Michelle Perugini, who was a senior research fellow with the Australian university earlier in her career, has been hired as head of commercialisation.
The University of South Australia has appointed serial entrepreneur Michelle Perugini as its inaugural head of commercialisation and chief executive of commercialisation and investment subsidiary UniSA Ventures.
UniSA Ventures has a portfolio of 31 spinouts which have raised A$100m ($65m) in investment since 2012. The unit has achieved 10 successful exits and has executed 115 licensing deals since 2012.
Perugini has cofounded two artificial intelligence technology startups: predictive analytics company ISD Analytics, acquired by consultancy EY, and Presagen, which has developed an IVF tool called Life Whisperer and was acquired by medical equipment manufacturer Astec.
Perugini was a senior research fellow in the University of South Australia’s Center for Cancer Biology between 2013 and 2015. She was also a member of working groups and committees for the Australian government.
Perugini’s long list of previous commitments include being a mentor on research agency CSIRO’s On Prime accelerator between 2017 and 2020 and the University of Adelaide’s competition Australian eChallenge from 2016 to 2018.
She was an advisory board member at the University of South Australia Business School between 2017 to 2020.
Thierry Heles
Thierry Heles is editor-at-large of Global University Venturing and Global Corporate Venturing, and host of the Beyond the Breakthrough podcast.
