Well all our Wii’s and Kindles weren’t the only Christmas gifts we received this year. Not long after Christmas the Commercialisation Australia grant finally opened up for applications, years after the announcement of the closure of the COMET grant. Australian businesses are already beginning to file for grant money, and if you’re considering joining them, here are ten things to know about this new gift from the government:
1.Like most comets do, they eventually burn out, so was the way of the COMET Commercial Ready grant, which gave funding to some of our favorite Aussie startups including TradeSlot and Just One Place. Commercialisation Australia replaces COMET after it was chopped from the 2008 Federal Budget. This new incarnation is set to receive $196.1 million over the 4 years to 2013, with ongoing funding of $82 million a year thereafter.
2.Commercialisation Australia is merit based, which means it will be competitive. Australia is already a competitive environment for this sort of funding but the gap of time between the Commercial Ready program and Commercialisation Australia means there are likely to be a lot of people hungry for it.
3.So let’s talk dollars. The new initiative offers up to $50,000 for specialist advice and services; up to $200,000 over two years to engage experienced executives; up to $250,000 for Proof of Concept grants to test commercial viability and up to $2 million for Early Stage Commercialisation repayable grants to develop an innovation.
4.But wait, there’s more. In addition to cold hard cash there are a few other incentives that come along with winning the grant. A case manager will be appointed to those who receive the grant to help guide them through the process and help them access mentors and support. Grant winners will also get specialist advice and services to help them seal the deal in their commercialisation journey. If you want to become one of those mentors you can do so on the initiatives web site. They are looking for experienced individuals with five hours a month to spare.
5. Formerly known as the Commonwealth Commercialisation Institute, the Commercialisation Australia initiative is a result of input from more than 250 stakeholders in the capital, enterprise, government and research space including. According to sources with Anthill Magazine, a secret panel of 10 individuals were brought in for discussions to identify possible models for the CCI.
6. So what makes you eligible for all this money and aid? Well if you’re planning on applying make sure you have some time to spare because you’re looking at a small novel’s worth guidelines and supporting material, but in general here are some of your eligibility requirements. Outside of the general ownership of IP and commercial potential, you will also have to prove things like your annual turnover rate being less than $10 or $20 million depending on what you are applying for and your ability to match the funding by either an 80:20 or 50:50 ratio depending on what you are applying for.
7. This all sounds great, but what are some of our local business and tech pundits saying about Commercialisation Australia? Well over at business magazine Anthill, Publisher James Tuckerman warned Australian startups about dependence on grants but has said Commercialisation Australia begins to bring the country up to the same level of innovation funding as other nations. Writer Brad Howarth, who’s byline you will find in everything from ZDnet to BRW says the new initiative won’t be a full panacea more funds need to be pushed into early stage VC. Over at the Commercial Climate’s Blog, they picked apart some of the grant’s official language and pointed out that the fact that if the Early Stage Commercialisation grant repayment is based on the success of the project then” if things go wrong, then you only lose half the investment. If things go right, you have to return the cash, thus possibly leaving you still with a project that doesn’t provide a commercial return.”
8. So commercialisation is a pretty broad term and even the three areas the grant divides it down to, “proof of concept”, “skills and knowledge” and “early stage commercialisation”, are pretty vague. So what exactly can and can’t you use the money for. Well, in the expert advice department, you CAN use funding to pay for things like market research, management skills courses, developing exporting and marketing strategies and researching business structures and risk. You CANNOT use it for travel, government charges like patents or (and this is an important one) activities you have previously undertaken under another government program in the two years prior. There are fairly strict guidelines in the eligible expenditures section that outline that expenditures will only be declared eligible if they are directly for the agreed project.
9. So I bet you’re saying “Wow, this all sounds great, the government are super blokes”, right? Well not so fast, it’s important to remember that although they have put in $196.1 million over the 4 years to 2013, with ongoing funding of $82 million funding for Commercialisation Australia, a quick tap on the old calculator pretty quickly shows it pales in comparison to the $1 billion Commercial Ready offered. The gap between the two has hopefully softened up everyone’s memories enough to forget what was lost.
