2023 in Review: UNSW Founders' Year of Innovation, Growth, and Entrepreneurial Success
This year has been a marathon of economic challenges for Australia, with stumbling growth and unsettling inflation rates plaguing our financial landscape. In times like these, the resilience of our nation's economy rests in the hands of our entrepreneurs. At UNSW Founders, amidst the tumultuous economic terrain, we've continued to champion the critical role entrepreneurship plays in Australia's economic prosperity.
Nurturing entrepreneurship isn't just an option; it's imperative. All net new jobs in Australia emerge from companies less than a decade old. This underscores the pivotal role universities must play in shaping not just "job-ready" graduates, but individuals able to create employment opportunities for themselves and others.
The core mission of UNSW Founders is to embed entrepreneurship within our university’s fabric. We're devoted to empowering UNSW students, staff, and alumni to cultivate their entrepreneurship skills, translating their ideas into thriving companies. In 2023 alone, UNSW Founders and partners invested a record-breaking $4 million in seed funding to 23 startups across the five 10x Accelerator streams. Since 2018, our portfolio of 82 startups has created 500+ jobs and raised $142+ m in capital.
And it seems our hard work in 2023 hasn’t gone unnoticed. Throughout the year, UNSW Founders has garnered significant acclaim in various rankings, solidifying our position as a beacon of entrepreneurial excellence in Australia.
Just this month UNSW ranked first out of Australia’s Universities by the number of funded founders and companies they’ve helped create in this decade (2014-23). After adjusting for university size, the study (completed by our team) found that UNSW was Australia’s most entrepreneurial university of the decade.
UNSW secured the highest representation with 20 honorees on the Australian's annual Top 100 Innovators List. I was grateful to be featured among the honourees in the sector of Education and Talent. We were proud to see 10x alumni LLEAF Greenhouse Film Technology (Dr. Alexander Soeriyadi) and HEO (Dr. William Crowe and Dr. Hiranya "HJ" Jayakody) also make the list.
New figures released by Dealroom.co placed UNSW first for universities in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) with the highest number of alumni who have founded startups and gone on to raise more than US$10 million in funding.
This year, UNSW Founders' programs and startups have captured considerable media attention. We kicked the year off with Nine News Sydney paying a visit to our SynBio 10x Accelerator labs. Health 10x alumni Nuroflux also made waves on Nine News, showcasing their innovative stroke solution. I shared insights into the power of philanthropy in scaling up innovation in a Pro Bono Australia feature. The Australian spotlighted our new Defence 10x Accelerator, reinforcing our commitment to boosting Australia's sovereign capabilities with $350,000 in seed funding for several startups. SynBio 10x alum Cauldron made headlines with their extraordinary $10.5 million raise in The Australian Financial Review. 10x alum HEO Robotics also received significant media attention for an impressive $12 million Series A round led by AirTree. Furthermore, 10x alumni like JDoodle, Number 8 bio, and Aerologix secured substantial funding rounds covered by publications, including ABC News, SmartCompany, and Forbes. And, just last month, InnovationAus announced that UNSW would become the first university to launch a Startup Year program.
These accolades wouldn’t have been possible without our remarkable team, a diverse collective of individuals encompassing over 20 ex-founders, angel investors, program designers, facilitators, marketers, scientists, and product managers. Their extensive expertise in developing, designing, and executing top-tier entrepreneurial programs is what enables these outcomes. Beyond our core team, we tap into a vibrant network comprising 500+ industry professional mentors, 150+ angel investors, and an array of esteemed speakers who generously contribute their expertise and time to our programs. Their invaluable support stems from a shared dedication to nurturing entrepreneurship and fostering innovation within our community, amplifying our capacity to drive transformative change.
