[abrimo]

Yea I was hoping they would reallocate the money they are currently spending. For example, they give over 60m a year to private VC firms which 'manage' the money by making very few investments. They've also committed almost as much to Commercialisation Australia which doesn't seem to go anywhere.

The current government programs are costly and not yielding many results. I'm hoping they could take a fraction of that for programs such as the ones in Singapore or Chile and get far better results.

[nl]

The "correct" government policy to encourage high-tech startups isn't as obvious as you seem to think.

Steve Blank recently recommended that the Finnish government "might want to consider putting themselves out of the public funding business by using public capital to kick-start private venture capital firms, incubators and accelerators" [1]

That's quite a similar model to what the Australian government does already.

I've been involved in a few companies that had some funding from the old COMET program[2] as well as the new Commercialisation Australia[3] programs, and they aren't as useless as you seem to think.

As you note many of the current set of Australian startups have been funded by overseas (ie, Silicon Valley) venture funds. Given that Australian venture funds don't see the opportunity it isn't at all clear why the government would think differently.

In my experience there is a lot more awareness and support at lower levels of government (state and local level), where startups are seen as supporting local employment. For example, NSW recently announced $3M in funding for "creative digital content" and there are a range of different programs in other states.

The Silicon Beach group is very involved in thinking about this. They operate mostly out of Sydney, but have an online presence too[5].

[1] http://steveblank.com/2011/10/07/the-helsinki-spring/

[2] http://www.ausindustry.gov.au/InnovationandRandD/Commerciali...

[3] http://www.commercialisationaustralia.gov.au/WhatWeOffer/Pag...

[4] http://www.startupsmart.com.au/finance/new-$3m-fund-for-nsw-...

[5] http://siliconbeachaustralia.org/

[zzygan]

Excellent links. Very interesting.

The problem I see is precisely the point you raise " Given that Australian venture funds don't see the opportunity it isn't at all clear why the government would think differently"

Is there a way to help venture funds find the startups that are actually happening here in Australia. Unfortunately not all of us have the opportunity to reach out overseas for funding

[nl]

Is there a way to help venture funds find the startups that are actually happening here in Australia

I don't think finding them is a problem. I think that venture funds in Australia (generally speaking) don't have the skills to evaluate software/internet startups and there isn't a track record of Australian startups providing large enough financial returns for venture funds to be interested.

My view is that Australian venture funds aren't an interesting source of capital - they can't add value beyond investing money at best. Angel funding is where the action is in Australia, and there are some interesting groups doing good work in that area (StartMate, PushStart, Pollenizer, Innovyz(maybe?)).

[scheff]

There are a few different organisations trying to make things happen now. Check out http://www.pollenizer.com/funding-options-available-for-star...