An entrepreneurial eco-system

This morning I had a chat with former venture capitalist and SmartCompany blogger Doron Ben-Meir, who now has the very challenging role of heading up the Government’s commercialisation support agency, Commercialisation Australia.

While many of the ideas in Terry Cutler’s review of Australia’s innovation system never really saw the light of day, Commercialisation Australia does represent the type of innovation system Cutler wants Australia to move to – a system where businesses with new ideas would receive support (money and skills) throughout the various stages of its life.

At the start of the process, start-ups would get relatively small amounts of money to develop their intellectual property. As they get closer to commercialisation, they would get larger amounts of money and different types of support from case officers and mentors.

That’s basically the model under which Ben-Meir is running Commercialisation Australia, which yesterday announced another $13 million worth of grants.

What’s impressive about the grants is the variety of ideas that have received support. There is everything from manufacturing processes to medical devices to websites to clean energy to music devices.

Ben-Meir says the variety is intentional. CA isn’t looking to back one particular technology, such as say cloud computing or clean energy.

What it wants to find are good ideas that can potentially be turned into good businesses.

“What we are saying is if you’ve got new IP and if there is a potentially viable business to be built out of that, we are interested.”

Companies can apply at any stage of the commercialisation cycle and are encouraged to come back for fresh funding when they need it. CA made its first grants in April 2010, and Ben-Meir is starting to see repeat customers.

After been given the freedom to change CA’s investment criteria, its due diligence processes and the set-up of its network of case officers and mentors, Ben-Meir feels he’s starting to help create the support system that will spark more entrepreneurial behaviour.

There may only be two or three big success stories every year, but it’s the system that interests Ben-Meir.

“The point is to try and build the eco-system up, to get a lot more people with the experience of trying to commercialise IP. They might not succeed the first time, or the second time. But the fourth time it will work.

“Then we start to get a lot more serial entrepreneurs happening, and out start-up eco-system gets stronger.”

It will be a few years before we can really judge if CA is working. Ben-Meir agrees and says the organisation still has work to do in communicating with the business community about exactly what it offers.

But the early signs are good and more importantly, Ben-Meir’s philosophy is right.

This is not about picking winners. It’s about creating an environment where entrepreneurs can win.