In 2023, the UNSW Founders team coached 270+ startups, 47.8% of which have a female founder. Equity and inclusion are cornerstones of UNSW Founders with more than 12,000 interactions across our programs and events this year, many of those taking place at The Michael Crouch Innovation Centre at the heart of UNSW’s world-class campus. The MCIC is a haven for UNSW’s most creative entrepreneurs and scientists, and it’s the home of UNSW Founders. This is the sandbox where our people build the skills and networks they need to create and grow their new companies.
Programs
Our team of experienced startup coaches completed more than 2,000 coaching sessions throughout 2023. Coach & Connect links people who have an innovative idea, or an existing business, with an experienced startup coach to accelerate and amplify success. Our popular Office Hours returned this year to great success with all sessions filling up in record time!
The 10x Accelerators 2023 cohort on stage at Demo Day in October
Our flagship program the Founders 10x Accelerator celebrated a record-breaking year, introducing two new streams - Climate and Defence. More than $4 million in seed funding to 23 startups across the five 10x Accelerator streams 10x (All Industries), Health 10x, Climate 10x, SynBio 10x, Cimate 10x, and Defence 10x. Over 10 weeks of programming, we not only helped these teams get investment-ready but also assisted in finding the most suitable growth strategy for them. Experienced industry experts and entrepreneurs supported our founders in making crucial decisions, and more importantly, their experiences with similar challenges and consequentially their learnings to ensure these companies know everything there is to know about what it takes to fundraise and scale their businesses. We celebrated their accelerated growth over the program at the 10x Demo Day in November.
Our big news last month was the announcement of our highly anticipated Startup Year program set to launch in 2024. Breaking new ground, our team has managed to expedite the development of its Graduate Diploma program. The Startup-HELP loan, amounting to $12,720, provides financial support for eligible students, including those in their final year of undergraduate studies, postgraduate students, and recent graduates within 36 months. Our Startup Year Bootcamps kicked off in November, available to final-year students or recent graduates from any Australian University.
The winning teams from the 2023 Peter Farrell Cup finals night
The Peter Farrell Cup celebrated its 23rd year with the biggest cohort to date. A record-breaking 62 student teams were selected to take part in UNSW’s longest-running student-led and teams-based competitive ideas program designed to fast-track the next generation of entrepreneurs. In September, more than 370 including students, researchers, alumni, parents, staff, and well-wishers attended the Finals Night which saw the top 10 teams pitch their innovative ideas.
We celebrated our 11th and 12th cohorts of our hugely popular women-only incubator program New Wave. A big thanks to Female Startup Club founder Doone Roisin who donated $5,000 to the program to help bridge the entrepreneurial gender gap.
The gender representation continued in our Angel Investor Program, delivered with AGSM. Our first cohort of 2023 consisted of 50% women who signed up to learn from some of Australia’s best-known Angels. Our focus is to also help bridge the gap of women founders accessing early-stage investment. We connected our pipeline of high potential startups to an active community of 150+ angel investors.
In 2023 we added to the benefits offered to our portfolio companies with the introduction of the Singapore, China and India Launch Pads. High-potential UNSW startup companies were invited to take part in a development program, to assess potential for expansion into these Asian markets and develop networks of potential customers, partners, or investors. Each startup has been awarded funding to cover flights and accommodation.
UNSW Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Attila Brungs, UNSW Business School Dean Chris Styles, UNSW Deputy Vice Chancellor (Global) Professor Colin Grant, and Investment NSW Trade & Investment Directors (Singapore) Janice Goh Si Hui and Cassie Xie at the launch of the UNSW Founders Singapore Launch Pad program launch in Singapore.
In the second half of this year, we piloted new programs Impact X and Ignite Your Impact. The Impact X Pre-Accelerator is dedicated to making a difference in the lives of those often overlooked and underserved. This program is designed to support promising healthcare initiatives that specifically focus on marginalised and under-represented communities. Meanwhile, UNSW Medicine & Health partnered with us to design and launch a tailored end-to-end “Ignite Your Impact” health program to allow Faculty staff to upskill in alignment with their chosen pathway to impact.
