The commercialisation arm of Victoria University of Wellington has secured $6.6m for its spinouts under an initiative funded by local financial services firm Booster.

Queensland crop breeding spinout Nexgen Plants has been backed by multi-university venture fund Uniseed, Business Development Fund and Yuuwa Capital.

Enterprise data management platform Instaclustr has collected $15m in funding after raising $6.9m from investors including Australian National University’s ANU Connect Ventures.

James Cook University has formed its first spinout, Paragen Bio, which will commercialise autoimmune disease therapies derived from a blood-sucking tropical parasite.

Colin McLeod will be executive director of the Melbourne Entrepreneurial Centre, which will be based at the Innovation Precinct when it opens in 2020.

University of Queensland has taken the wraps off Pure Battery Technologies, which will commercialise technology to extract nickel and cobalt from low grade ores.

Campbell Walshe has returned to Melbourne Accelerator Program as director, having co-founded a participant and been an entrepreneur-in-residence.

The vehicle, which is of undisclosed size, has made genetic sequencing developer Oxford Nanospore its first investment.