The 23

agAlytics
Rapid handheld platform for nutrient management

agAlytics is an agtech start-up based out of the University of Queensland’s Innovation Lab. We are developing sensors utilising lab-on-a-chip technology to manage water and soil nutrients.
agalytics.com.au

Anthony Brewer

Co-founder, agAlytics

With a PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge, Anthony Brewer is an entrepreneur and scientist with a passion for applying science and technology to solve the world’s biggest problems.

Agersens
A virtual shepherd for livestock

Based in Melbourne, Agersens is an agri-tech startup company developing the worlds first virtual shepherd. This IoT system will connect each animal to the internet and enable farmers to fence, move and monitor their livestock using their smartphone or tablet. Called “eShepherd”, this system will enable beef and dairy farmers to automate the grazing control of their animals – enabling farmers to increase scale while cutting costs to improve farm profitability, productivity and sustainability. eShepherd will improve the health and welfare of livestock, provide a wildlife friendly, flood and fire proof method for preventing cattle from polluting rivers, damaging our land through overgrazing.
agersens.com

Ian Reilly

Managing Director, Agersens

Ian Reilly is an engineer and entrepreneur with more than 25 years’ experience developing new technology products for global markets. Beginning in the defence and aerospace industry Ian has deep experience developing medical devices, consumer and industrial products for startups in California – through to some of the world’s largest companies and most recognised brands. He founded Agersens in 2014 to provide an automation solution to address the productivity, profitability and sustainability issues faced globally by livestock farmers. Ian’s agricultural experience comes from growing up on a sheep and cattle farm in North East Victoria. Ian is a Graduate member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

AgriWebb
Data driven decision-making for farmers

AgriWebb is an innovative software company transforming the livestock industry. Its founders come from 5 generations of livestock production and want to drive the industry forward through data driven decision-making.

Their farm management platform is made up of the AgriWebb Notebook, for easy record keeping in the paddock, and the AgriWebb Portal, which enables customers to make decisions that improve productivity and increase profits.

AgriWebb’s customers manage 1.3 million animals across 2 million hectares of land in every state and territory in Australia, and were awarded the Australian Startup of the Year in the 2016 iAwards.
agriwebb.com

John Fargher

CMO and Co-founder, AgriWebb

John Fargher was raised on his family’s 400,000 acre sheep and cattle station in northern South Australia, where his love for agriculture, innovation and entrepreneurship began. He has an energetic passion and enthusiasm for bringing technology to the livestock industry, and wants to drive increased farm efficiency and productivity through the use of on-farm data and information.

John received various academic scholarships to study at the University of Adelaide and Indiana University (USA), where he earned a Double Degree – Bachelor of Laws (LLB) and Bachelor of Arts (Geographical and Environmental Studies).

His legal experience includes working as in-house legal counsel in London for a FTSE 100 Retail/IT company, focusing on Marketing and IT law. John has also held various marketing and project management roles, including running a £40 million project for Cadbury at the London 2012 Olympics.

John is a Co-founder of AgriWebb and heads up the sales and marketing team, along with helping the commercial and strategic direction of the company while acting as in-house legal counsel.

Airwallex
Simple, affordable and convenient international payments

Airwallex is a financial technology company that offers integrated solutions for personal and business cross-border transactions. Airwallex facilitates international money transfers through a combination of local payment collection, foreign exchange and distribution. Airwallex’s products include an invoicing platform for businesses to create and pay international invoices and a series of APIs that allow e-commerce platforms to process international payments, convert funds at the mid-market rate, manage inventory, and display prices across multiple currencies in real-time. Supported by high profile investors including Gobi Partners and Gravity VC, Airwallex brings extensive experience in the Asia Pacific region to the global multi-currency market.
airwallex.com.au

Jack Zhang

CEO and Co-founder, Airwallex

A former ANZ and NAB foreign exchange solution designer, Jack Zhang co-founded Airwallex after a foray into operating a café left him questioning the foreign exchange rate and fees associated with importing coffee cups. Jack is avid about the foreign exchange market and cross-border growth, and prides himself on the company’s ability to give smaller businesses and individuals the same opportunity to access lower fees as the big players.

Biteable
The world’s simplest video maker

Making high-quality videos is time-consuming and expensive, so we decided we wanted to create “the world’s simplest video maker”. Biteable is designed to make it fast and easy for any individual or organisation, regardless of video production skills, to create studio-quality videos. The platform is free, but videos have a Biteable watermark so users become an army of brand advocates doing potentially millions of dollars worth of unpaid advertising. Premium users pay a small, annual fee to remove the watermark. We’ve attracted over 600k users in the last year and are now adding >90k new users each month.
biteable.com

James MacGregor

CEO & Co-founder, Biteable

James MacGregor has an insatiable appetite for all things startup. He’s spent the last decade focussed on helping startups build, launch and scale their products globally. Combining his experience with startups such as BigCommerce.com and Moo.com with his passion for animation, James co-founded Biteable.com in 2014. His obsession with automation has allowed Biteable to punch well above its weight internationally, expanding the business exponentially over the last two years with only a small team of developers.

