A much-delayed announced from the Commonwealth Government last week saw 37 Accelerating Commercialisation (AC) matching grants announced, 4 of which went to WA-based innovators.
Having been put on caretaker mode during last May’s federal election, the AC grant program announced a backlog of nationwide grants worth $19.7M in total (or $532K average), $2.6M of which went to: Agora Livestock ($550K), Jevons Robotics ($1M), WA Innovator of the Year winner Neurotologix ($787K) and TechNol ($297K).
The current AC grant program expires on 30 June 2023, with its future looking unclear beyond this date.
As happened last time there was a change of federal government, the AC grant may remerge as something else, just like the Commercialisation Grant, suspended in 2013 when the Tony Abbott Liberal government swept to power in Canberra, later emerged in 2014 as Accelerating Commercialisation (with half the funding and a tweaked process).
WA Recipients
Two of the 4 WA recipients work in the ag space (Agora Livestock and TechNol), with Neurotologix in medtech, and Jevons Robotics mining tech (METS).
Director of Agora Livestock, Rob Kelly, was delighted to be able to finally talk about the grant.
“It has taken a huge amount to get Agora where it is, our directors (Peter Toll & Greg Harvey), investors (farmers, livestock agents, software companies and farmers – too many to mention!) and advisors (John Gardner & Andrew Johnston) have put in an immense amount of work to get it this far of which I’m incredibly thankful for,” said Rob in a LinkedIn post.
“Their work has ultimately resulted in the Federal Government’s support.”
Agora Livestock is a cattle, sheep and goat supply chain and trading platform that connects livestock buyers, agents and farmers directly. Over the past 12 months they’ve seen over 6,500 users register on the platform across Australia (predominately producers).
Also on LinkedIn, Neurotologix CEO Kate Lewkowski said she was “very excited” with the grant award, and thanked “the Australian Government for its commitment to supporting innovation in our wonderful country.” Her company is developing a device to assist those that suffer with vertigo and dizziness.
Meanwhile, Jevons has developed an autonomous Blast Hole loading and stemming vehicle (see photo above). Jevons CEO Todd Peate said competition for AC grants was “fierce”.
The funding will help Jevons commercialise its ROEVA, a world-first, autonomous, battery-electric vehicle that will initially be used in the delivery of explosives, blast quality assurance and delivery of stemming.
TechNol won its $1M matching AC grant for the development of AgriGard – its fire monitoring and suppression system for combine harvesters. 7% of combine harvesters will “likely start a fire this year”, according to research from the Kondinin Group. Of these, one in ten will lead to damage to crop or machine.
Elsewhere, 69% of the AC grant funding ($13.6M) went to NSW (9), Qld (9) and Victoria (8) recipients. There were also 4 grants in SA and 3 in ACT.
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