Australian Investment Council’s Post

Great article from InnovationAus.com on the future of Breakthrough Victoria after the Victorian budget yesterday   Here are the highlights:   💰 The Victorian FY25 state budget has cut $360 million from Breakthrough Victoria - its venture capital fund. 💰 The investment horizon of the fund will be extended from 10 to 15 years, giving it “more time to review and be selective about quality investments”. 💰 This extension means the fund will support fewer companies and consortia from next financial year. Budget documents show a lower target of 10 investments. It made 19, 15 and 13 investments in 2023-24, 2022-23 and 2021-22, respectively. 💰 The changes come at a time when the Commonwealth government is adopting an increasingly interventionalist approach to industrial policy. Link to the article in the comments.

🚀 ICURe at the Early-Stage Investment Summit 2024 On Wednesday, Geeta Nathan, Deputy Director of Start-up Ecosystems at Innovate UK and Tony Walker, ICURe’s Head of Hubs, represented the Innovate UK ICURe Programme at the UK Business Angels Association’s Early-Stage Investment Summit in #Manchester. The event offered valuable insights into early-stage investment, including strategies for achieving liquidity, supporting scale-ups and driving successful exits. Tony and Geeta delivered a short briefing on the Innovate UK ICURe Programme, shining a spotlight on successful spinouts that have emerged from the programme and showcasing how UK research is translating into impactful business opportunities. ✨ Event Highlights: ◾ Keynotes on supporting small and scaling businesses in light of budget changes affecting future funding strategies ◾ A panel exploring how devolved powers in #GreaterManchester can attract investment and stimulate regional growth ◾ Insights into equity investment trends for 2025 and Northern investment in a national and global context ◾ A briefing on public-private partnerships driving Northern growth through collaboration with government policies ◾ A conversation with exited founders on overcoming challenges and seizing opportunities as Northern entrepreneurs ICURe is proud to play a key role in shaping the future of UK innovation by supporting research-based spinouts and driving regional and national growth. 🌐 Learn more about ICURe’s early-stage spin-out companies here: https://lnkd.in/ebbhanyG #EarlyStageInvestmentSummit #UKBAA #Innovation #Entrepreneurship #ICURe

Hi There. Could you please do me a favour? As a member of the Advisory Board of the #HICEE project, I was asked to help invite smart people to answer the questionnaire focused on investing in life science innovations in CEE. Here is the message: 📢 Last call for action for investors and start-up support organisations in Europe. 🌍 Don't miss your chance to participate in the Healthy Investment Central Eastern Europe (HICEE) project survey! Under the Horizon Europe programme, HICEE aims to transform the investment landscape by empowering startups, fostering cross-border collaborations, and amplifying venture investments. We can't do it alone – we need your insight to make it happen. 🔔 This is your final opportunity to share your experiences, challenges, and aspirations regarding early-stage investments in Central and Eastern Europe. Seize this moment and contribute to positive change! https://bit.ly/3xLRfTS #HICEE #InvestmentEcosystem #HorizonEurope #CEEInnovation #Entrepreneurshi

🗺️ Have you seen our systems map for transformative investing? The map explores the current reality of the investment system. We aim to illustrate the key dynamics driving the behaviour of the system and which keep the system producing undesired outcomes for society and the environment. Understanding these dynamics can support work towards systemic transformation. Diana Velasco and Edward Steinmueller, in collaboration with Tatiana Fernandez from the Generalitat de Catalunya, a partner of Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium (TIPC), developed the systems map. The collaborative effort was facilitated alongside ReImagined Futures. This stands as yet another successful collaboration between TIPC and the DT Lab, underscoring our shared commitment to advancing transformative initiatives. Take time to explore the map 👉 👉 https://lnkd.in/dHqC3cKg #systemschange #transformativeinvestment Roberta Benedetti del Rio, TransCap Initiative, TWIST: Investing for Systems Change, Johan Schot, Katapult Foundation, Toniic, Alison Fort, Anna Hutchinson, Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium (TIPC), Viliana Dzhartova

Global events are more than just networking—they’re powerful catalysts for business and investment. At the 2024 #SelectUSA Investment Summit, Prodapt announced its plan to open a Network Engineering Center in San Juan, creating 200 new jobs. This milestone directly results from #InvestPR’s ongoing participation in key global events. Events like SelectUSA are critical to driving economic growth and positioning Puerto Rico as a hub for innovation. Learn more ▶️ https://loom.ly/iiolqN0

