Meliora’s 12 months milestones: first venture capital fund closed, investment signals engine launched

One year after launching as an operator-led boutique alternative to traditional consulting, The Meliora Company has grown rapidly into a broad TMT platform spanning senior advisory, venture investment, with proprietary brands, and products. The company aims to accelerate AI transformation across Entertainment & Sport Media, Telecommunications, and Digital Marketplaces.

Founded in June 2025 by former Shazam advisor, Seven West Media, and Singtel Optus executive Clive Dickens, Meliora is marking its first year with the first close of specialist AI fund Meliora Ventures Fund One and the launch of proprietary investment signals engine MvSE.

Dickens, Founder and Managing Partner of The Meliora Company, has told radioinfo the company’s  first year has further sharpened its view of what senior TMT leaders now need to accelerate their transformation in an AI driven economy:

“Meliora was built for leaders working through faster technology, commercial and organisational change than older consulting models were designed to support. The traditional model was built around long discovery cycles, big expensive teams, and static decks. Leaders today need senior deeper subject matter experience and much more momentum.”

In its first year, Meliora Advisory has delivered more than 60 international C-suite in person AI briefings across 40 cities in 12 countries, supporting senior leaders across telco, media, and technology as they respond to AI-led disruption, product transformation and rapidly changing commercial models.

Across these briefings, these executive conversations have shifted from broad interest in AI to more specific commercial questions about what to fund, what to stop, and how to ensure the models that organisations use are fairly trained, better governed, and more trusted.

Meliora Ventures Fund One is a specialist AI-focused investment fund targeting CTO-led start-ups across Vertical AI, Generative AI products and SaaS technology with a clear AI differentiator.

The new fund has now reached first close, establishing Meliora Ventures as a formal investment business alongside the company’s advisory work.

Meliora Company Partner Mel Lee says the first close of Meliora Ventures Fund One is a significant milestone because it gives Meliora a direct role in backing the AI start-ups that will define the next phase of the market.

“We are seeing amazing companies, incredible founders and new products being built faster around AI. Through our advisory work, we know what senior leaders and enterprise customers are trying to solve.”

Meliora has also launched MVSE, a proprietary new investment signals engine designed to support Meliora Ventures’ sourcing, market intelligence, investor engagement, and access to the Meliora investment thesis.

Jack Lonergan, Partner at The Meliora Company, says MVSE was built to support the Ventures business as it scales. “MVSE gives Meliora Ventures a proprietary way to capture signals, track market intelligence and support investor engagement around the fund. For us, it is also a signal of the kind of company Meliora is building: one that does not only advise, but also invests, creates and builds.”

Meliora launched on June 4th, 2025. The company now has four partners – Clive Dickens, Jack Lonergan, Mel Lee, and Will Hedberg as part of Meliora Ventures – and 18 associates across APAC, EMEA and AMER markets.

In December last year, Australia’s Albanese government released a National AI Plan, aimed at building an AI-enabled economy to harnesses the full potential of artificial intelligence for the benefit of all Australians. Companies like Meliora are well placed to help achive that plan.

Australia’s National AI Plan “will accelerate the broad development and adoption of AI, ensuring every Australian can share in its benefits while keeping a careful balance between innovation and protection from potential risks.”

The plan is backed by funding of $29.9 million to support government agencies and regulators to monitor risks, and various by MOUs with AI companies, such as Microsoft’s $5 billion investment to develop AI data centres in Australia.

Australia’s National AI Plan has three goals: Capturing opportunities and attracting investment; improving public services, supporting AI adoption and building skills across the economy; and keeping Australians safe in the AI environment.