Access Capital Ventures
Access Capital Ventures is an Australian venture capital fund that backs only startups which have completed the federal government's Accelerating Commercialisation grant programme. Its water exposure runs through VAPAR, an AI pipe-inspection company. As of 2026, (don't) Waste Water rates its water commitment Occasional: one water company across two deals.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
Access Capital Ventures runs one of the most unusual filters in Australian venture capital: it will only write a cheque to a company that has already finished the federal government's Accelerating Commercialisation programme, a competitive grant scheme for novel technology. The general partners, the people who decide where the fund's money goes, spent years as advisors inside that very programme, so the fund is built on companies they had already watched commercialise up close.
Access Capital Ventures is spread across the country rather than parked in one tower. Larry Lopez sits in Perth, having co-founded Silicon Valley Bank's international venture practice; Allan Aaron is in Sydney, Doug Adamson in Adelaide and Steve Davis in Brisbane, each a former Commercialisation Advisor to the same federal scheme. That shared grant-programme grounding is the fund's real deal pipeline, not a thesis deck.
Access Capital Ventures lands on (don't) Waste Water's radar through a single name: VAPAR, a Sydney company whose software reads the CCTV footage utilities shoot inside their pipes and flags the cracks and blockages a human reviewer would take days to spot. Access Capital Ventures backed VAPAR early and followed on into its 2024 growth round alongside Autodesk and PureTerra Ventures, which is why its water score sits at Occasional rather than dedicated.
For a newcomer the takeaway is plain: Access Capital Ventures is a generalist Australian venture fund where water turns up as a consequence of good engineering, not a standalone strategy. The pattern to watch is that grant-graduate filter, which steers the fund toward infrastructure and deep-tech founders like VAPAR's rather than consumer apps, and keeps the occasional water bet in the book.
Water Commitment Score
Compiled from official filings, third-party records, and direct intelligence from investors and founders, in Leviathan · recomputed monthly · as of Jun 2026.
How they invest
Portfolio · 1 water companies
Invests alongside
Highlighted = profiled on (don't) Waste Water.
Frequently asked
- What does Access Capital Ventures invest in?
- Access Capital Ventures backs early-stage Australian technology startups that have completed the federal government's Accelerating Commercialisation grant programme. Its portfolio spans agtech, software, medical devices and infrastructure, including VAPAR, whose artificial intelligence reviews the CCTV footage water utilities record inside their pipes.
- Who runs Access Capital Ventures?
- Access Capital Ventures is run by a national team of general partners who previously served as Commercialisation Advisors to the Australian government. They include Larry Lopez in Perth, a co-founder of Silicon Valley Bank's international venture practice, Allan Aaron in Sydney, Doug Adamson in Adelaide and Steve Davis in Brisbane.
- Where is Access Capital Ventures based?
- Access Capital Ventures is an Australian venture capital fund headquartered in Sydney, with general partners working across Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane. It invests nationally in companies that have graduated from the government's Accelerating Commercialisation programme, rather than focusing on a single city or state.
- What water companies has Access Capital Ventures backed?
- Access Capital Ventures has backed one water company that (don't) Waste Water tracks: VAPAR, a Sydney startup whose software automatically inspects sewer and stormwater pipes from CCTV footage. The fund invested across two rounds, including VAPAR's 2024 raise alongside Autodesk and PureTerra Ventures.
- Is Access Capital Ventures the same as Access Capital Partners?
- No. Access Capital Ventures is an Australian venture capital fund founded in 2021 that backs Accelerating Commercialisation graduates. Access Capital Partners is a separate, much larger Paris-based private markets firm investing across Europe. They share part of a name but are unrelated businesses.