Alexander believes start-ups from bigger universities are better placed with regard to funding prospects.
“On the one hand, they have more of a prestigious reputation for various reasons… and that always helps,” he says.
“On the other hand, with universities like UNSW and Sydney and Melbourne, they’re more recognised internationally.”
Alexander points out the alumni of a particular university can also help start-ups secure funding, using University of Sydney alumnus Ryan Junee as an example.
“Ryan Junee is very closely tied with Stanford University’s incubator, which is StartX, as well as Y Combinator,” he says.
“With any Sydney University students who apply to Y Combinator, I always refer them to Ryan Junee. From that perspective, the alumni of the university are very powerful.”
Established by the University of Queensland in 1984, UniQuest is widely recognised as one of Australia’s largest and most successful commercialisation groups.
Since 2000, UniQuest and its start-ups have raised more than $450 million to take university technologies to market.
UniQuest managing director David Henderson says investors are looking for two things, regardless of whether or not the start-up is university-based.
“One is good technology. The second thing they’re looking for is reducing their risk that things could go wrong,” Henderson says.
“If you present a proposition that’s well prepared, looks at the market well and they’re confident it has done all the due diligence… naturally they’re going to be more inclined to invest in that.”
But Henderson believes the resources within a university can also play a part.
“I think it’s a question of the amount of resources at the university. Some have very few resources and others have a lot,” he says.
“At UQ, we have quite a considerable amount of resources to fund technologies and package them up, and that’s why we get up half a dozen start-ups a year.”
“[Investors] know we will have done a thorough job on due diligence, checking everything out.”
“The second thing is we’ve done deals with most of the VCs in the country. You’re naturally inclined to work with the people you know and have been successful in the past.”
