Australia proved to be a popular place for technology deals in 2014 with 100 recorded, according to Right Click Capital founder Benjamin Chong. The number includes companies conducting acquisitions and startups raising money.
Speaking at the Disruptocon conference in Sydney, Chong told delegates that the average deal size in Australia was US$15 million.
The United States was the top country for tech deals with 2700 deals totalling $108 billion last year. Australia came in at sixth place, based on deal size.
Chong’s company analyses through technology deals that get announced around the world every week. This information is available through the Internet Deal Book.
Turning to deal value by sector, the global average deal for hardware and infrastructure was $200 million in 2014.
Meanwhile in software and services, the average was $16 million. E-commerce deals yielded a total of $37 million.
“These are the sorts of amounts that are being invested by corporates and venture firms into businesses,” said Chong.
Turning to acquisitions, the average acquisition deal value for hardware and infrastructure was $2.5 billion while mobile and apps acquisitions were at $1 billion.
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Deals in Australia
Chong mentioned a number of startup deals. For example, invoice2go raised $35 million from US investors while Smart Sparrow raised $10 million in the US.
He also had some advice for startups looking to raise money.
“People often ask how important a founding team is when it comes to raising money. From the investor’s perspective, they look at the right level of business and technical nous. There also needs to be enough domain experience,” said Chong.
Taking the example of ride share app Uber, he added that identifying a real need and trying to solve that need in a way that shows there is consumer uptake is important to investors.
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