Accelerating NSW CAISH series

This series provides a deep dive into NSW’s ecosystem of startup and scaleup support organisations that help entrepreneurs and new businesses grow, focusing on coworking spaces, accelerators, incubators, and startup hubs (CAISH entities). The series also outlines how policymakers and partners in the innovation ecosystem can enhance the impact of these CAISH entities in NSW.

The reports provide data, insights and recommendations to guide better policy, build stronger partnerships and support a more inclusive startup ecosystem.

Download the reports

Download the first report: Accelerating NSW – the impact of coworking spaces, accelerators, incubators and startup hubs

Download the second report: Accelerating NSW – insights from startups and startup support organisations

Why this series matters

Entrepreneurs and startup and scaleup businesses help create jobs, grow industries and boost the NSW economy. But starting and growing a business is hard – especially in the early stages. Founders often take high risks and face big challenges, such as difficulty accessing funding and finding talented workers, and limited support.

That’s where CAISH entities come in. These spaces offer shared workspaces, mentoring, expert advice and links to networks and investors. They help reduce barriers and support early growth, helping startup founders and teams to lower their risks and overcome the challenges of creating a successful business.

Until now, there’s been little understanding of how these organisations work across NSW. This series is the first in-depth look at their coverage, activities and impact – from mapping the full CAISH network, sharing real stories from founders and industry leaders, and presenting data and analysis on CAISH impact.

The findings aim to:

• highlight the CAISH entity services valued by entrepreneurs and early-stage businesses
• increase understanding of CAISH impact
• inform policy and decision-making
• highlight gaps in access, services and impact data.

Watch the summary video from the first Accelerating NSW report launch

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Video transcript

Launch of NSW Innovation and Productivity Council and Investment NSW report: Accelerating NSW

Super exciting tonight to launch Accelerating New South Wales, another awesome report from the Innovation and Productivity Council.
One of the biggest takeaways from this report is the measurement framework that will really help us determine the impact that these entities have on our innovation ecosystem and help us determine where our funding and our programs support should be going forward.
I think the main finding of report for us was the need for that solid evidence base.
So I think a lot of these entities have an idea of the impact they want to be having on these different start-ups, but we lack an understanding of what's happening across the sector in terms of how these different CAISH entities are uplifting the economy and contributing to a more innovative New South Wales.
So the UNE Smart Region Incubator really chases opportunities that support founders to grow their businesses.
So one of the things that we often need to link into is actually engineering capability.
And so working with UNSW or University of Newcastle are fantastic organisations to kind of bring that capability into the region.
Currently a third of our startups actually have a research relationship with UNE or another university and so that's a great way of kind of building collaboration as the foundation, for how we build great startups in New South Wales.
So from my perspective, it's really important to measure the things that are suggested in the report around sentiment and people's experiences and what's their change of perceptions and outcomes.
But in the ecosystem, I think we can build upon what the report suggests and we can actually come together and collectively look at what does this mean for our state, what does this mean for our economy.
So going beyond jobs, going beyond investment and capital raised.
But if we take health, for example, and medtech, you know how many clinical trials have happened in the state, how many patients have been positively impacted?
You know, what number of people is that?
Both sides of things, when we get into those specific impact measurements from individual commercialisation programs and startups journeys, really speak to the depth and the breadth of the capabilities and the opportunity for us.
So this is an area of the economy that's incredibly important.
It's important and it's been one of those areas that's hard to quantify.
So this report goes a long way towards quantification.
The next stage of the report will be looking at the outcome from start up master, and we expect to see some really interesting statistics and quantification out of that.

What’s in the reports

The two reports bring together mapping, insight from interviews, analysis of survey data and case studies. They show what’s working – and what could be improved – in this part of the startup and scaleup support landscape.

Key insights

• NSW has the highest number of CAISH entities in Australia – growing from 65 in 2013 to 276 in 2023.
• Growth of services spans both metro and regional areas, but some rural regions are still underserved.
• Many CAISH entities now focus on specific sectors or groups, like health, climate or migrant founders.
• There’s limited support for First Nations entrepreneurs and little focus on teaching entrepreneurship in schools.
• Startups say peer networks and mentoring are the most helpful supports.
• Fewer than one in three startups have a female founder.
• Almost half of CAISH entities don’t track their impact.

What’s in the first report

Accelerating NSW: the impact of coworking spaces, accelerators, incubators and startup hubs is the first comprehensive mapping of all NSW’s CAISH entities. It draws on 64 in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs and CAISH managers and features 27 CAISH case studies.  

The report highlights the CAISH entity services valued by entrepreneurs and early-stage businesses. It presents a multi-level framework of CAISH impact metrics. The framework highlights categories and examples of metrics to help everyone better understand impact at each of the levels - individual entrepreneur, a startup, a CAISH entity, and at the system level.

What’s in the second report

Accelerating NSW: Insights from startups and startup support organisations presents an analysis of CAISH-focused data from the 2023 Startup Muster survey of the Australian startup ecosystem. This presentation of data attempts to directly address the limited understanding of CAISH impact on the NSW and Australian economies.

The report builds on the ecosystem mapping, literature review and insights from interviews in the first Accelerating NSW report. It adds data analysis and targeted recommendations for policymakers and stakeholders across the innovation ecosystem to enhance the impact of CAISH entities in NSW.