Picking winners needs super funds to work

Bill Ferris, the veteran venture capitalist and hand-picked innovation czar for the government under Malcolm Turnbull, has a blunt message for the government if it wants its latest initiative in picking advanced manufacturing winners to work as a post-COVID-19 stimulus measure.

They will have to learn to work with, instead of in opposition to, the big super funds – including the industry funds – because outside of the government they are the ones stepping up to provide the patient capital for long-term technology, biotech and medical inventions to be turned into products.