Fund helping bring NZ science to market

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More publicly-funded science discoveries are hitting the market with investment from the Government's PreSeed Accelerator Fund (PSAF), a newly-released independent review has found.

The review of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment fund, designed to support early stage technology commercialisation projects, looked at the impact it had on 573 projects undertaken by 15 universities and Crown research institutes (CRIs) between 2003 and 2013.

These projects, which involved everything from biodegradable polymers to advanced sonar technologies for scanning the seabed, received $42.6 million in PSAF funding - an amount matched with a further $90.9 million of co-funding from research organisations and external investors.

The reviewed projects resulted in more than 386 licenses, numerous start-ups, and other commercial deals that have the estimated potential to generate at least 460 jobs and up to $3 billion in export revenues for New Zealand.

The report stated the actual returns to the research organisations alone had already reached $188.2 million, with many more projects still in development.

Dr Bram Smith, general manager of the joint CRI and university consortium KiwiNet, said the fund had proven a "key mechanism" for transforming clever science discoveries into commercial opportunities.

"PreSeed is about science driving business innovation, and the report shows that Government investment in this area is producing good economic returns for New Zealand."

PreSeed success stories include Cawthron Natural Compounds, Avalia Immunotherapies from the University of Victoria, ESR's STRmix, ArcActive - a spin out company from the University of Canterbury - and CropLogic from Plant and Food Research.

Others are the TOXINZ database, developed by the University of Otago, Electronic Navigation Ltdm which acquired WASSP intellectual property developed by Callaghan Innovation, and HaloIPT a spin out company from the University of Auckland.

Aduro Biopolymers and Ligar Polymers, commercialised by WaikatoLink, have also recently completed major deals.

The review was released jointly by KiwiNet, Return On Science and CDC Innovation.