Artesian Venture Partners will be managing the new university venturing fund.
Wollongong University has set up a new AU$10m ($9.34m) seed fund, which will be supporting early-stage tech startups with the aim of attracting outside investment to them. The fund will be managed by Artesian Venture Partners on behalf of the university, with PricewaterhouseCoopers further advising on the fund’s structuring.
The seed fund forms a part of Wollongong’s programme and co-working space iAccelerate, which it launched in 2012 to support early-stage companies. The initiative is aiming to tackle the reality that early-stage venture funding has been difficult to come by in Australia. In 2013, capital raised on the continent was a mere 1% compared to the money raised in the US.
The seed fund will allow all the companies in its iAccelerate to apply for seed funding, giving the startups an opportunity to grow their business into a viable investment option for outside traditional venture and corporate venture capitalists.
The iAccelerate initiative offers a co-working space for early-stage ideas, a space for businesses that have grown beyond early ideas, and an incubation of up to three years. The services will soon be located at a new purpose-built 4,000 square metre centre at the university’s campus,
Jeremy Colless, managing partner at Artesian, said: “We know that the younger an enterprise is, the more support is required, and early stage or angel funding can often be a challenge for startups in regional areas. This seed fund will give startups a great financial leg up, while the iAccelerate programs will support them through education, coaching, and mentoring. We believe this multifaceted support will attract some great entrepreneurs in the Illawarra.”
