RMIT Strategic Management Control Systems: Brandon Capital WIL Plan

This project presents a Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) plan focused on Brandon Capital Partners, a venture capital firm. The plan outlines the team's approach to understanding the company's operations, industry context, and competitive landscape. It details the steps taken to contact the company, including the organization of a visit and interview. The document provides an overview of the venture capital industry, including its structure, competition, and the role of firms like Brandon Capital. The interview protocol includes questions about the company's history, financing strategies, challenges, and future goals. The reflection section discusses the team's experience in gaining access to the organization and the factors that enabled effective team collaboration. The references used in the project are also listed.

Running head: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT CONTROL SYSTEMS
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT CONTROL SYSTEMS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Company name – Brandon Capital Partners
Address - Level 9, 31 Queen Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Phone [phone]
Fax [phone]
Email: [e-mail]
Contact personnel for correspondence:
Chris Nave (Managing Director, Melbourne)
Ingmar Wahlqvist (Investment manager, Melbourne)
Company overview
Brandon Capital Partners was established in 2006 in Melbourne, Australia. It is a fund
management business that is focussed on investment in various ventures in the life sciences
research field (Brandoncapital.com.au, n.d.). It is one of the biggest venture capital firms
currently located in Australia. As a funds management business, the company collaborates
with major companies that are invested in life science related Research and Development
with a primary focus on improving the medical outcomes of their partnering companies.
Some of the major corporations they are involved with include Aravax, Cardiora, Elastagen,
Global Kinetics and OccuRX among others. The company partners majorly with
Pharmaceutical corporations but also with biotechnological firms and medical supporting
technology development corporations as well. Currently, the company manages four different
types of funds (Brandoncapital.com.au, n.d.) as listed below:
 AUD$230 million MRCF BTF
 AUD$200 million Medical Research Commercialisation Fund (MRCF3)

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 AUD$51 million Medical Research Commercialisation Fund (MRCF IIF, LP and
MRCF Trust) - now fully invested
 AUD$50 million Brandon Biosciences Fund 1 (BBF1 IIF and BBF1 Trust) - now
fully invested
With its headquarters located on 56 Pitt Street Sydney, Brandon Capital has two other
offices, at 31 Queen Street Melbourne and 459 Hamilton Ave Suite, Palo Alto, California
Respectively. The chief aspect of the company’s functioning lies in its medical Research
Commercialisation Fund (MRCF) established in 2007 and now available to “Promising
opportunities from its 50 member institutes”.
Industry context
Venture capital is a form of private equity financing system that provides funds or
financial support to start – ups, small, emerging or firms in early developmental stage which
have shown high growth potential. In exchange for equity, or stake of ownership, venture
capital firms invest in these companies, risking financing precarious start – ups. Venture
capital investments have high failure rates but at the same time, potential for success in the
few of the cases are also significantly large. Venture capital investments are mostly focused
on the advanced technological companies like IT, Biotechnology or clean technology.
Initial stage of venture capital investment involves a seed funding round where a start
– up is provided primary capital in exchange for an equity stake in the company. They tend to
generate a return through an ‘exit event’ where the partner companies sell their shares to the
public for the first time, either through an IPO (Initial Public Offering) or a trade sale
(Merger and acquisition).
In Australia, according to a report by William Buck Chartered Accountants and
Advisors, expected rate of return from capital funding investments in 2018 by Venture

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Capital groups were between 30% and 50% whilst the expected rate of return by angel
investors was even higher at 35 - 65% (Finfeed 2019). Venture capital returns also ranked the
second highest in Australia according to a report published by Pepperdine Capital Markets
(Everett 2018) in 2018, as indicated by the chart below
Source: Pepperdine Private Capital Markets Report 2018.
Industry Competition
Venture capitals is a huge field in finance and funding. While Brandon Capital partners
have established themselves as significant pioneers in the field already, they face certain
competition from other parallel funding companies within Australia. The following is a list of
top 3 venture capital companies that pose as competitors to Brandon Capitals:
 Telstra Ventures – A strategic firm focussing on technology start ups with high
growth potentials. They have financed over forty one start-ups since their
establishment in 2011, managing over 250 Mn AUD as funds (Telstra Ventures, n.d.).

