Australia's Uniseed secures $15m for VC fund

The Universities of Melbourne, New South Wales, Sydney and Queensland will each invest A$5 million in the vehicle across the next 10 years. According to a statement, the capital will support Uniseed’s A$50 million Commercialisation Fund by providing lower risk, later stage investment rounds to existing portfolio companies.

“Currently, Uniseed takes early stage risk to facilitate commercialization of member organization intellectual property,” Uniseed CEO Peter Devine said. “With early investment moving technology out of the laboratory, across the ‘valley of death’ to the traditional capital markets – our new follow-on fund will allow Uniseed to participate more fully in later stage investment rounds and take our investee companies further along their path to commercialization.”

Uniseed was established in 2000 as a A$20 million joint venture between the Universities of Melbourne and Queensland. Its research partners collectively account for over A$4 billion in annual research expenditure, representing 40% of all research expenditure at Australian research organizations.

A debut pre-seed and seed fund closed in 2003 at A$61 million, while Fund II reached $40 million in 2005 with support from AustralianSuper. Exits include Fibrotech Therapeutic, which was acquired by Shire for $557 million in 2014, and Spinifex Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Novartis for $725 million in 2015.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Technology
• Fundraising
• Venture
• Australia
• Venture