Our Foundations program ran events, workshops, for-credit courses (GENE1500 and ZZBU6103) and hackathons on the first principles of entrepreneurship. Participants learned the practical methodologies of entrepreneurship, creative thinking and making. Hackathons including the highly coveted SDG Challenge and Sir Rupert Myers Sustainability Award once again attracted an impressive calibre of applicants. Our final hackathon for the year, the Terrible Ideas Hackathon was a fun way to finish up 2023.
Participants in the 2023 SDG Challenge
This year we ran the Digital Makers Competition tailor-made for those who wanted to build and showcase their digital-making skills with tools as early as drawing, to Figma, Unity, and beyond. Running for six weeks, participants spent their time focusing on how they could best demonstrate progress, community contribution, creativity and innovation, and usability as they worked towards refining their pitches for judging on the culminating evening. The final pitch night was a raging success with 15 groups pitching to a room of more than 100 people.
Once again, in 2023 we provided Academics and Researchers with the knowledge and skills to create their pathway to impact or commercialisation. Programs were tailor-made for researchers - Research Making Impact (RMI) - and Higher Degree Researchers - Entrepreneurial HDR (eHDR). UNSW Founders guides academics and researchers through the different options available to take their ideas or research to market.
Events
Some of Australia’s best entrepreneurial minds came together in October for the 2023 UNSW Founders Gala at the Art Gallery of NSW. A sold-out crowd gathered together to celebrate another wonderful year of innovation at UNSW Founders and honour the 2023 Hall of Fame recipients - Yellowbox (Startup), Founder and CEO of Caldron Michele Stansfield (Founder), Brad Deveson (Mentor), Chris Baxter (Supporter), The George Institute (Partner).
UNSW Founders Gala Hall of Fame Recipients (L-R: Chris Baxter, Ho Jun Tang (Yellowbox co-founder), Michele Stansfield, Adrian Brossard (Yellowbox co-founder), Cydonie Greenaway (Program Coordinator, Innovation & Enterprise at The George Institute for Global Health, Australia), Ben Delaney (Yellowbox co-founder), Dr. Parisa Glass (Director of Innovation and Enterprise for The George Institute for Global Health), Brad Deveson)
We brought together the people that make our community work once a month for our new First Thursdays event series. We invited innovators, investors, founders, mentors, collaborators, and startup enthusiasts to come along and hear from a new speaker/topic each month, and network with the community. An enormous thank you to our speakers Fishburner’s CEO Martin Karafilis, founder and CEO of Airtasker Tim Fung, investor Maxine Minter, Car Next Door founder Will Davies & Investible co-founder and chairman Trevor Folsom, Health 10x alum Dr Heba Khamis of Contactile & Dr Peter Ayre of CardioBionic, Victor Dominello, Arminé Nalbandian, Dr William Crowe, Damian Kassabgi, Dr Peter Cronin, Deputy founder Ashik Ahmed, QuasarSat COO Natasha Rawlings, and Flora & Fauna founder Julie Mathers.
Former Facebook executive and Stanford lecturer Jennifer Dulski joined us for a special in-conversation event, in collaboration with the Menzies Foundation. One of the most experienced writers, teachers, and leaders in the startup and innovation sector, the CEO and founder of Rising Team shared her decades of experience on how you can as an individual, a business leader, or a startup founder help unlock your and your communities' entrepreneurial potential.
David Burt on stage with Jennifer Dulski
We were fortunate enough to be joined by Philip Gaskin, a strategic advisor to the Office of the President and CEO at the Kauffman Foundation. Philip shared with us his remarkable track record in integrating entrepreneurship into economic development policies and practices.
Stanford University’s distinguished Professor of Management and World Economic Forum's Entrepreneurship Chair, George Foster joined us for an enlightening lunch event. Professor Foster shared valuable insights covering everything from management control systems, to breaking down the highs and lows of startup life.
If you want to be involved in UNSW Founders in 2024 follow us on LinkedIn, join our mailing list or visit our website.