MONASH UNIVERSITY has launched the Monash Ventures Pre-Seed Fund, a $15 million initiative developed in partnership with Breakthrough Victoria to support the commercialisation of research specifically through investment in early-stage spinout companies.

Monash Ventures is a new initiative utilising the university’s ventures and investment activities to help finance and nurture spinout companies. The Pre-Seed Fund is a cornerstone of Monash Ventures and will play a critical role in accelerating research translation and advancing Monash’s innovation ecosystem.

Monash University vice chancellor and president, Sharon Pickering, who was there to launch Monash Ventures and the Pre-Seed Fund said, “At Monash, we are committed to transforming outstanding research into tangible outcomes that benefit our communities, our economy, and the world.

“The launch of Monash Ventures and the Monash Ventures Pre-Seed Fund marks a bold step in strengthening our impact through innovation and enterprise,” Professor Pickering said. 

Providing up to $1 million per company, the fund invests in spinouts emerging from Monash research with strong commercial and societal potential. Alongside capital, recipients gain access to expert networks, mentoring and support to advance proof-of-concept and de-risk technologies on the path to further investment.

The Monash Ventures Pre-Seed Fund was established under the $100 million Breakthrough Victoria University Innovation Platform, and will make investments on a rolling basis in spinouts that demonstrate strong links to Monash IP, licensing agreements or deep research collaborations.

Deputy vice chancellor for research and enterprise and Monash’s senior vice-president, Robyn Ward AM, said this sort of innovation was vital for Australia to be internationally competitive.

“This fund ensures innovators are supported at one of the most challenging points in their journey – turning ideas into investment-ready ventures,” Prof. Ward said.

“By supporting our spinouts with early-stage investment, we are creating pathways for researchers to take their transformative ideas to the market in pursuit of significant impact.”

Chief commercialisation officer, Alastair Hick, said Monash Innovation’s New Ventures team supported each spinout with commercialisation strategies, investor preparation and company formation. The fund is managed under the governance of Monash Ventures, with the investment committee comprising representatives from Monash, Breakthrough Victoria and external industry experts.

“Providing access to pre-seed funding is key to enabling Monash-founded companies to grow, build momentum, and attract follow-on investment,” Dr Hick said. “This launch sets the foundation for a new era of venture creation and impact from Monash.”

Breakthrough Victoria, launched in 2021, is a State Government funded private investment company for Victoria, providing patient capital and investment that impacts the state’s economy and wellbeing.

Inaugural funding recipients

Three Monash spinouts have received inaugural investments from the fund:

FytonBio

Co-founders: Associate Professor Remy Robert, Chuck Silberstein, Adel Nada.

Developing therapeutic antibodies that deplete disease-causing immune cells, with a focus on inflammation and autoimmune diseases. Based on the GPCR-targeting GREAT Platform, developed by Associate Professor Remy Robert at the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute.

Remagine Labs

Co-founders: Pat Kelly, Prof. Stan Skafidas (UniMelb).

Advisor: Prof. Nicolas Voelcker (Monash), Prof. Patrick Kwan (Monash), Prof. Terence O’Brien (Monash).

Engineering wearable, electronically controlled transdermal drug delivery systems for people living with chronic conditions. The team works in partnership with the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS) and the Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication within the Monash Technology Precinct.

Myostellar

Co-founders: Prof. Peter Currie and Prof. Mikaël Martino.

Creating regenerative therapies that stimulate skeletal muscle growth while minimising fibrosis, with a focus on treating muscular dystrophies. Founded at the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute.

www.monash.edu

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By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

DAVID J. GREER, a Canadian entrepreneurial coach, says a lot of start-ups and new businesses make big mistakes early on.

One of the key issues facing early-stage business leaders is not understanding their market and the pain their market is in. How good is the entrepreneur’s pain pill?

“I’ve done years of angel investing and working with start-ups and I would say that in a lot of cases, in that early stage, it is not understanding your market and not understanding the pain that the market’s in,” Mr Greer told Talking Business. 

“Does the market have a really deep pain that they need a solution to and how good is your pain pill? How well does it solve their pain?

“And the bigger the pain and the better the pain pill, it’s the more value, and the more you can charge.”

Getting stuck at a low level

Mr Greer said he works with a lot of owner-founders who have built their businesses to a certain level and who have got stuck in growing it to the next level.

His job, he said, is to figure out what’s stopping that growth. Hiring good people is a start, but the challenge comes when those good people do their work differently from the owner founder.

He said one of the big issues for a lot of entrepreneurs starting new businesses is a lack of focus in the early stages. It’s common with a lot of entrepreneurs, including himself. They have to pursue those red shiny balls.

Mr Greer said a key role in his coaching is to get the business to write down some clear goals for what they want to achieve in the next quarter.

“A lot of coaching I do is writing down clear objective goals with clear finish lines,” he said. 

“A small number. If you can achieve five in a quarter, you’re doing pretty well.

“Entrepreneurs resist doing that because it restricts their freedom.

“So it’s ‘Do you want freedom or a successful business?”

Write down goals for 13 weeks

Mr Greer said he encourages entrepreneurs who want a successful business to write down goals for 13 weeks at least.

“I coach around where do you want to be in three years and the four or five key thrusts to get you there?” he said.

“What are the four or five things you have to achieve this year so that you can get to where that bigger vision is, and then what do you have to do this quarter?

