I’ve seen this question before, however it was mostly concerned with Austria either having colonies in the Levant or like places in the 19th century.
However, there was a vested Imperial interest in trade abroad in the 18th century – as evidenced by Holy Roman Emperor Karl VI’s founding of the Ostend Company in Antwerp. But in 1787, French explorer, Nicolas Baudin met the Austrian botanist Franz Josef Maerter who told him of another Austrian botanist, Franz Boos who was at the Cape of Good Hope bound for Mauritius.
Baudin took Boos aboard, took him to Mauritius, and then back to Trieste. In 1788, the Imperial Chancery wanted to organize more natural history expeditions – this time to Malabar, the Coromandel Coast, the Persian Gulf, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Bengal, Ceylon, Cochin China, Tongking, Japan, and China. Baudin also sent the second captain of his ship, La Jardiniere I on to the western coast of North America for a fur-trading expedition.
Likewise, when Maria Leopoldina was sent to Brazil to marry D. Pedro IV & I of Portugal and Brazil, she took many natural historians, botanists and the like in her train.
And I was wondering what might the possibility of Austria using the Imperial Asiatic Company for colonization purposes as well as natural historians etc?