August, 2003

A $5 million Pre-seed Fund has been established to accelerate science commercialisation, in a major new move for life science development in New Zealand. 

Celentis Ltd. will manage the fund set up by AgResearch, establishing itself as the country’s pre-eminent player in pre-seed funding. 

The investment is the first dedicated life science fund to operate in New Zealand, complementing the VIF Biotech Fund being set up next year.  The AgResearch Pre-Seed Fund will operate in the earlier stages of science development and will feed new ventures to the VIF funds and other venture capital firms.

Celentis Investment General Manager Andrew Kelly will manage the Fund, aimed at developing promising research through to investable new ventures.  The Fund is likely to support a large number of initial projects, but to narrow that down to around four new ventures.

Over the last three years Celentis has established an enviable reputation in this arena.  Dr Kelly’s unit has over 50 pre-seed investments under its belt and has brought products to market from about 30 percent of them so far.  Celentis has demonstrated its track record at successful product development in recent years, with product revenues of $27 million per annum, and revenue growth of 15 percent per annum over the last three years.  Celentis has also established four new companies in the last 12 months, attracting $7 million of external investment.

Celentis Chief Executive Stewart Washer is very pleased with the move, saying it will provide a suite of exciting new investment opportunities for the investment community.

Celentis is a subsidiary company of the AgResearch Group established to provide and commercialise key technologies from new science discoveries.