“Thirteen weeks is enough to get serious stuff done and short enough that if you totally blew it, and went off in the wrong direction, you still have time to course correct without catastrophic failure of the business.”

Vital to build capable teams

Mr Greer said entrepreneurs needed to build teams around their businesses “because they can’t do it all themselves”.

Ideally the team members should be smarter than the entrepreneur so that they can all pool their ideas and insights.

“You should be using that collective wisdom to create a much better business,” he said.

“A lot of it is about building trust and being able to let go.”

Mr Greer said this is why only 10% of the population ever become entrepreneurs.

“You’ve got to be a really weird, out-there person to be crazy enough to want to start a business,” he said.

“So this drive, this figure-it-all-out, that’s what actually lets you build the business.” 

www.coachdjgreer.com 

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-24-interview-with-david-j-greer-entrepreneu

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A GROUNDBREAKING invention with the potential to increase production of salad greens while significantly reducing costs has received $1 million from the La Trobe University Eagle Fund, a pre-seed investment program with Breakthrough Victoria to support research with commercial potential.

The Omni-System has been developed by start-up company Gaia Project Australia (GPA) in collaboration with La Trobe researchers from the School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences (SCEMS) and the School of Agriculture, Biomedicine and Environment (SABE).

The company’s flagship product is set to revolutionise Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA), with tests showing it can increase yields of salad greens by up to 40% while significantly reducing both capital and operational expenditure compared to other indoor farming systems. 

Omni-System development demonstrates the opportunity for industry partners to connect with La Trobe’s expertise and intellectual property and advance their concepts through to a commercially viable product, supported by seed investment from Eagle Fund.

Eagle Fund, which was officially launched on March 27, was established in 2023 between La Trobe and Breakthrough Victoria (BV), as part of BV’s $100 million University Innovation Platform.

They have each contributed $9 million to the fund to provide early-stage funding for researchers and start-up companies seeking to commercialise La Trobe intellectual property, particularly those working within areas of digital health, AI, disease detection and treatment and food security and other research strengths.

Through Eagle Fund, La Trobe and BV have co-invested $500,000 each in GPA.

Blood-based diagnostic platform innovation

The fund has also provided $1 million to the university’s second spin-out biotech company, ExCelligent, formed to commercialise technology invented at La Trobe. This investment has been matched by an international industry partner.

ExCelligent has developed a revolutionary blood-based diagnostic platform that enables early and accurate detection of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.

La Trobe vice-chancellor, Theo Farrell said Eagle Fund provided a unique opportunity for investors and industry partners to support La Trobe-backed innovations, gain a competitive edge in key strategic areas, access cutting-edge intellectual property and accelerate research, development and innovation.

“La Trobe University is a leader in world-class research, driving innovation across biotech, Agtech and biomedical sciences and our research institutes are at the forefront of discovery, translating pioneering science into commercial success,” Professor Farrell said.

“The La Trobe University Eagle Fund offers industry partners a valuable opportunity for strategic collaborations that bridge the gap between research and commercialisation, unlocking access to top-tier research, talent and funding opportunities to drive industry growth.

“It also encourages an entrepreneurial mindset for researchers, supporting them to create start-up companies to further their research and innovation for global benefit.”

Omni-System, supported with expertise from La Trobe researchers Dr Alex Stumpf and Adam Console, has received co-investment from Mandalay Venture Partners, LaunchVic and others.

GPA chief executive officer Nadun Hennayaka said, “We have seen first-hand in Australia and abroad the impact of the rising cost of fresh produce during a cost-of-living crisis.

“Our mission is to provide growers with the latest, easily adoptable, cost-efficient technology for sustainable success, by delivering consistent, predictable, highly efficient yields. Ultimately, sustainable and profitable growers lead to a steady supply of affordable, fresh produce for consumers.”

Omni-Yield is now being prepared for deployment, with projects underway in Australia, India and Sri Lanka, and market partnerships establishing in Europe and the US. In addition, grower demonstration sites in Australia and India, developed in partnership with CSIRO, will launch later this year.

The company is gearing up for a hard launch in spring 2025, positioning itself as a global leader in next-generation CEA technology.

How ExCelligent was founded

ExCelligent was co-founded by professor Andy Hill and senior research fellow Lesley Cheng, who worked together on the technology in Professor Hill’s lab at La Trobe University.

Prof. Hill is now an honorary professor at La Trobe, and the deputy vice-chancellor for research and impact at Victoria University. Dr Cheng heads the Neurodegeneration Biology and Biomarker Research group at La Trobe University.

“The investment from the Eagle Fund has allowed us to launch ExCelligent and embark on a program to bring our diagnostic tests for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases to market,” Prof. Hill said.

“This comes at a crucial time with cases of both diseases rising with our ageing population.”

Breakthrough Victoria investment partnership

The partnership was established under the $100 million Breakthrough Victoria University Innovation Platform, which aims to increase commercialisation of critical research with real-world benefits from Victorian universities.

Investment in startups at this critical early stage will help fund product concepts, prototypes and trials to help ensure research with strong commercial potential does not succumb to the valley of death. Researchers and academics will also receive support to better identify and translate ideas into commercial opportunities and improve their entrepreneurial capability.

Breakthrough Victoria was launched in 2021 to be a private investment company for Victoria, providing patient capital and investment that impacts the State’s economy. BV provides long-term capital to innovation businesses that will improve people’s lives and benefit Victoria’s economy.

www.latrobe.edu.au

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