While VCs pull back, universities step up: Inside UNSW’s $6.7 million commitment to student entrepreneurs.
What’s Happening: UNSW’s Peter Farrell Cup reveals how Australia’s startup ecosystem has evolved from simple app ideas to deep tech solutions tackling national challenges, with record student applications despite tighter venture capital markets.
Why This Matters: As private investors become cautious, universities are emerging as crucial early-stage funders, providing $6.7 million in support when patient capital is needed most for ambitious student founders.
Australia’s best entrepreneurs are often hiding in plain sight. For 25 years, the Peter Farrell Cup has given UNSW students the chance to take an idea out of the classroom and put it on stage.
What those 25 years show us is not just the ambition of UNSW students, but also the story of how Australia’s startup ecosystem has changed and where it needs to go next.
The competition began in 2001 as a small business plan contest with prize pools of only a few thousand dollars. When Dr Peter Farrell and his family foundation began philanthropically supporting the program in 2008, it scaled into a university-wide flagship, shifting from business plans to live pitches and expanding to every faculty.
Apps to impact
When the Cup began in 2001, most student teams pitched straightforward apps, consulting concepts, or service businesses. Fast forward to 2025, and the picture is very different. This year’s finalists included startups building AI-driven diagnostic tools to reduce medical bias, multilingual emergency services to ensure no one is excluded from 000, and see-through solar panels designed for the built environment.
“Over 25 years, we have seen a clear shift in founder focus,” says David Burt, Director of Entrepreneurship at UNSW. “UNSW students are increasingly building in health, sustainability and climate. That mirrors the broader Australian startup ecosystem, which has matured from consumer apps to deep tech and impact-driven ventures.”
The founders are choosing harder problems: affordable healthcare, climate resilience, food security, and energy transition. According to Burt, these are not just business opportunities but national priorities.
Capital Constraints
The past few years have tested founders in ways not seen since the GFC. In 2021 and 2022, cheap capital flooded the market. Now, global interest rates are higher, term sheets are scarcer, and investors are more cautious.
According to Techboard data, Australian startup funding fell to $4.438 billion in 2023, down 37% from 2022’s $7.047 billion and just over 50% lower than 2021’s peak.
“The easy story is that this is bad news for student founders,” Burt explains. “The real story is that it is making them better entrepreneurs. Constraints breed creativity. The capital environment is teaching young founders to be more resourceful and revenue-driven.”
UNSW itself has stepped up where private capital has pulled back. Between 2023 and 2025, UNSW Founders provided $6.7 million in direct support to startups and entrepreneurs, including $5.1 million in investment and $1.5 million in cash prizes through pitch competitions like the Peter Farrell Cup.
National Priority
Student entrepreneurship has long been dismissed as a side project for keen students to dabble in after class. Burt argues that thinking is outdated and dangerous.
The Peter Farrell Cup proves that when you give students the chance to build, they step up. Over 600 students applied this year, a record for the competition, up from 258 last year. That surge was only possible because UNSW’s Deans backed the program with $50,000 in Faculty Dean’s Awards.
“Australia needs to take the same approach at the national level,” says Burt. “Entrepreneurship is not just about private wealth. It is our best tool for solving national challenges, from health equity to climate change to digital infrastructure.”
UNSW has demonstrated strong entrepreneurial outcomes, with 105 venture capital-funded founders per 100,000 graduates in the past 10 years, and is the alma mater of Atlassian founders Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar.
Patient Capital
UNSW Founders has built a model driven by belief through philanthropic support, creating space for founders to build before they are investor-ready. This includes non-dilutive cash prizes through competitions and equity investment through the 10x Accelerator on some of the most founder-friendly terms in Australia.
“Philanthropic capital is the most patient of capital,” Burt notes. “It lets us back students earlier than traditional investors would, sometimes years before they incorporate. Australia needs more of this approach.”
The broader Australian ecosystem reflects this evolution. UNSW Founders’ startups have raised over $150 million in post-program funding and generated over $700 million in enterprise value since graduating.
After 25 years, the lesson of the Peter Farrell Cup is clear: Australian students are not short of ambition or ideas. What they need is patient capital, supportive policy, and the confidence that their country values entrepreneurship as much as they do.
“If we treat entrepreneurship as a national priority, not a side project, then the students pitching at the Peter Farrell Cup today will be the founders who build the industries that define Australia’s tomorrow,” Burt concludes.
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