Kickstarting Aussie Startups - Tap into Super Funds

This post is the second in a series on kickstarting Aussie startups.  The first post is here.

Opportunity #2: Superannuation

Australia has over a trillion dollars in superannuation funds, the 4th largest retirement funds industry in the world, and way more per capita than any other developed country

Yet almost none of that capital is invested in startup companies.

Proposal #2: Put Super into Qualified Small Businesses

Mandate that Australian super funds invest at least 0.5% of their assets into Australian qualified small businesses (QSBs), either directly, or indirectly via venture capitalists.

Details, details

Although 0.5% is a tiny percentage, it represents $5 billion, dwarfing the amount of venture capital currently available in Australia. It would obviously take a few years to ramp from $0 to $5 billion. Investing $500 million per year for 10 years seems achievable though.  Imagine funding $1 million to 500 new startups every year.? Even so, that's only one new startup per year for every 44,000 Australians.  How hard can that be?

Next time, “Crowd funding”.