There are many roads to success. The path from concept to commercialisation can be a treacherous journey for many entrepreneurs. And the road from export potential to genuine global player can offer more pitfalls than a Himalayan hike.

Sydney and Melbourne based Business Strategies International (BSI), with its venture-fund arm, Australian Distributed Incubator (ADI), has put together a multifaceted business model to help Australian entrepreneurs grow their businesses through grant assistance, tax incentive advice and appropriate growth solutions, such as capital raising and export services.

“We saw a need,” says Ivan Kaye, Executive Director and Founding Partner of BSI. “Entrepreneurs seem able to raise the resources to take a concept to prototype stage. Fuelled by passion and the promise of their concept’s potential, most genuine entrepreneurs will get to this level of business development. What’s lacking in most parts of Australia is the knowledge, or experience, to position a business to raise capital or source appropriate government grants.” BSI’s capital raising services are probably the most widely recognized aspect of its business, possibly due to the media attention that its Quarterly Investor Forums attract. However, Kaye is quick to point out that helping Australian entrepreneurs raise money is only one part of BSI, describing his company as “a one stop shop for commercialisation.” This is a view backed by long standing corporate advisor and Executive Director of BSI, Alan Milwidsky. “It’s become corporate speak in many companies, but we do genuinely offer integrated solutions. Our clients rarely use only one of our services,” says Milwidsky. “We can offer corporate advisory services, by helping a company raise money through debt or equity, we can coordinate trade sales, mergers and acquisitions (when it comes time to exit), we can assist our client companies build sales channels, by finding them retail channels, direct marketing channels or resellers (particularly when dealing in the technology space). We can also assist them to export through our Global Gateway service.”

According to BSI client, Peter Klein, Chief Executive Officer of IOTEQ, “One main distinction between BSI and some other service providers that I have dealt with is that the person I’m speaking to, the person with the experience, is the person who will do the work – not some junior. They have different managers with different skills, who are focused on outcomes.” One of these managers is BSI Director Mike Lynch, who is appointed to assist companies source grant assistance. “What I have found,” says Lynch. “Is that many companies are not aware of the resources available to them for growth. We honestly meet new companies every week that have never heard of the R&D assistance programs or consider themselves eligible. Even companies that have tried to access assistance rarely understand their full entitlements and opportunities.”

BSI has extended its ‘hands-on’ philosophy overseas though its Global Gateway service. “We have appointed select trade managers from different export destinations. It is the job of these managers to actively assist our export clients access global markets. At the moment our key destinations are China and the USA, because that is where many of our clients want to go, but we’re also working in other markets, such as India and the Middle East,” says Kaye.

Over recent years, BSI has attracted significant attention (and significant capital for its clients) by staging quarterly Investor Forums. These events are attended by leading angel investors and representatives from the Australian venture capital industry. According to Milwidsky, VicStart funding, through ADI, and investor ready assistance, from the Federal Government’s COMET program, are helping more fast-growth companies attract financial support through these events. “Many companies have attempted to stage investor forums but, in my opinion, none have been as successful as those held by BSI. This is simply because sophisticated investors recognise the behind the scenes work we put into helping capital seekers prepare before they present. For that reason, our Forums consistently attract high level investors, who are actively seeking private Australian companies to invest in.” “The VicStart funding has allowed us to better promote these events and stage more Forums, particularly in Victoria, while COMET is allowing us to assist more companies become investor ready,” says Milwidsky. “By combining all our services, our goal is to help business owners traverse that path from concept to commercialisation.