In the lead up to the International Investment Summit in London we have shared a series of short investment stories highlighting M&G plc’s commitment to driving long-lasting and impactful change in the economies where we operate and underpinned by our company purpose to "Give everyone real confidence to put their money to work". If you have a moment watch below Northern Gritstone

The transatlantic investment and corporate advisory firm Contrail Capital chooses Lausanne as home for their European headquarters 🙌 When Jesus Reglero and his colleagues were looking for somewhere to set up their European HQ, the obvious choices were London, Paris, Madrid – where Jesús is from – and Zurich. So how did they choose Lausanne? “Three things,” says Jesús. “Solid business case, quality of life – this city is very family-friendly – and Innovaud’s investor team.”   In the process of setting up business in Lausanne, Yuliya Blaser and Innovaud supported Jesús every step of the way. “Innovaud is a public organization, yet they’re very business-oriented,” says Jesús. “They’re more like private investors, or consultants, than civil servants.”   Contrail Capital invests and works with low middle-market companies that meet three criteria: they must be scale-ups with an established revenue stream; they must already have a professional investor onboard; and they must have plans to expand to the US. The firm aims to allocate between half a million and a million francs or dollars per investment, and it’s already backed the Vaud-based companies Scantrust and MATIS.   Read more 👉 https://lnkd.in/enZJG6rN And learn more about Innovaud's services for investors 👉 https://lnkd.in/eZgYq-6N   #VDTech #SwissTech #iNNvestors

Kenny Shui, Vice President cum Co-Head of Public Policy Institute, 團結香港基金 Our Hong Kong Foundation (OHKF), Victor Kwok, Assistant Research Director and Head of Education & Youth, OHKF, Kung Shing LAM (Peter), FRM, CAIA, CESGA, Researcher, OHKF, and Kynita W., Assistant Researcher, OHKF, observed the significant increase in the number of start-ups in Hong Kong and suggested the Government implement more supportive measures to facilitate the development of start-ups. How can public and private resources be integrated to develop a holistic start-up incubation ecosystem? Is it feasible for the Government to establish an angel fund to direct capital investment towards seed and early-stage start-ups? What successful models from other cities can be used as a reference? Read more: https://bit.ly/4dDsecS

😳 Bad news: 2% of vc funds go to female founded start up (source: PitchBook and World Economic Forum) 😳 🧬 Good news one: higher diversity means higher performance 🧬 🇪🇺 Good news two: European Investment Fund (EIF) and other public founders are determined to significantly raise this % and will take new measures to actively push it up. Some will become explicit EIF requirement for fund of fund investments 🇪🇺 💡What is ballas invest doing about it? 💡 We just reviewed our diversity kpi and plans forward. As a European digital health investor, we aim to invent the future of healthcare, to deliver superior performance and to do so in our unique way ➡️ 20% of our investments are in female founded start ups, 40% in mixed and 40% in male founded ones ➡️ 60% of our advisors are female ➡️ our own founders are mixed 50/50 with very complementary experience and expertise ➡️ we need more female engineers in digital health in order to fuel the pipeline of future female founders or digital health leaders in hospital and university. We want to stay close to healthcare ecosystem so we can support it the right way. The new e-health chair we just launched with 3iL Ingénieurs will help achieve just that #investorpersona #diversity #performance #digitalhealth #europe Laurent van Lerberghe

In the last years, Central and Eastern Europe has secured a top spot on many investors' lists of preferred places to invest. 🔝 “The CEE region is attractive for investments, as it offers investors in emerging markets returns while suggesting a developed market downside protection. It presents a number of benefits such as lower operational costs, a skilled workforce, a strong entrepreneurial spirit, and supportive regulatory frameworks," Deimante Korsakaite says. To share more best practices on how to leverage the potential in the region, +500 senior private equity / venture capital executives, fund investors, fund managers, and industry experts will meet in Prague between May 14-16 at the Zero One Hundred Conferences (PE & VC Platform) CEE edition. To see what David Schäfer (Munich Private Equity Partners), Pavol Fuchs (Zero One Hundred Conferences (PE & VC Platform)) and Alexander "Sasha" Galitsky,(Almaz Capital) say on this topic, read the article below. ⬇ #venturecapital #conference #networking