New global industries are being created on laboratory benches as scientists take a ride on the "flywheel of capital" with a CSIRO-backed technology fund.
"Incredible invention in Australia is actually going to change the way we eat and change the way we shop," Main Sequence partner Gabrielle Munzer told AAP.
The fund's mission is to tackle the planet's biggest challenges by taking scientific discoveries and turning them into new industries.
Ms Munzer, a former investment banker, said "fuelling a flywheel of capital" for the past five years has made a significant difference.
"For about a third of our portfolio, we're catalysing companies into existence that would otherwise stay on a lab bench," she said.
She has had a hand in several recent successes, including enviro-tech recycling company Samsara Eco and Eden Brew's lab-brewed animal-free milk and ice-cream.
Australian-owned dairy co-operative Norco, founded in 1895, bought into Eden Brew early on and is selling "mylk" on supermarket shelves.
Samsara Eco has invented technology it says can infinitely recycle plastic before it outweighs fish in the ocean.
Potentially ending a reliance on oil and gas for manufacturing plastic bottles, bags and containers, the startup has made new plastics of 100 per cent recycled material.
A focus on decarbonisation and sustainability also attracted Main Sequence to Loam, a biotechnology company using microbes to supercharge a plant's natural ability to store carbon in the soil.
Bridging the technology gap for space navigation, robotics and restoring Australia's place in semiconductor development are also priorities.
The next intelligence leap is another theme, including startup Fivecast that was founded in 2017 under the Five Eyes alliance of Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand.
The deep tech funding has backed 53 companies, since valued at more than $6.8 billion, and created more than 2100 jobs.
The latest tranche has raised $450 million, Main Sequence announced on Wednesday, bringing the total to $1.02b in funds under management.
Top climate investors and high-profile new backers, as well as many repeat investors, have signed up to support fledgling companies.
They include superannuation fund Hostplus, Australian Ethical Investment, the US-based Grantham Foundation, private advisory firm LGT Crestone, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, NGS Super and the fund's first Japanese investor, Daiwa Securities Group.
Main Sequence will be working alongside the federal National Reconstruction Fund to develop sovereign manufacturing.
It is also part of the Australian Economic Accelerator program that will commercialise university research.
Combined, they have the capability to be a "commercialisation engine for the country," Ms Munzer said.
COMMON GROUND FOR FUTURE FUNDING:
* Renewable energy technologies, including hydrogen
* Non-animal proteins and new food production systems
* Using synthetic biology for recycling and food production
* Quantum technologies and semiconductor breakthroughs
* Robotics and automation applied to safety, sensing and discovery
* Services in outer space, including navigation
* Cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and machine learning.
