GUV Powerlist 2018: Bill Bartee, Martin Duursma, Mike Zimmerman

The Csiro Innovation Fund 1 – a joint venture between the Commonwealth Scientific Research Organisation (Csiro) and the Australian government – has been a huge hit with investors.
In September, it was revealed that Main Sequence Ventures, the fund manager set up to run the vehicle, had raised an additional A$132m ($94.8m), taking its total to $167m – some $23m above its 2017 launch target. The latest fundraising was backed by University of Melbourne, aerospace company Lockheed Martin and Singaporean government-owned investment firm Temasek.
Main Sequence Ventures is run by general partner Bill Bartee, founder of Blackbird Ventures, with partners including Mike Zimmerman – who recently spent a year as Csiro’s entrepreneur-in-residence – and Martin Duursma, formerly of digital developer Citrix.
The fund invests in spinouts from Csiro and state-backed institutions and has committed to nine deals to date. Among the portfolio companies are Q-Ctrl, a quantum computing spinout from University of Sydney, and Morse Micro, a next-generation wifi developer.