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse and so forth aren’t helping … but it’d be nice to think we’re be close to that goal by the end of the year.

“We’re a little over a third of the way there now.”

Last year, Mr St Baker was ranked 100th on The List – Australia’s Richest 250, which noted his fortune had grown rapidly thanks to his holdings in battery technology company Novanix and electric vehicle charging firm Tritium.

St Baker would look to bring in a number of superannuation funds as co-investors as they had typically been missing in the early-stage investment market, Mr Whitby said

“We just think that super funds should be participating more in the early stage, not necessarily big exposures, but with enough exposure to make sure that they’re actually building their own pipeline of future investment opportunities,” he said.

St Baker Energy Innovation Fund chief investment officer Chris Hay.

“All of that super money needs to find quality investment homes in the future and we’re in the business of growing the companies that will be those future investment opportunities.”

St Baker’s second fund will focus on energy and e-mobility as the first fund had, and also look to invest in infrastructure with a particular focus on start-ups in the US and Southeast Asia.

The second fund would be used to deploy further capital into its portfolio companies and to ensure the VC was backing founders for the “full journey”, Mr Hay said.

“I think we’ve demonstrated through the work that we do Tritium and others for investments that we’ve got high conviction and we’re a partner that will be there for the journey,” he said.

“We’ve got north of $50m in Tritium and that’s a demonstration that we turn up at all the rounds.”

The fund would not be a passive investor and look to deploy capital in companies which demonstrated the ability to be “disruptive”, “scalable” and “globally applicable”, Mr Whitby added.

Asked whether the fund would look to fill the gap left by a number of US venture capital funds which have recently returned their focus to the US, or in the case of Salesforce Ventures retreated altogether, Mr Whitby said yes.

“I think that (leading rounds) is a really important role in this industry and there needs to be local funds who are prepared to do that. That’s not to say we will always be there to lead, but it’s certainly something we’re happy to do on most occasions,” Mr Whitby said.

The first St Baker Energy Innovation Fund was established in 2015 and had deployed about $300m in funding to date, Mr Whitby said.

Originally published as Trevor St Baker prepares to lead investment rounds with a new $200m venture capital fund