Black AI
Artificial intelligence delivering context driven insights

Black AI has built an artificial intelligence system, Ani, that can watch and understand human behaviour. She automates the direct observation of people movement and flow through environments, detecting interactions and notable events, reporting on them in real time.
black.ai

Michelle Mannering

COO & Co-founder, Black AI

Coming from both the Science and Arts background at Melbourne University, Michelle Mannering has spent the last year as the Carlton Connect Events Coordinator. Running a multitude of events around innovation, technology, science, the arts, and entrepreneurship gave her great insights into the professional culture of Melbourne. The diverse environment at LAB-14 eventually called her towards the startup ecosystem where she is now the Co-founder of Black AI, one of 10 companies accepted into this year’s Melbourne Accelerator Program.

Cardihab
Help patients get back to life!

Cardihab is a spin out company from the CSIRO. Cardihab provides healthcare organisations with the ability to deliver clinician led, remote chronic disease management and prevention programs. Our first product is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution for healthcare providers to deliver postdischarge cardiac rehabilitation to patients remotely, via a patient smartphone app and clinician web portal. This is the world’s first, scientifically validated, way to deliver remote cardiac rehab and it increases patient completion rates by 70%.
cardihab.com

Leonore Ryan

CEO and Co-founder, Cardihab

Leonore Ryan’s career has centred on business, innovation and “getting things done”. Leonore has worked for organisations such as CSIRO, Monash Commercial and the Sustainable Energy Authority Victoria where her roles have included innovation, technology transfer, business development, and industry engagement. In 2005, Leonore was the inaugural Commercialisation Intern in Starfish Ventures’ commercialisation internship program, and in 2006 she led the team that won the $100,000 Peter Doherty Prize for Innovation. Leonore holds a BSc(Hons) from the University of Sydney, an MBA from Melbourne Business School, and is a graduate member of the AICD.

Data Creative
Data driven personalised videos in seconds

The Data Creative platform creates data-driven personalised videos in seconds, that deliver relevant, timely and valuable information to any individual who receives them. Working with a client’s existing communication software and data, Data Creative integrates securely and seamlessly with any database, eliminating the requirement to login or learn a new software package; ultimately providing clients with a competitive edge over market competitors.

Data Creative has been proven to:
– Engage more deeply than traditional communication methods
– Effectively explain complex products and services with cut through
But best of all, videos are created in seconds allowing for truly unique experiences that will disrupt the video industry.
datacreative.com.au

Renece Brewster

CEO and Founder, Data Creative

Fiercely determined and passionate about advances in digital technology, Renece Brewster has spent the last eight years as Co-founder and CEO of Visual Domain before founding Data Creative in late 2015.

Across a 13 year career in the digital space, Renece has found a niche at predicting trends before they happen and offering solutions for these in the commercial world. When she isn’t immersed in all things video, Renece is a proud mum of two and is marketing manager at Girls in Tech – a not-for-profit organisation designed to empower and educate girls and women in tech.

Gelion
Flexible ionic liquid gel batteries

Gelion relies on nanostructured gels and is aimed to compete on safety, durability and price. The initial market is storage in buildings – both residential and commercial, the idea being to build houses with batteries inherently included as part of their structure, ready to take advantage of rapidly improving, solar energy technology and also to serve as a buffer for the grid, enabling an ever greater share of renewables to be connected, while grid stability is maintained.

With major international investment secured from the UK’s Armstrong Energy, a full commercial demonstration prototype is scheduled for development within four years.

Thomas Maschmeyer

Inventor and founding chairman, Gelion

Dr. Thomas Maschmeyer, is Professor of Chemistry and serves as Founding Director of the Australian Institute of Nanoscale Science and Technology (AINST), of the Laboratory of Advanced Catalysis for Sustainability (School of Chemistry). He is Honorary Distinguished Professor at the University of Cardiff and Honorary CSIRO Research Fellow.
In 2011 he was elected (the youngest and as only the second Australian resident) Foreign Member of the Academia Europea, as well as Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences (AAS), the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) and the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI). In 2014 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW (Australia’s oldest scientific society).

He is Founding Chairman of Gelion (2015), a new high performance battery university spin-out and co-founder of the low carbon/renewables start-ups Ignite Energy Resources (2006) and Licella (2007) and was one of the founding Professors of Avantium (2001), a Dutch High-tech company, now with 160+ employees.

