Cicada Innovations named top global incubator

Australian incubator Cicada Innovations has been recognised at an awards ceremony in the USA.

The organisation was named ‘Top Incubator in the World’ by global peak industry association for entrepreneurship programs, the International Business Innovation Association (InBIA).

Finalists were selected from over 2200 InBIA member incubators, accelerators and entrepreneurship centres from across the globe, with Cicada Innovations being the only Australian in the running.

Applicants were ranked across economic and social impact-based metrics, such as the number of start-up entrants and successful exits, jobs created, patents filed, new products and services launched, investment dollars received, value and impact of companies created, depth of collaboration and much more.

To rank globally on such broad and rigorous metrics required proving a focus on the industries of the future, including taking an innovative, holistic, long-term and program-driven approach to supporting and growing start-ups, according to Petra Andrén, CEO of Cicada Innovations.

“Our primary point of difference at Cicada is our program-driven leadership in deep technologies,” said Andrén.

“These science-based innovations create solutions to some of the greatest challenges facing our planet today, such as food security, climate change and an ageing population.

“They also need longer time to market, and greater access to domain expertise and STEM talent to scale. This is where Cicada’s shareholder universities — USYD, ANU, UTS, UNSW — and its ecosystem of industry partners and local and overseas investors come into play.

“Being program-driven and taking a ‘create, validate and incubate’ approach allows us to provide longer-term support until our promising start-ups reach scale-up phase, which can take many years.

“We ‘create’ businesses by sourcing world-changing IP and qualified researchers and tech founders through commercialisation training programs, such as the Medical Device Commercialisation Training Program (MDTCP) for medtech.

“We then ’validate’ their proof of concept by running businesses through specialised accelerator programs, testing early-stage ideas for real-world applications, before considering them for long-term incubation. Our GrowLab accelerator program is an example of one such program that feeds directly into the Cicada incubator.

“Once residing inside Cicada, we ‘incubate’ these businesses through access to specialised infrastructure such as labs, hardware spaces and cleanrooms. They also receive tailored business support services such as mentorship programs from alumni founder entrepreneurs and domain experts offering free assistance on such matters as legal or IP requirements, networking events, easy access to talent in the form of PhD placement programs, access to highly specialised capabilities from our university shareholders and much more.”

Cicada Innovations is the only incubator in Australia to be classified as a “super hub” by InBIA, who defines this as one that blends “several models of entrepreneurial growth into a single location, supporting technology entrepreneurs with a wide range of critical services” throughout their entrepreneurial journey until graduation.

This also creates the all-important pay-it-forward culture that only works in a hyperconnected cluster where collaboration thrives.

“As a government we strongly support the start-up industry as it drives innovation and jobs right across the state. We already have more than 40% of the nation’s start-ups here in NSW, and with the success of incubators like Cicada Innovations, we expect to see this number grow,” said Gladys Berejiklian, NSW Premier.

The InBIA awards were held at The Sheraton Hotel in Dallas, Texas, at InBIA’s 32nd International Conference on Business Incubation running 21–25 April 2018.

Image courtesy of Cicada Innovations.

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