The National Reconstruction Fund was in 25 Australian startup deals from 2024 to early October 2026, fourth among all investors. Government-backed funds were in 10.1% of deals in 2026 so far, up from 2.2% in 2022.
Who is the NRF?
The National Reconstruction Fund Corporation is a A$15 billion fund the federal government set up in 2023 to invest in Australian industry and technology. It buys shares and makes loans, usually alongside private investors, and it expects its money back with a return.
It got busy fast. The NRF was in 4 startup deals in 2024, 7 in 2025 and 14 in 2026 so far, according to our data. That is 25 deals in under three years. Only Blackbird, AirTree and Main Sequence did more, and they are the three biggest venture firms in the country.
Australian Startup Funding DatabaseAustralian startup deals with the National Reconstruction Fund, 2024 to 2026
| Year | Deals |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 0 |
| 2017 | 0 |
| 2018 | 0 |
| 2019 | 0 |
| 2020 | 0 |
| 2021 | 1 |
| 2022 | 0 |
| 2023 | 0 |
| 2024 | 4 |
| 2025 | 7 |
| 2026 (YTD) | 14 |
The NRF went from 4 deals in 2024 to 14 so far in 2026.
| Rank | Investor | Deals |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Blackbird | 49 |
| 2 | AirTree | 35 |
| 3 | Main Sequence | 28 |
| 4 | National Reconstruction Fund | 25 |
| 5 | Antler | 20 |
It backs deep tech, and it comes in late
If you run a software company, the NRF is probably not your investor. 88% of its startup deals were deep tech (22 of 25). Across the whole market over the same years, deep tech was 34% of deals.
It also tends to arrive once a company is already big. About half its deals were Series C or later. The largest:
- Synchron, the brain-computer interface company, raised a A$305M Series D in November 2025 with the NRF in the round.
- Gilmour Space raised A$217M in January 2026, with the NRF as a lead, and became a unicorn, worth more than US$1 billion.
- Advanced Navigation raised A$158M in March 2026 in a round led by AirTree, with the NRF alongside.
- Morse Micro, the Sydney chip maker, raised A$88M in September 2025.
There are smaller and earlier deals too. The NRF led PolyActiva’s A$40M Series C, co-led Syenta’s A$37M Series A with Playground Global, and put A$20M into Silicon Quantum Computing in March 2026. Like the big rounds, all three are hardware or hard science.
Australian Startup Funding DatabaseDeep tech deals with the National Reconstruction Fund, 2024 to 2026, largest first
5 of 22 deals, largest first
| Date | Company | Round | Sector | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Synchron | Series D+ | Deep tech | A$305M | innovationaus.com | |
| Gilmour Space Technologies | Series D+ | Deep tech | A$217M | overnightsuccess.vc | |
| Advanced Navigation | Series C | Deep tech | A$158M | linkedin.com | |
| Sep 2025 | Morse Micro | Series C | Deep tech | A$88M | smartcompany.com.au |
| Liquid Instruments | Series C | Deep tech | A$70M | instagram.com |
22 of the NRF's 25 startup deals since 2024 were deep tech. The largest were Synchron, Gilmour Space and Advanced Navigation.
About 1 in 10 deals now has a government investor
The NRF is the biggest part of a wider shift. Government-backed funds were in 2.2% of Australian startup deals in 2022 and 10.1% in 2026 so far, according to our data. In 2026 the NRF was in 14 of the 19 government-backed deals.
The NRF did not start the rise, though. The jump in 2023 came from the states first. Breakthrough Victoria, the Victorian Government’s fund, was in 8 deals in 2023 and 9 in 2024, and it writes much smaller cheques. It put A$1M into Swinburne spin-out EntroMat with the university, for example. The NRF arrived on top of that.
