Melbourne, Sydney, New South Wales and Queensland universities will each invest $3.8m in the fund over the next five years.
Uniseed, the venture fund backed by four Australian universities and research institute CSIRO, has announced a A$20m ($15m) fund that will make follow-on investments in existing portfolio companies, the Financial Review wrote on Sunday.
Melbourne, Sydney, New South Wales (UNSW) and Queensland universities are each set to provide A$5m to the fund over the next 10 years.
The new follow-on fund will enable Uniseed to double-down on promising spinouts and avoid a dilution of its shares.
The vehicle follows the establishment of Uniseed’s third fund, a A$50m commercialisation initiative in late 2015 dubbed No 3 Fund that has invested A$4m so far.
Recently, four additional spinouts received cash from that pool of money, though only one has been named so far: Exonate, a UK-based biotech developer spun out of Nottingham University that is also exploiting research conducted at UNSW.
Exonate obtained £200,000 ($245,000) in November 2016 from Uniseed, University of Bristol Enterprise Fund, Wren Capital, O2h Ventures, angel investors and Martlet, the investment arm of aerospace company Marshall.
