Thursday 2nd September 2021
Evergreen Ratings awards Innovyz with a Commended recommendation
Evergreen Ratings who are a specialist alternative asset ratings firm have released a report on a venture capital fund for investors looking exposure to an early-stage tech firm. Early stage investing via a venture capital fund provides funding for start-ups desperate for cash to fund their projects. They typically are projects just at beginning of their lifecycle and are still in the market research or development stages.
The private equity and venture capital sector is seeing significant interest following incredible performances over the last 12 months. Booming equity markets improve the ability to realise private investments as well as offering comparable valuations, which have powered the sector to the strongest returns in years.
Evergreen Ratings, has awarded a ‘Commended’ rating to Innovyz Venture Fund, ILP, which is the second highest rating. Evergreen has ‘high confidence’ in the investment product that has scored consistently well across most areas of Evergreen Ratings’ research and analysis framework. The Fund has a high probability of meeting its objectives which is in this case, is targeting gross annualised return of 25% with a portfolio of investments in pre-seed companies, over a 10 year period.
The Innovyz Venture Fund started in May 2021 and is a new venture capital fund that invests in a portfolio of “high quality research ideas and innovations from universities, research institutes and laboratories in Australia and New Zealand that are disruptive and have the potential to address significant global markets,” as noted in the Evergreen report. This is the 10th investment vehicle for Innovyz.
Innovyz will invest into a commercialised group of companies, and is not an accelerator or incubator fund. The team do work across all sectors, but their specialty is on materials, manufactured products and manufacturing processes – Industrial Technology (Industrial Tech).
“Innovyz believes that manufacturing is absolutely critical to a strong and functioning economy and that Australian and New Zealand universities and research institutions undertake some of the best research in the world.”
Investors that have already invested in Industrial Tech startups have experienced returns that are close to 9x on invested money for their portfolio of assets, says the manager.
Targeting returns equivalent to a gross IRR of approximately 25% per annum over a 10-year
Period, the fund will engaging Innovyz Institute to conduct Commercialisation Programs during the
Investment Period. The fund will then make investments into companies that will “be very early-stage companies with no revenue to early-stage companies with early revenues that have disruptive technology or a novel application of technology in a specific market with the potential for sustained revenue growth over the long term. “
Evergreen Founder and CEO Angela Ashton says: “Innovyz’s investment case is based on the belief that Australian and New Zealand universities and research institutions undertake some of the best research in the world. Innovyz has seen a need for a systematic and thorough process to bring this research to market so that it’s not left stranded in laboratories and universities.”
This fund is a bit different from a normal managed fund. The Manager will begin with a very small
investment in pre-seed companies, say $50,000-$80,000. Investors will gain exposure to companies from a very early stage allowing for huge returns. Some will fail. The fund does however have a lockup period of 10 years.
Ishan is an experienced journalist covering The Inside Investor and The Insider Adviser publications.
