First Nations-focused VC pushes for ‘missing middle’ finance as Indigenous businesses seek scale capital

A specialist venture capital fund focused on First Nations entrepreneurship says Australia’s Indigenous business sector is ready to grow beyond grant dependency but needs access to patient, scale-ready capital and trusted support to bridge a persistent funding gap.

Ochre Ventures, which describes itself as Australia’s first specialist venture capital fund dedicated to First Nations entrepreneurship, is pursuing a $100 million funding target and calling for more investors to back Indigenous-led companies that are ready to scale.

Venture analyst Aidan Devitt said the fund is designed to address what Ochre calls the “missing middle” of business finance – the space where many businesses outgrow small grants but still cannot meet bank lending requirements. “We feel like venture capital is very important to meet that missing middle,” Devitt said. “But between those two points, there is a real gap.”

He said the model is built around equity investment rather than debt, with Ochre taking a minority stake and working alongside founders as businesses grow. “We provide access to equity capital,” Devitt said. “In return, we take a minority stake and then work alongside the business to grow and scale its value.”

The broader context is a First Nations business economy that has expanded rapidly in recent years, driven in part by procurement policy and growing demand for Indigenous-owned suppliers. But advocates say new growth stages bring different pressures (governance, hiring, market expansion, export readiness) and the capital required to make those moves is often inaccessible.

Ochre reached a $30 million first close toward its $100 million target and that the fund has already made early investments across sectors including construction, gaming and AI. In that report, Devitt said: “There’s no shortage of ambition — the constraint is access to scale capital plus strategic support to grow.”

They argue the sector’s full potential is constrained by limited strategic capital and networks founders can rely on to innovate and scale. The article also notes the role of Indigenous procurement in creating demand, while emphasising that revenue alone does not solve the capital and capability needs of high-growth enterprises.

The debate now is whether governments, philanthropists and institutional investors are prepared to back more Indigenous-led funds and founder pipelines – not as a symbolic gesture but as a practical step toward long-term economic participation and intergenerational wealth creation.