Maxine Minter's Co Ventures concludes its 1st Fund

Co Ventures of Maxine Minter, the first dedicated pre-seed venture fund of Australia has concluded its first ever fund after hitting the target of $5 million. Almost 2 years of work by Minter resulted in Co Ventures Fund 1 before the announcement of her fund’s launch in 2023. Minter began fundraising in the year 2022.

A rare highlight of venture partners and limited partners’ (LPs) keen support towards backing early-stage startups amidst 2023 vintage funds’ crop that are still expecting to hit the raised targets as investor appetites focused elsewhere.

Minter said, “We focus exclusively on the pre-seed stage, so we’re looking for companies anywhere in their starting journey and up until you start seeing signs of early product-market fit. The moments when customers start pulling the product from the company. This usually looks like the first couple of letters of intent LOIs or MOUs, maybe a few early customers, before your first design partner as you’re building, or maybe you have an MVP in the market. Specifically, we want to work for gritty founding teams that are learning machines, passionate about their space, and aim to make a meaningful impact in the world. Right now, it feels like we’re in a ‘tale of two cities’—AI and non-AI. If you’re in the AI space, a ton of capital is available, with plenty of funds having AI-only theses.”