10. Beyond just the grants the government is trying to make an overall innovation overhaul, so they have adopted a “Framework of Principles for Innovation Initiatives.” These principles include such things as assessing, accepting and incorporating risk into the innovation process and responding to demand side needs. And, if you need some inspirational background noise as you fill in your application, the government has also launched Innovation Profiles, a series of stories and video featuring some of the nation’s success stories such as Tom Crago of Tantalus Media (but of course, being government, they’ve not made it easily embeddable.)
22 Projects share in $8 million in funding in Round 3 of Commercialisation Australia Grants
http://www.government-grant.com.au/2010/10/commercialisation-australia-round-3-recipients/
We went through the process total waste of time cost us $5,000 to prepare the spreadsheet they ask to be completed is ridiculously complex and designed to limit how funds can be used to such an extent that even if you do qualify you run the risk of being in breach of the covenants. My advice is don’t waste your time it is just a Govt PR exercise of no substance. The people running it are incompetent we had to chase them all the time they lost the information we sent and we had to resend multiple times. The last person we spoke to said he was a contractor and said we would never qualify because we are a startup and said he had a huge backlog of applications to review sounded to us like he just wanted to get us off his plate so he could claim his contract fees. Appears to us that small business has no chance and it is another public sector, university, big business handout process.
Eleven new projects have shared in $2.2 million in Round 2 of Commercialisation Australia. The Recipients are
http://www.government-grant.com.au/2010/07/commercialisation-australia-round-2-recipients/
The first round of Government grants have been announced for Commercialisation Australia. See the list here http://www.government-grant.com.au/2010/04/commercialisation-australia-round-1-recipients/
Government Grant Guru
http://www.government-grant.com.au
[...] across the country startups are bent over desks toiling away on Commercialisation Australia applications, but only a lucky few will reap the rewards of the government’s latest stab in [...]
I think that the program is pretty good and runs in a similar way to a business plan competition where you get an idea, get some skills, prototype and commercialise.
I went through the guidelines and i believe they did think things through from the ground up.
In regards to matching funding… i’m glad they’re doing this because it means that people are putting their own money as well… so government risk is reduced. Remember that this money is our tax money and I don’t want it to be wasted on dodgy projects.
Obviously i help people out with getting grants and most of the phone calls i get are from people that i wouldn’t invest a dollar in… and i hope the government doesn’t either! Most people work hard for their money and it would a waste if those tax dollars are wasted on dud projects.
The government is not there to “take on your risk”, it’s there to help people who have already reduced the risk of their project by having invested their money and time into… rather just rocked up asking for a buck.
Anyway, if anyone here needs some assistance, you can contact me.
we only deal with the “Proof of Concept” and “Early Stage Commercialisation” grants … so you’ll need to have Matching Funding.
We do charge a substantial upfront fee because:
1 Significant effort is required to prepare the application
1 We only want to deal with serious people
http://www.grantsolutions.com.au/commercialisation-australia.html
@Daryn “only people with $250,000 dollars need apply for the commercial ready grant.”
I agree that the fallout of the dollar-matching program is that the rich will get richer.
As a Startup owner who had some initial investment a couple of years ago, but who just missed out on Commercial Ready due to its premature demise, and who was not able to receive COMET due to being too early stage, and who had strong investor interest the week the GFC hit which of course now has evaporated; I was able to keep my business alive (just barely) throughout the GFC only by receiving RnD grants, which as of July 2010 I will now no longer qualify for (thanks to Labour’s change of the requirements for Innovation *or* SIE to now require both).
So, I’m left with none of my original investment, no hope of receiving RnD, no industry or State funding for my particular industry and now no hope of receiving Federal Funding through Commercialisation Australia due to not being able to match it dollar for dollar.
All this despite having revenue, a huge global market, extremely impressive web stats and a Webby Honnoree.
