Queensland’s Enterprise Acceleration Fund – $24m for Sunshine State start-ups

Queensland start-ups may soon be eligible for an investment of anywhere from $500,000 to $2.5 million from a new “Enterprise Acceleration Fund”.

What is the Enterprise Acceleration Fund?

On Monday, 10 October 2022, the Queensland Treasurer and Minister for Trade and Investment announced a new $24 million Enterprise Acceleration Fund to invest in growing Queensland start-ups.

According to a media statement, “the Enterprise Acceleration Fund will invest in innovative, early-stage Queensland companies, supporting increased access to investment capital and jobs growth”.

The Fund will be independently managed by the State’s investment manager, Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC).

QIC also manages the Backing Queensland Business Investment Fund, which was established in 2020 and invests in small to medium businesses that create Queensland jobs.  The Business Investment Fund has invested in businesses working in a variety of areas including:

• the construction of Eris rockets featuring hybrid propulsion technology;
• height safety solutions for the residential construction industry;
• sports technology providing musculoskeletal health and performance testing to sporting teams;
• scheduling and task management software for mobile workforces;
• cloud-based technology delivering portfolio design, risk modelling and dynamic visualisation tools; and
• prefabricated modular pods for residential uses such as backyard studios, granny flats and home offices.

The Enterprise Acceleration Fund will invest from $500,000 up to $2.5 million in businesses with a majority of their employees in Queensland.

An indication of potential criteria can be found in the expression of interest form currently available on the QIC website, which requests details from interested businesses including:

• company’s founding date;
• description of the business, the problem that the business is trying to solve and how the business is best placed to address the problem;
• business model (i.e. “software-as-a-service”, “product sales”, “services”, “marketplace” or “transactional”);
• number of founders, team members and team members in Queensland;
• capital raise stage (i.e. “pre-seed”, “seed”, “Series A”, “Series B”, “Series C” or “Beyond Series C”);
• number of customers;
• monthly revenue;
• runaway; (i.e. the estimated number of months until new capital needs to be raised);
• current round size;
• target pre-money valuation; and
• capital raised to date.

Find out more

Early-stage Queensland companies interested in the Enterprise Acceleration Fund can find out more and express interest here.

If you would like legal advice for your start-up, or intellectual property advice around how to commercialise or protect your idea, please contact our Intellectual Property team.