The federal authorities is eager to companion up with native enterprise capital corporations, placing as much as $500 million on the desk as co-investment for Australian corporations creating defence tech.
The Defence division has opened a Request for Expressions of Interest (REOI) on AusTender for personal buyers to again its Superior Capabilities Funding (ACI) Fund.
The federal government could contribute a co-investment of as much as $500 million into a number of ACI Fund(s) to finance Australian corporations creating defence and dual-use superior capabilities.
Defence is on the hunt for enterprise buyers to ascertain and handle an ACI Fund(s) to again SMEs and startups in areas akin to cyber, synthetic intelligence and autonomy, digital warfare, quantum applied sciences, and undersea warfare, with a concentrate on export potential.
That additionally consists of what the REOI euphemistically calls “kinetic and kinetic-enhancing superior defence capabilities” – the navy time period for missiles, bombs, bullets, artillery, and armoured automobiles.
The REOI section is open until April 30.
Defence trade minister Pat Conroy mentioned joint funding between the federal government and personal sector might drive jobs and innovation.
“In creating potential choices for co-investment, the federal government is in search of methods to catalyse progress of Australia’s innovation ecosystem, sovereign trade functionality and exports potential,” he mentioned.
“The Authorities will discover choices to companion with non-public capital to spend money on eligible Australian small and medium enterprises which might be creating the capabilities we’d like.”
Funding underway
Many Australian startups are already working within the defence area, partnering with the US navy, together with Advanced Navigation which has been working with US Defense on GPS-jamming countermeasures, and drone and robotics startup Breaker, which last week banked a $9 million Seed.
In the meantime, Australian Defence has been buying chips from Silicon Quantum Computing, and final 12 months Brisbane aerospace startup Hypersonix Launch Systems banked a $46 million Series A with the government-backed Nationwide Reconstruction Fund a key investor.
American buyers have been key backers of native defence tech, native buyers have been slower off the mark and VC’s large three – Blackbird, Airtree and Sq. Peg – have largely eschewed the defence sector, except dual-use know-how, primarily as a result of superannuation funds which might be key buyers within the VC funds have their very own governance insurance policies precluding weapons funding.
One of many few contrarian advocates for defence funding is Steve Baxter, who cofounded Beaten Zone Venture Partners in 2025, and is building a $60 million war chest to again defence startups globally. Final 12 months BZV was a part of a $5 million raise for defence surveillance startup Arkeus, alongside CSIRO-backed Important Sequence.
The cap desk for Crushed Zone – a navy reference to them sample shaped when munitions hit their goal or the bottom – additionally embody simulation platform Nominal Programs, and HEO, the Sydney space tech imaging startup monitoring exercise in Earth’s orbit.
