Meet the Illume Ventures Fellows: fresh perspectives for bold ideas
Deep-tech commercialisation takes more than a great idea or breakthrough technology. It takes figuring out whether there’s a real customer need, and how to turn that technology into a viable venture.
The inaugural Venture Fellows cohort. Hover or tap a portrait to see each Fellow.
That’s why we created the Venture Fellows program as part of Future Frontier, our AI and deep-tech pre-accelerator. We're proud to partner with the Melbourne Business School in this initiative.
Our inaugural cohort brings together 13 talented individuals with backgrounds in biotechnology, engineering, data science, finance, healthcare, consulting and entrepreneurship. What connects them is a shared passion for deep-tech entrepreneurship, a commercial mindset, and the drive to work directly with founders: testing assumptions and helping promising technologies find their place in the market.
What motivated them to join?
Seeing research move beyond the lab and become something that benefits people in the real world.
Putting their business and analytical skills to work on real customer problems, rather than stopping at market research or strategy recommendations.
What the Fellows will do
Over five weeks, each Fellow will work alongside a Future Frontier founder, spending around 2–3 hours a week exploring customer needs, assessing competing solutions and gathering evidence to help shape the venture’s next steps.
Together, they’ll tackle the questions that matter:
- 1.Is the problem significant enough to build a business around?
- 2.Who would pay to solve it?
- 3.What alternatives already exist?
- 4.What evidence is needed before investing more time and resources?
The answers might reveal a promising market opportunity. They might also challenge a founder’s assumptions or point towards a different commercial pathway. Both are valuable.
“At Illume Ventures, we believe in learning by doing. Venture Fellows bring fresh perspectives and help founders ask the questions that matter.”
“For the Fellows, it’s a chance to experience the realities of building a deep-tech venture, explore potential career paths, and develop relationships that could lead to future startup roles or even co-founding opportunities.”
LAXMI PUN · FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, ILLUME VENTURES
Building beyond the five weeks
Bridging the gap between research and market adoption takes more than great technology. It takes founders who understand their customers, and people who can help them navigate the commercial journey. Our Venture Fellows are an important part of that equation.
We’re excited to see what they discover, which assumptions they challenge, and how their work helps our Future Frontier founders decide what comes next.
The real opportunity isn’t simply to develop breakthrough technology. It’s to find out where that technology can make a difference.
