Elm Street Ventures

With over two decades of Australian investment in building capability in research and universities, Australia now enjoys some of the most extraordinary talent and globally leading minds. This talent is creating knowledge and has the capacity of solving some of the big problems of our time but if we can’t take this know-how and intellect into the world, then this brilliance is lost and the opportunity we have will remain just that – an opportunity. As business builders and investors, Significant has been taking up this challenge for nearly two decades. Working in collaboration with universities, researchers and state governments, we, as a collective group have a track record in translating this knowledge bank into technology, into products, into services and ultimately into businesses that: Have become global companies Re-shaped markets Solved sustainability problems Created jobs and New career pathways for Australians Significant has the capacity to create high value niche modern manufacturing industries and exports for Australia and are extremely proud of their achievements. Significant leads by example to show that Australia can commercialise its inventions, that sustainable globally competitive businesses can be created in Australia, and that early-stage investment can create immense value for investors, demonstrating that through action Significant is able to attract more capital to invest in this important space and is be able to shift the mindset (read the AFR article) that Australia is great at innovation but not at execution. Backing Australia Our vision is a country that backs its researchers for the intellectual capital advantage they provide. Our mission is to back this talent, entrepreneurs and innovators to take these ideas and concepts to the world and create its own self-funding eco-system that results in the formation of new industries. Through our 4-way all-encompassing unique eco-system, our university investor partners provide us with access to the ‘very earliest’ investment opportunities possible, opening the door to concepts, ideas and innovations well before other venture capital funds. Our investment approach We invest in applied technologies that address high-impact global niche markets and will bring about social, environmental or economic change. Every potential investment must have a pathway to being a sustainable business and contributing impact to the UN Sustainable Development Goals either through the technology or through their business model. We look for technologies that provide a market advantage that is hard to replicate. They will have emerged either from researchers who have had long well-funded R&D cycles or innovators who have deep domain specialisation in an industry and so know their market problem exceptionally well. We are sector agnostic driven by the thematics that arise from the core capabilities of our partner universities and the innovations we uncover. The accelerators Strong market-fit and early industry engagement are imperative. We seek to accelerate the path to market dramatically by sourcing early adopters to validate the market need and aim to achieve market traction within 12-24 months. Our ability to find these early adopters is a key part of Significant’s initial due diligence.

Our vision is to be the leading Mid-Michigan Venture Fund providing economic impact for the region and the state with new jobs, new companies, and value-added partnerships. Who we are As the premier land grant university, Michigan State University has a presence in every county within the state of Michigan. To complement MSU’s land grant mission, the MSU Research Foundation formed and supported the first Mid-Michigan Venture investment organization, Red Cedar Ventures. Our team supports 4 funds. Pre-Seed Fund Opportunity Fund I Opportunity Fund II Michigan Rise Pre-Seed Fund III Supporting Michigan Startups The focus of these funds is to support early-stage entrepreneurs throughout the state of Michigan. Our funds have significant partnerships and collaborations to assist in its vision. Its close relationships with Michigan State University Technologies and Spartan Innovations provides a robust pipeline of early-stage technologies for cultivation and assessment. Red Cedar Ventures also partners with Spartan Innovations in the facilitation of Conquer Accelerator program. When possible, working with Spartan Innovations, Red Cedar Ventures assists in bridging Industry and Statewide Commercial entities in innovations and partnerships around startups with the vast and talented resources surrounding Michigan State University. The Burgess Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation empowers students to learn through action by providing programs, courses, and resources to foster an entrepreneurial mindset, develop empathy, and create new ventures – another pipeline created for student startups in search of funding and support. As a member of the Michigan Venture Capital Association, our team works in concert to support startups in Michigan in coordination with Invest Detroit, Invest Michigan, Renaissance Ventures, and other ecosystem partners looking to impact Michigan's economy. Red Cedar Ventures portfolio companies and startups, throughout campus and the Mid-Michigan region, can rent office space at The East Lansing Technology Innovation Center or VanCamp, and access essential resources made available by the MSU Foundation. Our team provides many resources to help launch entrepreneurial ventures including funding, mentorship and coaching, board participation, commercial/market assessment, startup advising, business documentation and support services, partnership opportunities related to MSU, and consulting on overall strategy and execution.

