Press Release

SiliconCatalyst.AU Announces New Managing Partners

Brisbane, Queensland Australia – December 1st 2025 – SiliconCatalyst.AU, the Australia‑based arm of Silicon Catalyst—the only accelerator focused on the global semiconductor industry, including Chips, Chiplets, Materials, IP and Silicon fabrication-based Photonics, MEMS, Sensors, Life Science and Quantum, announces the appointment of two distinguished industry veterans as Managing Partners in Brisbane: Dr. Michael Harvey and Dr. Anthony Brewer.

These senior leadership additions give local support for this newly launched program strengthening the depth of support for program applicants and bolstering the team with real world local startup experience for the ChipStart AU program, enabling it to scale its hardware‑startup incubation, prototyping, and global go‑to‑market support across Australia.

Dr. Michael Harvey and Dr. Anthony Brewer will jointly oversee Australian operations — including cohort selection for the ChipStart AU accelerator program, partner engagement (in‑kind, fabrication, EDA, IP, foundry access), mentorship, and investor readiness for early‑stage hardware and deep‑tech startups.

“Brisbane & Australia are fast becoming genuine epicentres for advanced manufacturing, quantum, sensors and chip innovation in the Asia‑Pacific region,” said James Lougheed, President of SiliconCatalyst.AU. “Bringing Michael and Anthony into the fold means local founders now benefit not only from the global Silicon Catalyst infrastructure and global semiconductor ecosystem, but from proven local deep tech hardware leadership who understand the region, know the investors, and will be out in the trenches day‑to‑day. The quality of local support – spearheaded by Michael and Anthony – means Australian hardware entrepreneurs will be set up to scale faster, smarter and globally.”

Dr. Michael Harvey

Michael holds a PhD in physics from the University of Queensland. After founding several materials science startups in Australia and the USA Michael joined the ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems (EQUS) where he built a pre-pre-seed fund with a budget of $3M and created 21 commercial outcomes, including 9 quantum technology startups, with projects bringing in ~$97M in commercial and grant funding. He established similar programs at the Centre of Excellence for Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies (FLEET) and the Centre of Excellence for Quantum Biotechnology (QUBIC).

Michael has lived and worked with tech startups in Australia, Silicon Valley, Europe, China, & Taiwan, he has co-founded several deep-tech startups in Australia and the USA so far having raised >$70M in investment for these businesses. He is an advisor or non-executive director of Australian startups commercialising semiconductor devices, data security technology, low-energy compute, edge AI, superconducting devices, and novel battery chemistries.