Commercialisation Australia fails to take into account the dearth of private investment available in Australia.
Having kept this business alive just long enough to hear the conditions of Labour’s innovation grant replacement, all this news brings me is the unfortunate process of insolvency.
Hi Everyone
This all sounds like we the public have been taken for fools, why? because firstly commercialisation Australia is actually paid for by our tax money and if you read the fine print you will see that the criteria clearly states “only people with $250,000 dollars need apply for the commercial ready grant. This translates so; “our new commercialisation facility only recognises Innovation from Australians who are already wealthy……… this in fact defeats the object of having a “MERIT” system.
What is happening here is the government have taken away a billion dollar system designed to help & inspire all Australians to be at their innovative best and replace it with a system that informs everyday Australians not to bother being all they can be because if they haven’t the got over $250,000 to invest (after they have spent out already creating their product / service) then they need not apply.
This new initiative actually has announced that they are “taking our hard earn’t tax payers money and are “ONLY” interested in giving it to the rich?
I thought we live in a democratic society where all men and women are equal, the staff of this new initiative will be highly paid individuals and so far the vibe from their criteria is shouting load and clear “WE ONLY WANT TO WORK WITH PEOPLE WHO COME FROM SIMILAR OR SAME CLASS BACKGROUNDS AS OURSELVES” Since when in the history of mankind has the best innovative ideas come from the upper classes? True ground breaking Innovation has come from our working population and as so the Initiative should stop being afraid to work with the public just because we voice our opinions loudly, since when has it be appropriate to use our money only to support the personal wealth creation of the upper classes? The Initiative clearly state their intention is to only support innovation that (and I quote) Innovation which supports only the promotion of high salaried positions, it supposed to say: The commercialisation Australia Initiative welcomes all Australian Innovators to submit their Innovations which will be accessed and “competently” merited by our professional staff and Innovation which is desperately needed in Australian society will be merited accordingly and will be confidently promoted for full funding due to the perceived future value of the innovation being in high regard.
We are a very small multicultural, multi skilled and experienced nation we are very savvy and it is not acceptable for our government to tell us that we cannot apply for innovation funding because we have committed our budgets already in creating our innovations.
I say come on Australian Innovators see this initiative for what it is, since when should the Australian tax payer be cut out of the funding loop, since when should we accept being thrown a bone without any meat left on it when we had a huge stake to eat before?
Innovator everywhere want to pay back what they owe and we don’t mind terms and conditions but we do mind being shafted out of the chance to have our innovations funded by self serving bureaucrat’s only looking only for an easy time dealing with “THEY DEEM” DESERVING OF THEIR TIME & OF COURSE OUR MONEY.
I am an innovator and I can speak for all Australian Innovators when I say; This Initiative has been set up on a “lazy self serving benchmark” none of the employees must have actual innovation experience, none of them “under this criteria” must have confidence in their own abilities to give advice and to predict market need of an innovators work, none of these employees must want to work with Australia’s majority general public and their innovations, none of the staff seem to want to step out of their comfort zones and challenge themselves to working with us Aussie Innovators actually at the coal face!!
It all seems too cosy, too comfortable, too convenient and too uninspiring, Innovator over the past few years have had to jump through hoops and humiliate themselves on TV competition shows such as dragons den etc just to be get funded, Innovation is a serous subject as it can change everything for everyone, I quote The International Monetary Funds Chief Advisor Dominique Strauss Kahn believes it is only BOLD INNOVATION that will get us out of this global financial mess we are in and that also goes for getting us out of the trillions of dollars we have to “NOW” reluctantly pay back.
Innovators should respected accordingly because each and everyone of us will have our lives positively affected by one of us in our lifetime, it may be something that saves our lives or a loved one’s life or an economic system which will ensure your employment, the employment of your sons and daughters by ensuring business enterprises in Australia have a new strong business platform to operate on or should such Innovation go to our American cousins instead?
I will be looking at your review of these opinions and that of nineteen other innovators.