Australian Startup Funding DatabaseShare of Australian startup deals with a government-backed investor, 2016 to 2026
Government-backed funds were in 10% of 2026 deals so far, up from 2% in 2022.
| Year | Share | Base n |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 2% (4 of 170) | 170 |
| 2017 | 7% (12 of 172) | 172 |
| 2018 | 2% (4 of 185) | 185 |
| 2019 | 4% (8 of 198) | 198 |
| 2020 | 4% (9 of 226) | 226 |
| 2021 | 3% (8 of 273) | 273 |
| 2022 | 2% (7 of 321) | 321 |
| 2023 | 8% (23 of 278) | 278 |
| 2024 | 8% (24 of 290) | 290 |
| 2025 | 8% (20 of 247) | 247 |
| 2026 (YTD) | 10% (19 of 188) | 188 |
Government-backed funds went from 2.2% of deals in 2022 to 10.1% in 2026 so far.
Why is the government suddenly a big investor? Our view
Our data shows who invested, not why. Here is our read, based on what the people closest to it have said.
The overseas growth money left. Tiger Global was in 12 Australian deals in 2021 and 2022, including Mr Yum and MilkRun’s A$75M Series A. It has none in our data since. MilkRun later collapsed. By October 2023, Cut Through Venture’s Chris Gillings noted that Tiger Global, Sequoia, January Capital and a16z had not announced a single local deal that year. (He also argued that overseas investors as a group had not pulled back more than local ones.) Total startup funding fell nearly 54% in 2023, to A$3.5 billion.
Australian Startup Funding DatabaseAustralian startup deals with Tiger Global
| Year | Deals |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 0 |
| 2017 | 0 |
| 2018 | 1 |
| 2019 | 1 |
| 2020 | 1 |
| 2021 | 6 |
| 2022 | 6 |
| 2023 | 0 |
| 2024 | 0 |
| 2025 | 0 |
| 2026 (YTD) | 0 |
5 of 15 deals, largest first
| Date | Company | Round | Sector | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rokt | Series D+ | Tech | A$432M | finance.yahoo.com | |
| SafetyCulture | Stage not stated | Tech | A$99M | siliconvalleyinvestclub.com | |
| Mr Yum | Series A | Tech | A$89M | techcrunch.com | |
| Milkrun | Series A | Other | A$75M | insidefmcg.com.au | |
| Carma | Series A | Tech | A$73M | theaustralian.com.au |
Tiger Global was in 12 Australian deals in 2021 and 2022, then none.
The NRF was built to fill that kind of gap. When the law passed, the Tech Council of Australia said that “by co-investing with the private sector, the NRF will help fill funding gaps in the market”. Its mandate asks for patient capital of at least 10 years. Most venture funds cannot wait that long, and deep tech often needs it.
Canberra wants it to go earlier and take more risk. SmartCompany reported in May 2025 that the NRF is “being pushed to move earlier in the startup lifecycle”, while it still “behaves more like an institutional investor than a venture backer”. Our data fits that picture: the NRF does a lot of deals and backs science, but it still prefers companies that are already large.
What this means if you are raising
Deep tech at Series B or later? Put the NRF on your list. It often invests next to a venture firm or super fund, as it did with Gilmour Space, Advanced Navigation and Syenta, so treat it as a co-investor beside your lead. At pre-seed or seed, your state fund (Breakthrough Victoria, if you are in Victoria) is the more likely government investor.
Expect more reporting. Unlike a venture fund, the NRF has to show policy outcomes as well as a return. Cortical Labs founder Hon Weng Chong wrote that if the government “wants to act like a VC, it must be treated like one”. A public investor on your register will want clean, regular reporting, and so will everyone else at the board table.
Get your finance lead in before the money lands. Deep tech founders often think they need a CFO who has done it in their exact sector. As I wrote on LinkedIn in June 2026, they want someone who knows:
“R&D tax offsets, long commercialisation timelines, government grants and capital conversations that don’t follow a standard playbook.”
The best people are often in manufacturing, defence or mining instead. In the same post I said: “They’ve built reporting frameworks under real pressure, managed board relationships and made decisions with incomplete information.” That is the person you want when a government fund joins your cap table. To see how finance hires line up with each funding round, read when Australian startups hire finance.
