Ad Astra Research Facilities · Cremorne, Victoria
The Alternative to University
Ad Astra gives you every tool it takes to turn an idea into something real, and 12 months to do it. Laboratories, synthesisers, fabrication, electronics assembly and artificial intelligence, with 400 Fellows living upstairs and working downstairs at 51-57 Cubitt Street, Cremorne. The room, the food and the equipment are covered, and what you make is intellectual property in a company with your name on it.
Why it exists
Three Years and a Transcript, or 12 Months and a Company
A degree runs 3 or 4 years and ends in a transcript, with a supervisor’s name on the work. Ad Astra runs 12 months and ends in intellectual property you own, in a company that is yours. Fellows arrive at the point they would otherwise have started a degree. The building houses and feeds them, hands them the equipment and takes a share of what they make.
Each Fellow gets a room, 3 chef cooked meals a day, the laboratories, the synthesisers, the fabrication shop, the electronics assembly bench and the compute, an artificial intelligence twin from Silicon that runs the admin, and a company in their name from day 1.
The building
Street to Rooftop, 8 Zones
Ad Astra stacks the lab, the workshop and the people in one building, so the lift is the commute. The work sets the structure, services and acoustics: heavy lab loads low, quiet in the tower, and power and cooling sized for the compute to grow.
Built by Terraform
A Machine for Making Things, With Beds in It
Ad Astra is a Terraform World. The suites are made in the Terraform factory as Building Blocks, finished in the factory and assembled on Cubitt Street, the same technology that builds Om’s architecture and its villas.
Cremorne is half a square kilometre of brick warehouses between the Yarra and Richmond station, with more engineers per hectare than anywhere in the country. Richmond station is a short walk and the Church Street tram passes the door.
Selection
Builders Only, 1 Written Application
Bring 3 things: a view your field does not hold and the evidence for it, a record of building before anyone paid you, and something big to go after. Someone who can judge the science reads every application, you get an answer in 2 weeks, and there are 400 places a year.
For investors
A Room, $1,500,000, 12 Per Cent a Year
Buy a room at the research institute, a chattel that is yours outright. Ad Astra leases it from you for 25 years and pays you $180,000 a year, a 12 per cent return paid annually and hedged against inflation. Press play for the investor film, then read the numbers.
111 seconds, sound on.
Price
$1,500,000 a room
A chattel at 51-57 Cubitt Street, Cremorne, 1 of 200, with a registered 25 year lease of the space. Bought through a company, a trust or a self managed fund.
Rent
$180,000 a year
A 12 per cent return, paid annually, hedged against inflation: the price tracks the Consumer Price Index, so the rent holds its value for 25 years. $4,500,000 over the term, in today’s money.
Tenant
Ad Astra, 25 years
Ad Astra leases the room from you the day you settle and pays you full or empty. You own 1 room with 1 tenant and nothing to run.
Where it comes from
Government Research Funding, One Step Removed
The research and development tax incentive refunds the research companies inside, they pay Ad Astra for the labs, and Ad Astra pays you. The fee is ruled eligible.
Ad Astra Cremorne is a trading name of Cybertower Pty Ltd, Australian Company Number 659 318 475. Rooms are sold to companies, trusts and self managed funds, not to individuals in their own name. Nothing here is an offer of a financial product, a recommendation or personal advice. The contract pack goes to you and your adviser before you exchange. Obtain your own legal, tax and financial advice.
Finance Your Room
Woolong Capital lends on Ad Astra rooms bought through a company, a trust or a self managed fund. Send your details and Woolong replies within 1 business day.
Woolong Capital sets the rate, fees and terms after its credit assessment. It lends to companies and trustees, not to individuals in their own name, and its loans are not regulated under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009.
Apply for Finance
Have your company, trust or fund details ready. Woolong replies within 1 business day.