The latest report from the Council, Accelerating NSW: Insights from startups and startup support organisations wasreleased today at the Entrepreneurship Industry-Educators Forum event, part of the Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research Exchange 2024 Conference.
The report presents an analysis of CAISH-focused data from the 2023 Startup Muster survey, using the Impact Measurement Framework developed in the Council’s first Accelerating NSW report released in 2023.
Investment NSW Deputy Secretary Katie Knight said while the report reveals that the NSW CAISH ecosystem is maturing and scaling, it highlights the need for further collaboration between government and industry and further effort to rigorously measure impact.
“We know that NSW CAISH entities are maturing, evidenced by the fact that the number of entities with more than five years’ experience has doubled since 2018, and half of NSW CAISH entities actively collaborate with other CAISH entities and startups,” Ms Knight said.
“While this is great news for our ecosystem, we know there is still a lot of work to be done to boost the growth of entrepreneurs, startups and scaleups, and better measure the impact of programs and services designed to support them.
“The release of this report is great timing as we go into the Innovation Blueprint Summit on Friday and more broadly as we look to shape the future of innovation in NSW.”
Council member and Chair of Stone & Chalk Richard Kimber said this latest report builds on CAISH entity findings from the first.
“Our analysis validates opportunities we identified in our first report, including to increase the impact of CAISH entities by supporting more startups to internationalise, as well as the need to increase regional entities’ capacity and for a greater focus on diversity.”
Council Chair Charlie Taylor said the aim of the report is to identify where to focus attention to improve CAISH impact, and help inform how policymakers and partners in the innovation ecosystem can more robustly measure the impact of CAISH entities on the wider economy.
“Following our first report and the development of the framework in partnership with experts from the University of Technology Sydney, we are seeing progress particularly around understanding the types of support provided and participation from startups and entrepreneurs. But additional methods and tools for measuring economic impact more rigorously still need to be developed.”
The Council report can be viewed online.