Incubate, University of Sydney’s on-going campus accelerator program has received $1 million in funding from the University, which is to be provided over five years.
The award-winning startup accelerator and entrepreneurship program was co-founded in 2012 by two entrepreneurial students through the University of Sydney Union. The program hopes to foster a proactive community of entrepreneurs on campus by providing funding, co-working space and mentoring from Australia’s most recognized entrepreneurs to accelerate the growth of high-potential startups.
Incubate aims to educate and inspire the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders and support startups and guide their growth via our network of mentors and advisors. It is focussed to foster and support the growing community of entrepreneurs and innovators on campus facilitates.
The accelerator also works to retain and feed knowledge back into the University from some of the most innovative students and alumni. It encourages entrepreneurship, promotes calculated risk-taking and supports the creation of startup ventures through lean-methodologies and best practices. The program is open to students, researchers and recent alumni of the University.
So far, the Incubate program has helped over 60 startups across eight cohorts. There are two intakes per year, summer and winter. The program provides each startup with a $5,000 in seed funding, as well as advice and mentoring from a network of over 100 tech and business leaders.
The additional funding from the University will now see the program double the size of each cohort to accept up to 30 startups per year by 2018, allowing for the development of new outreach and support activities, including programs for community mentoring, legal advice and product development assistance for teams to refine their ideas.
In addition to direct financial support, the University will also provide the program with new, expanded co-working space to further aid collaboration. Professor Tyrone Carlin, deputy vice chancellor of the University considers Incubate a “first-rate program” and highlighted its track record in bringing together diverse teams to work on challenging projects. He said,
Our strategy commits us to ensuring students have the opportunity to undertake hands-on project work, and entrepreneurship is a vital component of this endeavor. Incubate neatly aligns with this strategy and provides an invaluable opportunity for our students to develop their skills and engage with the business and investing community.
The funding comes at an opportune time, as universities around Australia continue to pour money into incubator and accelerator programs.
