Monash University has officially launched its pre-seed fund, with an announcement of co-investments totalling $2.25 million made in spinout companies Myostellar, FytonBio, and Remagine Labs.
The funding for the three companies is through the $15 million Monash Ventures Pre-Seed Fund, a participant in the Breakthrough Victoria’s $100 million University Innovation Platform (BVUIP.)
Breakthrough Victoria describes the three startups as follows:
- Myostellar is pioneering a first-in-class biologic therapy to treat Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy by stimulating muscle regeneration with minimal fibrosis.
- FytonBio is developing next-generation antibody therapies to precisely target and remove disease-causing immune cells in autoimmune conditions.
- Remagine Labs is creating wearable, electronically controlled drug delivery devices to improve treatment outcomes for people with chronic conditions.
Monash said that the fund will support companies “emerging from Monash research with strong commercial and societal potential.”
Professor Robyn Ward, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research and Enterprise) and Senior Vice-President at Monash, said: “This fund ensures innovators are supported at one of the most challenging points in their journey – turning ideas into investment-ready ventures”.
Rod Bristow, the CEO of BV, added that, “These investments are a powerful demonstration of how the University Innovation Platform is working exactly as intended — backing world-class research at its earliest stages to successfully commercialise and deliver real-world solutions.
Bristow’s organisation said that the news comes as it has reached a milestone of having investing over “$480m in capital to 36 companies and 6 Funds and facilitated nearly $1.3 billion in co-investment across its portfolio”.
Breakthrough Victoria is an independent company set up by the state government in 2021 to manage the Breakthrough Victoria Fund.
BVUIP was announced in September 2023. Through it, seven universities (Deakin University, La Trobe University, University of Melbourne, Monash University, Swinburne University, RMIT, and Australian Catholic University) are providing funding matched by BV to back the commercialisation of technologies developed at each university.
The size of each investment in the three Monash companies was not shared. The announcement of the program mentions “typical pre-seed investments of around $500,000 each” and Friday’s announcement from Monash states that the new pre-seed fund (administered by a new initiative known as Monash Ventures) will provide “up to $1 million per company”.
It also declares that the pre-seed fund investment committee has endorsed ten startups (including Myostellar, Fyton Bio and Remagine Labs) for investment out of 13 met so far.
Picture: Microscopic image of cross-sectional calf muscle from a person with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Credit Dr. Edwin P. Ewing, Jr (public domain)