For the bigger shift behind this, read why deep tech is up and fintech is down in Australian startup funding.
Bringing a government fund onto your cap table? You'll need a finance lead who can handle the reporting. We'll find you the best person.
Tom calls you back, usually within one business day. Or call 02 9099 7619.
Not hiring yet? Browse every NRF startup deal, newest first, or every government-backed deal in the database.
Sources and notes
Data. All figures come from the Story Recruitment Australian Startup Funding Database: 2,548 announced Australian startup rounds from January 2016 to early October 2026. 2026 runs from January to early October.
Government-backed means a government fund is named among a deal’s investors: the National Reconstruction Fund, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), Breakthrough Victoria, ARENA, CSIRO, LaunchVic, Investment NSW, Queensland Investment Corporation, the Medical Research Future Fund, Export Finance Australia or another named government body. A fund the coverage did not name is missed. The share is of all deals in the year: 2.2% in 2022 (321 deals) and 10.1% in 2026 to date (188 deals).
Investor counts are deals an investor took part in, as lead or participant, not dollars. The ranking is from the database’s top 15 investors for 2024 to 2026. NRF deals by year (4, 7, 14), the deep tech share (22 of 25 NRF deals, against 245 of 725 deals in the whole database for 2024 to 2026), the stage mix (12 of the 25 NRF deals since 2024 were Series C or later, 6 were Series A or B and 7 had no announced stage), Breakthrough Victoria by year and the 14 of 19 government-backed deals in 2026 are our counts of rows in deals.json, matching the investor name. “Only Blackbird, AirTree and Main Sequence did more” comes from this ranking. Tiger Global appears in 15 rows, 12 of them in 2021 and 2022. Counts are rows, so a round reported twice (Harrison.ai’s 2025 Series C, Liquid Instruments’ 2026 Series C) counts twice. Amounts in US dollars are converted to approximate Australian dollars.
Coverage. The database covers about two thirds of the market: 247 deals in 2025, against 390 in Cut Through Venture and Folklore Ventures’ 2025 State of Australian Startup Funding. It leans towards rounds that got press coverage. Every investor count here is under 50 and every yearly NRF count is under 30, so read them as direction, not a precise league table. Dates come from announcement coverage, and in a spot check about 1 in 7 rows sat in a neighbouring year or month. The fund size, mandate and the A$3.5 billion 2023 total come from the linked outside sources, not our database. The full method is in the explainer on how we built the database.
How to cite this: Source: Story Recruitment Australian Startup Funding Database (2016 to 2026), storyrecruitment.com.au/insights/australian-startup-funding, CC BY 4.0.
Common questions
What is the National Reconstruction Fund?
The National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRF) is a A$15 billion investment fund, per the Tech Council of Australia, set up by the federal government in 2023 to back Australian industry and technology companies. It invests alongside private investors, and its mandate asks for patient capital of at least 10 years.
Who are the most active startup investors in Australia?
From 2024 to early October 2026, the most active investors by number of deals were Blackbird (49), AirTree (35), Main Sequence (28) and the National Reconstruction Fund (25), according to the Story Recruitment Australian Startup Funding Database. Antler was fifth with 20.
What kind of startups does the NRF invest in?
Mostly deep tech at a later stage. 22 of its 25 startup deals since 2024 were deep tech companies, such as Synchron, Gilmour Space, Advanced Navigation and Morse Micro. About half were Series C or later.
How many Australian startup deals have a government investor?
About 1 in 10 in 2026 so far (10.1%), up from 2.2% in 2022. Government-backed funds include the National Reconstruction Fund, Breakthrough Victoria and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
Does a government investor change who a startup needs in finance?
It raises the bar on reporting. The NRF has to show policy outcomes as well as a return, and it answers to taxpayers. A finance lead who has run board and investor reporting in a capital-heavy business makes that much easier.
These guides set out how we see it, drawn from the searches we run and the finance leaders we work with. They are general information about the market, not financial, accounting or legal advice, and they are no substitute for advice on your own circumstances.