FAQ

“The beaten zone is the elliptical pattern formed when the rounds within the cone of fire strike the ground or target. The size and shape of the beaten zone change as a function of the range to and slope of the target, but is normally oval or cigar shaped and density of rounds decreases toward the edges.”
Source: http://benning.army.mil/

There are more dangerous places you could be on the battlefield, but not many. We are about systems that add to lethality and increase survivability to help Australia and our allies defend our way of life – you do not do that with harsh language alone – we need modern systems to assist with that. We never want to see these things used but the best way to ensure that is to make sure our sailors, soldiers and aviators have the best tools available.

It means Australian. It means an Australian company, headquartered here with an organisation that would pass muster selling into Australian or closely allied armed forces.

Our logo compromises a stylised Owen Gun (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_gun), an outline of Australia and the Southern Cross – sovereign and lethal – it is who we are. The Owen Gun was developed prior to World War 2 by an Australian and used in from 1941 to 1972, a sovereign innovation of its time.

This space is hard. For a start it is hardware and that is a whole level of difficulty above software due to iteration cycles and logistics. We need to be doing this in a scalable manner. This sector has come to rely on hand to mouth defence grants and is rarely let off the chain to just go for it. That is what we want to do. We want to bring a more traditional software based venture mindset to this arena. We are not embarrassed that our founders create weapons or systems that support weapons or train soldiers to use them, we are proud of that, as they should be. We are there to standby them with advice, networks and capital.

We want to add to a sovereign defence investing flywheel where successful entrepreneurs start, execute, exit and then go on to do it all again and/or enter the ecosystem as an investor.

Lethal I hope is pretty obvious, but it is not just weapons but systems that help hold, aim, control that weapon or train the soldier to use it.

Survivability can be seen as the opposite to lethality, we want systems that protect our fighters from opposition lethality. These could range from camouflage to amour to electronic warfare.

Dual use is great, the things we fund may be dual use but we would prefer to see the material output of companies we fund in the defence sector.

We want innovative weapons or things that make weapons work and things that protect us from oppostion weapons and systems.

Yes. We are raising Fund I. Applications will open soon and we will be an ESVCLP fund.
Want more information, please email us at contact@beatenzone.vc 

Steve was a soldier and electronics technician in the defence force for almost 9 years. Steve has been close to the innovation streams in the Australian Army for many years with his informal involvement in Army Innovation Days and helps out some diggers in individual units as they contend with the pace of tech change how it impacts them and the mission they do on behalf of us. He has over 70 investments in the early stage venture space through Transition Level Investments and TEN13. Among these investments are many with military applicability, some with hardware as well. We are building a team though, it won’t just be me but we are looking for people to come on the journey to assist. See here for info on Steve.

TEN13 is the high alignment, early stage, syndicate investment platform that Steve funded, is the corner stone investment lead in as well as being Non-Executive Chairman. 

Given we are looking for teams with, essentially, weapons or weapons related technology, they will most likely be predominately hardware. Software still has a space, if your company has a military application we would love to hear of it.

We are looking to participate in funding rounds of between $1m and $3m AUD. We are equity investors looking to incentivise founding teams in great outcomes.

We invest at the early stage, that covers a lot of bases. We are more than happy for good teams with a good idea and obvious talent, we would prefer a prototype or demonstrator. We do not need contracts or grants from Australian Defence organisations. In the same way that the Owen Gun was originally rejected by the Australian defence establishment in 1938 before finally being seen as superior we understand the traditional paths to acceptance and sales can be challenging – it is one of those challenges we are up for.

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