Investor Profile: Artesian Venture Partners — Thesis, Cheque Size & How to Apply

Founders researching Artesian Venture Partners funding will find a global alternative asset manager with a difference: Artesian runs both debt and venture strategies, totalling $1.5 billion in AUM ($815M debt, $660M venture, per the firm's site). Its venture platform backs early-stage companies transforming critical industries — and India is explicitly named as a target emerging market in its BrincArtesian EMDE Access Fund.

Thesis and focus: how to get funding from Artesian Venture Partners

Artesian invests where specialist expertise, agility and insight outperform scale. A distinctive part of the model is Venture Capital as a Service (VCaaS) — dedicated institutional mandates — plus accelerator and incubator partnerships that feed it deal flow. For Indian founders, the key signal is the firm's own EMDE fund page naming India alongside China, ASEAN and MENA as target emerging markets.

Sectors, stages and cheque size

Sectors span energy, agrifood, health, AI, defence, frontier tech, medtech, clean energy, cybersecurity, space, smart cities and mobility, and sustainable food and agriculture. The firm states there is no single entry stage — first cheques range from pre-seed to later rounds depending on the mandate. Current cheque sizes are not publicly disclosed; in a 2017 interview, managing partner Jeremy Colless cited then-typical ranges of $25–50K seed deals, $100–250K angel cheques and around $1M later-stage investments.

Notable portfolio and programmes

Verified names include Audience Republic (where Artesian led a $525K round), Daitum, Pi.Exchange, Plaetos, Remi AI and Strongroom AI. Programmes include BrincArtesian (JV with Brinc), Boab AI (AI accelerator plus an approximately A$100M fund), the Actuator Medtech VC Fund, the South Australian VC Fund, a Female Leaders Fund, a Clean Energy Seed Fund, GrainInnovate and SproutX.

Partners

Founded in 2004 by Jeremy Colless, Matt Clunies-Ross and John McCartney (spun out of ANZ Banking Group's capital-markets business), with offices across Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Shanghai, Singapore, London, New York and Austin. Caitlin Iles serves as Managing Director of Artesian Venture Partners.

How to apply for funding

There is no public startup pitch portal. Deal flow is sourced through accelerator, incubator, university-programme and angel-group partners, so the practical route for founders is to engage through one of Artesian's partner programmes — such as BrincArtesian or Boab AI — or contact the firm via the website's contact form.