Mila Ventures is building the Venture Scientist platform: an integrated venture-creation engine designed to translate frontier AI research into world-class companies - rooted in Canada, built for the world. Mila Ventures operates within Mila, a prestigious AI research institute based in Montréal, founded by Yoshua Bengio, one of the godfathers of modern artificial intelligence and a pioneer of deep learning. The platform brings together: Mila Venture Studio (co-creating companies with professors, students, and entrepreneurs) Mila Accelerator (early company building and scaling) Venture Scientist Academy (training researchers to become venture builders) The Mila Venture Fund (in formation) We operate at the intersection of AI research, venture creation, and capital, working closely with Mila's globally renowned researchers, students, founders, investors, corporate partners, and public institutions.

Level Ventures is a next-generation technology investment firm built on software and data science. We combine first-principles thinking with state-of-the-art data science to back and build top seed-stage firms and their breakout companies. We invest in venture capital managers and entrepreneurs operating at the intersection of science and technology.

We partner early with unstoppable entrepreneurs leveraging breakthrough science and technology to pursue progress at scale. Everything we do revolves around a single problem: What are the best ways to reconcile economic growth with human and planetary health? We invest in teams and solutions that address multi-decade problems that humanity has no choice but to solve. Our focusing questionsHow can we decouple improving living standards from resource depletion? How can we ensure food, energy and materials supply security when confronted by deglobalization, multipolarity and the distractions of the attention economy? How can we improve life on Earth and unlock future economic growth potential by leveraging next-generation computing and exploring outer space? How can the clean industrialization of biological processes reduce humanity’s impact on our planet? How we invest in unstoppable founders We look to problems and unmet needs first and then to which technologies and solutions have the potential to address those problems effectively. We don’t push any one type of technology or limit ourselves to one field. We look for founders and companies at the pre-seed and seed stages leveraging the three basic disciplines (physics, chemistry, biology) to engineer economically viable solutions. We look for teams that are uniquely suited to address the opportunity and its inherent challenges and for solutions that are radically better, technically viable, and defensible. Some of the areas we are keen to continue exploring include clean commodities, space technology, industrial decarbonization, electro- and green chemistry, next-generation computing, new materials & production methods. How we partner for the long-term Starlight is a Pre-Seed and Seed investor and ideally the first institutional check into your company. Having been in your shoes as founders and scientists ourselves, we will serve as an ally in the journey ahead. Here’s what you can expect from working with us: We will lead or co-lead your first institutional round. We reserve capital for follow-on investment in later rounds, and we have to ability to partner with our LPs to augment our participation in future opportunities. We will be personally invested in your success, as a large portion of our fund comes from our own team. We will put a particular focus on ensuring that your roadmap is focused on the key risks and milestones unique to addressing the most pressing problems. We will work with you to establish rock-solid governance and operational practices that hold up to the scrutiny of the world’s best institutional investors. We will help you line up and credibly engage the right future investors for your business and trajectory. Let’s partner and make change happen.

Salvia is a first generation single Family Office based in Holzkirchen near Munich which was founded by Helmut Jeggle in 2014. Originally launched with traditional angel investments, Salvia has since evolved into an entrepreneurial venture capital investor. Salvia’s focus is on innovative startups from the deep-tech and science sectors. Strategy Our society is on the threshold to a decade of technological breakthroughs. Global macro trends such as climate change and resource scarcity are creating new kinds of challenges for companies that are addressing the global need for sustainability to cut costs, reduce emissions and energy consumption and drive innovation. We draw on our know-how, entrepreneurial focus and partnership approach as we play a role in steering the transformation and create sustainable value. Vision As we are an independent investor and sparring partner, our goal is to support innovative startups and grown-ups, creating long-term, opportune and “healthy” value. Mission Our mission is to identify talent and models, invest in them and build sustainable businesses. We draw on our many years of experience in the field of strategic corporate development and bring a strong global network and operational knowledge to bear on turning this mission into reality.