A $32 million University of Queensland venture capital fund is boosting the state’s startup ecosystem, with a Brisbane company developing medical robotics among the first beneficiaries.

The UniQuest Extension Fund (UEF) provides capital, support and connections for startups founded by staff, students, and alumni to help them grow their teams, develop products and services, and drive customer acquisition toward global expansion.

UniQuest CEO Dr Dean Moss said the establishment of the venture capital fund was the natural evolution of UniQuest’s work in partnership with UQ researchers and innovators.

“Forty years ago, UQ had the foresight to establish UniQuest to bring university research to industry and since then we have delivered pioneering innovations to the world, such as the HPV cervical cancer vaccine GARDASIL®, the internationally recognised Triple-P Positive Parenting Program and technology like EMVision’s portable brain scanner for stroke diagnosis,” he said.

“The fund is bridging the early-stage investment gap and bolstering the impact of UQ innovation both nationally and globally, while enriching the Australian capital landscape with bold, homegrown Queensland technologies.”

The UEF invests across pre-seed, seed, and later stages into companies that have proprietary technology at its core.

$11.8 million has been committed across 19 startup companies and 22 SAFE (simple agreement for future equity) note investments into early-stage companies completing UQ Ventures iLab accelerator program.

One of the early investments was Convergence Medical, a Brisbane company developing a robot to assist surgeons perform difficult arthroscopic surgery.

Convergence Medical founder and UQ alum Dr Chris Jeffery said the investment supported the company to achieve breakthrough status and acceptance into the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Breakthrough Program.

This paved the way for broader, streamlined regulatory approvals and helped accelerate its path to a global market.

“The investments we’ve received to date have helped the company grow to a team of 14 members,” Dr Jeffrey said.

“We’re now looking to support three UQ PhD students through the National Industry PhD program and have already involved four UQ undergraduate research students in our intern program.”

Head of Extension Fund Dr Ben Phillis said access to early-stage capital was a vital step in helping new startups and ventures survive the ‘valley-of-death’ and reach maturity as a genuine business venture.

“The fund will be instrumental in growing the UQ start-up ecosystem, providing strong jobs growth in the knowledge economy and driving new Queensland innovations with global impact,” Dr Phillis said.

Dr Moss said the fund was named after the Queensland University Extension Movement, which began in 1893 when a group of private citizens behind public lecture courses in adult education hoped to establish community support for a university.

“That group’s activities ultimately led to the establishment of UQ by an Act of Queensland Parliament on 9 December 1909,” Dr Moss said.

“Just as the 19^th century movement sought to foster the expansion and broadcast of new knowledge, the UniQuest Extension Fund seeks to catalyse the creation and growth of new technology companies with early capital.”

Established in 1984, UniQuest’s commercialisation track record positions UQ as a leader of research commercialisation in Australasia.

UniQuest has formed more than 130 start-up companies built on UQ IP. These companies have raised more than A$1 billion to advance UQ technologies towards the market and have directly created more than 450 new jobs.