[...] • Startups across the nation are busy applying for the newly opened Commercialisation Australia grant and they are documenting on their company blogs and sites. You can read about startup Shoes of Prey’s experience with the Proof of Concept grant on their 22Michaels blog and read more about the specifics of the program here. [...]
This is going to be interesting. While I believe the program is providing assistance in the right areas, I hope there is going to be enough to go around. It would be a shame to see so many people putting in the hard yards of digesting the documentation and putting together quality applications only to find out the chances are 1 in 100, even with a brilliant innovation. Fortunately this is not the only grant program out there. There are some other effective State Grants, R&D Grants and even a few industry grants worth hunting down.
Really a good post. I say one thing. Terms and conditions change from one fund to another but the basics do tend to hold for all of them.
Thanks
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by IPitchAU: Whew, this one was exhaustive, here are ten things to know about the new Commercialising Australia initiative http://bit.ly/5piGMR...
Thanks for the feedback Michael. There were definitely some things I left out, otherwise this post would be even longer than it is. With different types of funding within Commercialisation Australia with varying rules and dollar amount, I had to clip a lot…let me make it clear this blog IS NOT necessarily a substitute for taking the time to read the novel-length rules and requirements. Thanks for helping to do some of that legwork for me. I’d love to continue hearing people’s input as they apply, go to education sessions and get aid from grant writers. I’m hearing from so many people right now that they are applying so I’m sure it’s only a short amount of time before we feedback starts pouring in.
I attended the NSW DSRD Commercialisation Australia briefing yesterday and it is definitely worth going along to hear about the program directly from AusIndustry. They describe the full program and provide useful input on how to complete the applications forms.
To clarify a few of your comments above based on the information provided at the seminar:
1. COMET and Commercial Ready were two separate programs addressing two differeing parts of the commercialisation lifecycle.
3. All grants only cover 50% of the proposed project costs with the exception of the Specialist Advice and Services which can fund 80%. You need to able to demonstrate how you will co-fund the balance and it has to be cash, not ‘in kind’ i.e. investors, revenue, etc.
7. Only Early Stage Commercialisation grants are repayable and repayment starts once you have generated $100k in accumulated revenue from the product. The repayment rate is 5% of revenue and if you have not repaid the grant in 10 years, it is written off. If the company is financially unable to repay under these conditions, other arrangements can be negotiated i.e. you will not be sent broke to repay the grant.
8. The Early Stage Commercialisation grant CAN be used to pay for IP protection costs such as patents but not for trademark or design registration. The cost of defending IP rights is not eligible.
9. Commercialisation Australia is budgeting $20m for the first 6 months and then $35m for the next 6 months and expects to approve 200 grants of varying values in the first year of operation. Commercial Ready funded 524 projects for a total value of $498m with FY2008-09 expenditure of $107m so the new program is less than CR not as much as you suggest. I agree that it is not enough, especially considering the car industry is receiving $2.8b from 2006 - 2010 and then a further $3.4b from 2011 to 2020.
11. The approval process is going to be much faster. You should get feedback on your Pre-Application Checklist submission in 2 days and you will be advised on whether your application has been successful within 45 days of submitting the final draft.
12. This program is still ‘work in progress’. While the basics are now in place, the board that approves each application has not been appointed and it will take some time to understandy how they see the various merit criteria in particular. I am personally hoping IT&T will be seen as having National Benefits rather just biotech or greentech projects.
I’m just in the process of applying for one of their ‘Proof on Concept’ grants to help us fund some of the work we have planned for http://www.shoesofprey.com. One of the things I like about the process they’ve got is that you do a smaller version of the application first which is then reviewed. It’s only if you’re successful with that that you need to do the full version of the application.
This sounds like a good program as I have some technology that I want to commercialise. I look forward to reading more about it.
Lushe
http://www.lushe.com.au
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by IPitch Australia, IPitch Australia. IPitch Australia said: Whew, this one was exhaustive, here are ten things to know about the new Commercialising Australia initiative http://bit.ly/5piGMR [...]