Spotlight: Incubate

While Australia grapples with the urge to transform its economy from one centred around resources to a land that fosters innovation, one incubator is standing out from its peers down under – Incubate.

Founded in 2012 by two entrepreneurial students, James Alexander and Mina Nada, and developed with the support of University of Sydney Union, Australia’s oldest and largest student union at the University of Sydney, Incubate is moving out from Sydney as part of a national roll out, and is aiming to take their accelerator international.

It was set up because the founders saw a gap in the market for supporting student entrepreneurs leaving university.

Co-founder James Alexander explained to GUV: “The programme is based at university as we strongly believe this is a hotbed of entrepreneurial talent. Supporting entrepreneurs that want to launch a startup at university is essential in fostering the next generation of innovators and job creators. Whether these companies utilise university IP or whether they are original ideas and concepts from students or alumni we think supporting them will help build a powerful entrepreneur community.” 

Clearly, it’s not just James who thinks that they’ve stumbled onto something special with this idea. Google, too, has made its intentions clear by forming a partnership with Incubate to replicate its model at other universities around Australia. Recognition alone from Google would be reason enough for celebration, but access to Google’s resources, technology and expertise makes it a particularly valuable relationship for Incubate.

Announcing the partnership, James said: “Incubate has fostered the first startup community at Sydney University, helping launch 16 new startups and encouraging even more students to consider the entrepreneur path. With Google’s help, we want to take the accelerator programme to other campuses to create Australia’s first national network of global-thinking entrepreneurs at universities.”

What’s different about Incubate, what sets it apart from the corporate world is that Incubate won’t ask its Incubatees for any equity. The argument being that it is solely interested in developing a tech scene and startup community that’s on par with what’s happening San Francisco, New York, London, and Berlin.

Incubate does, however, operate like any other incubator in terms of structure. It has two cycles a year (winter and summer) as well as organising entrepreneur and innovation themed events including panels, keynotes and networking events. The program is positioned as an extracurricular offering helping entrepreneurs launch startups on campus.

James explained: “Although we currently have no official investment fund attached [to the programme] we do have strong ties to the VC and investor community in Sydney and around Australia. We provide small business grants, co-working space and most importantly mentorship from leading Australian entrepreneurs.”

So what’s next for Incubate? Its partnership Google will see it expand to universities across Australia, but the team has its sights set a little bit further afield. James added: “[We] strongly believe in the positive effects of entrepreneurial networks and want to partner with leading universities to host our three month accelerator programme. We’re currently investigating potential partner universities in the Asia Pacific region, the USA and we’re keen to talk with interested UK and European universities.”