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 GBS Venture capital firm – With over 400 Mn AUD and nearly 32 ventures under
their belt, GBS venture firms has been quite significant since 1996
(Gbsventures.com.au, n.d.).
 Blackbird ventures – Established in 2012 and based in Sydney, they manage around
200 Mn and have raised almost twice that amount while investing 28 technology
firms, primarily in early stage, series A and seed based (Blackbird.vc, n.d.).
WIL Plan
The above provided information serves as a base for us to start working on the Work
Integrated Learning plan following the steps below:
 Contact the company’s Human Resource department, explaining the proposal.
Here the highlight should be given on explaining the purpose for the visit to the
company.
 Organise a visit to the company’s office, interact with the concerned authority to
make arrangements for a tour cum discussion session on the way the company
functions.
 Understand the different policies and practices at play in the company while
managing funds and finances with other partner corporations.
 Identify different teams within the company that work on different projects at a
time, interact with the team leaders as well as the team members to learn about
aspects and instances of effective leadership skills with a practical demonstration
or evidential report of the same.
Interview protocol
1. How did this company start? What was the primary objective?
2. Who were the first three ventures you financed?

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3. What were the challenges that you faced while financing venture for the first time?
4. How did you overcome those challenges?
5. How much was the amount financed?
6. What was the outcome?
7. Who do you consider your strongest competitor to be?
8. How do you assess competition? On what grounds do you base them?
9. What are the approaches that you take in order to overcome the challenges posed by
competitors?
10. What are some of your long and short term goals?
11. How do you manage contact with your offices overseas?
12. How do you decide how much funding is required by a venture?
13. What happens if a funded venture fails? How do you deal with the loss?
Reflection
On gaining access to organization
Gaining access to the company was not a hurdle. Our team had already discussed
about looking into venture capital firms for the project and Brandon Capital Partners seemed
like the best possible organisation to go forward with. The office is also located very close to
RMIT University (less than 900 metres according to google maps) so we were able to walk to
the office. Gaining permission was no hurdle either. We were able to meet the managing
director who seemed very interested and enthusiastic about our project. He along with the
investment manager of the company provided us with all the details that we needed to get.
On enabling factors for team collaboration
After ensuring that every member of the team was familiar with venture capital
business, we needed to discuss a fixed time when we could visit the office. Lunch break was

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the perfect time as suggested by the MD. The managing director and the investment manager
were particularly helpful in providing us with detailed responses to the questions that we
asked them. They also gave us information about the first three years of their business, the
hurdles they faced, as well as the positive outcomes they achieved. The only primary issue
that we faced was that a few of our questions regarding the details of funds and outcomes
were not provided answers according to B2C confidentiality.

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References
Blackbird.vc. (n.d.). Blackbird Ventures | For wild hearts with wild dreams. [online]
Available at: https://blackbird.vc/ [Accessed 12 Sep. 2019].
Brandoncapital.com.au. (n.d.). Seed and Venture Capital Investments - Brandon Capital
Partners. [online] Available at: http://www.brandoncapital.com.au/ [Accessed 11 Sep. 2019].
Everett, C. 2018. 2018 Private Capital Markets Report. [online] Pepperdine Digital
Commons. Available at: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/gsbm_pcm_pcmr/11/
[Accessed 11 Sep. 2019].
Finfeed. (2019). $3 billion in venture capital in Australia in 2018 and growing. [online]
Available at: https://finfeed.com/features/3-billion-venture-capital-australian-2018-and-
growing/ [Accessed 11 Sep. 2019].
Gbsventures.com.au. (n.d.). GBS Venture Partners - GBS Venture Partners. [online]
Available at: http://www.gbsventures.com.au/ [Accessed 12 Sep. 2019].
Telstra Ventures. (n.d.). Telstra Ventures. [online] Available at: https://telstraventures.com/
[Accessed 12 Sep. 2019].