In an Asia-Pacific first, Monash Business School is partnering with Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) – an objectives-based, equity-free program for massively scalable science and tech-based companies – to establish its first Australian location, here in Melbourne.
Creative Destruction Lab partners with top global business schools, such as the Saïd School of Business at Oxford University, Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech and HEC Paris. CDL has five sites in Canada, three in the United States and four in Europe.
CDL-Melbourne will be located and embedded at Monash Business School, and will become the focal point for early stage deep technology ventures in Australia and the wider Asia-Pacific region.
The nine-month CDL program employs an objectives-based mentoring process where scalable companies learn from the insights of experienced entrepreneurs, with the goal of maximising equity-value creation. The program combines four elements to help ventures transition to scalable and financeable companies:
- Focused mentorship from domain experts and experienced entrepreneurs who have founded, led, and sold significant tech companies
- Technical advice from world-leading scientists, engineers, and economists, who are leaders in their respective fields
- Hands-on support from top students who are embedded within the ventures
- Opportunities to engage with angels, VCs and institutions from North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific
Charlie Nave, Associate Professor of Practice at Monash Business School and CDL-Melbourne site-lead said “Australian and regional deep technology ventures will be able to actively engage with some of the world’s leading entrepreneurs and scientists.”
“As a measure of success, more than 1,700 companies have gone through the highly competitive CDL program, creating more than A$32 billion in equity value across twenty streams including AI, climate, fintech, energy, biotech, health, quantum and space.”
Professor Deep Kapur, Deputy Dean External Engagement at Monash Business School and Chair of CDL-Melbourne said “What has impressed me the most is the global nature of this program and the collaboration across sites to maximise the outcomes not only for ventures, but for investors and industry.”
Launching the CDL-Melbourne partnership, Professor Simon Wilkie, Head of Monash Business School and Chief Economist for CDL-Melbourne, says:
“As a business school within a globally-ranked top 50 university, we have an imperative to seek out the most innovative, and value-add initiatives for our students and industry partners. CDL has proven itself to deliver on all accounts and we are delighted to be the first university in the Asia Pacific region to partner with CDL.”
The CDL-Melbourne program will launch at the end of 2023 with an initial sector agnostic focus, being the Prime Stream. Over the coming weeks and months CDL-Melbourne will be actively identifying, and seeking, highly regarded mentors and experts, as well as leading early stage technology-based ventures who wish to be part of the program.
About Monash Business School
Monash Business School, located in Melbourne Australia, together with the School of Business at Monash University Malaysia, make up the Faculty of Business and Economics – one of ten discipline-based faculties at Monash University, a globally-ranked top 50 university. The Faculty also runs specialist business units and courses at Monash Suzhou in China, the Monash Prato Centre in Italy and Monash Indonesia, located in Jakarta.
Collectively the Faculty of Business and Economics is home to over 21,600 students (EFTSL) and over 420+ academic staff (EFT). The Faculty of Business and Economics is internationally recognised for excellence in research and education in Australia, the Asia-Pacific and around the world as ranked by some of the most prestigious and highly regarded international rankings of world universities.
About Creative Destruction Lab (CDL)
Creative Destruction Lab is a not-for-profit program for massively scalable, seed-stage science- and technology-based companies. Its nine-month program pairs founders with experienced entrepreneurs and investors to set focused, measurable objectives with the goal of maximising equity-value creation. Founded in 2012 by Professor Ajay Agrawal at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, the program has now expanded with locations in Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, Halifax, Oxford and Paris. Since its inception, companies that have participated in the CDL program have created more than CAD$28 billion (AUD$32 billion) in equity value.
CDL alumni include North (Waterloo), Atomwise (San Francisco), Kyndi (Palo Alto), Xanadu (Toronto), BenchSci (Toronto), Kheiron Medical (London), Roadbotics (Pittsburgh) and Australian-based ventures Black.AI, Diag-Nose, Hullbot and Maple.
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