Background
Airtree is one of the largest and most active early-stage venture capital firms in Australia and New Zealand, with over A$2 billion in funds under management and a portfolio of more than 120 startups, including breakout names like Canva, Go1, Airwallex, Employment Hero, Pet Circle, Immutable and Linktree. The firm backs visionary Aussie and Kiwi founders and provides hands-on support to help them scale globally.
The VC has earned a reputation as one of Asia-Pacific’s most successful, having backed 9 local unicorns and recently announcing the close of its fifth Fund at A$650 million.
With a strong commitment to building data-informed processes internally, Airtree continuously seeks tools that help it maintain high visibility across the rapidly evolving private markets in the region.
The Challenge
Tracking private market activity in Asia Pacific is notoriously difficult. The region is characterised by fragmented ecosystems, inconsistent disclosures and limited real-time reporting. Many deals go unannounced, or only surface in manual filings weeks or months after they’ve closed.
Most global data providers primarily focus on the United States, United Kingdom and Europe. As a result, their coverage of Australia and New Zealand is often limited or delayed.
For an active venture capital firm like Airtree, this presents a real risk of missing out on early signals from promising startups. Airtree needed a reliable data partner that could surface deal activity faster and more comprehensively than traditional sources, in order to maintain full market visibility.
How Alternatives.pe Helped
Airtree turned to Alternatives.pe for its deep coverage of Asia-Pacific’s private markets, particularly in Australia and New Zealand. Instead of relying solely on press releases, Alternatives.pe incorporates filings and regulatory data, allowing it to surface deals that may otherwise have gone unannounced.
Airtree integrates Alternatives.pe’s deal data into their internal deal review process, comparing it against their CRM to identify any opportunities that may have been missed and to refine their sourcing funnel accordingly. This allows them to stay ahead of emerging trends and founders, and improve the timing of outreach to promising startups.
Key Takeaways
By incorporating data from Alternatives.pe into their workflow, Airtree has seen the following benefits:
Increased confidence in market coverage: Alternatives.pe enables Airtree to quantify how comprehensively it’s tracking deal activity in Australia and New Zealand, ensuring fewer opportunities fall through the cracks.
Better position outreach to founders: With more complete market visibility, Airtree is able to time outreach to high potential startups sooner rather than later.
More data-informed internal processes: Airtree’s rigorous, data-backed approach to deal sourcing lays the groundwork for its long-term competitive advantage, ensuring it stays ahead of emerging trends.