He serves on the editorial/advisory boards of nine international journals and on the external advisory boards of the top catalysis institute of both the UK (Cardiff) and China (Dalian).

He received many awards, including the New South Wales Science and Engineering Award for Renewable Energy Innovation (2013), the RACI Weickhardt Medal for Economic Contributions through Chemistry (2012), the RACI Applied Research Award (2011), the Le Févre Prize of the Australian Academy of Sciences for Outstanding Basic Research in Chemistry by a Scientists under 40 (2007).

He returned from Europe (Royal Institution, Cambridge and Delft) in late 2003 to the University of Sydney as ARC Federation Fellow, where he has set up a state-of the art catalysis, materials and process engineering laboratory.

GeoInteractive
Mapping the health of underground infrastructure

Geointeractive is a specialised geoscientific company building smart mapping devices to help prevent catastrophic failures in underground infrastructure, with a current focus on critical waste and stormwater assets.
geointeractive.com.au

Robert Lee

Managing Director, GeoInteractive

Robert Lee is the founder and Managing Director of GeoInteractive. Having graduated with a degree in Geoscience from the University of Wollongong, Robert has over 10 years industry experience in the mining industry and worked in roles as a geophysicist, geologist and photogrammetrist.

Robert founded GeoInteractive in November 2013 where he experimented with a number of innovative technologies to map dynamic areas within mine sites. In late 2014 Robert made a breakthrough using image-based systems that he had developed to accurately map underground tunnels. Robert has since deployed different versions of his system in a range of underground environments including mine shafts, underground mining roadways, train tunnels, waste and stormwater pipes.

Gruntify
Data collection, management and analytics platform

Gruntify is an Agile software development startup. It provides enterprise customers with an all-in-one, mobile-to-cloud data management platform in 3 easy steps. 1) Mobile apps for data collection, 2) online data management portal with in-built workflow processes, and 3) data mapping and analytics for streamlined decision-making.
gruntify.com

Jamie Leach

CEO, Gruntify

Jamie Leach has an extensive background in senior business development, general management, commercial banking and wealth management roles, as well as creating successful web-based startups.

Jamie has been employed in prominent roles by some of the world’s largest companies, leading high-profile projects for GE Capital, Westpac and Investec in additional to her service to the Department of Defence and the Australian telecommunications industry. Her high-profile background in the financial industry serves her well as CEO of Gruntify. She is instrumental for the future growth of the company, using her extensive experience to help consolidate Gruntify as a market-leading data management platform.

Jamie is currently studying for her Doctorate of Business Administration and working with the Australian Centre for Sustainable Business Development at USQ, and has been published in several trading publications and websites, is the author of a number of financial markets books, in addition to coaching, keynote speaking and lecturing for top international firms.

Haventec
Revolutionising online security and network trust

Haventec helps organisations build trust by maintaining their customers’ privacy in every interaction. The Sydney-based company aims to disrupt the global cyber security market with a decentralised approach to authentication.

Haventec’s internationally patented technologies dramatically reduce cyber risk and enable pervasive trust services for organisations of all sizes. Haventec’s solutions empower each user to own and control their identity and personal data, while removing vulnerabilities that organisations spend millions trying to protect.

Haventec’s security products target the following markets: identity access management, digital online payments and enterprise network security. Haventec’s portfolio of products includes Authenticate, Secure Wallet and Blockchain Platinum.
haventec.com

Robert Morrish

CEO, Haventec

Robert Morrish is a seasoned technologist with more than 27 years’ experience taking innovations from concept all the way through to commercialisation. His long history of leadership in software and systems engineering, business strategy and enterprise architecture made him the ideal candidate for the chief executive position at cyber security startup Haventec. Robert joined the Sydney-based firm in March 2016 from Macquarie Group, where, as the head of COG digital architecture and strategy, he was instrumental in transforming Macquarie’s digital API platforms. In the late 1990s and early 2000s he was involved in two other successful Australian startups that expanded into global markets: Sabela Media and Decide Interactive. Robert is also an accomplished Paralympian (British Volleyball team at the 1988 Paralympics), internationally-certified PADI divemaster and professional Afro/Cuban percussionist. As CEO of Haventec he is committed to guiding the business through all life-cycle stages to global commercial success.

Hovermap
Intelligence software for drones

Hovermap does for drones what Google does for driverless cars. Hovermap provides software which makes drones safe and easy to use, and allows them be used for a host of new applications. It enables collision avoidance and the ability to fly without GPS so drones can fly safely close to structures, indoors or underground. The onboard intelligence also allows a single operator to supervise a swarm of drones, enabling drone applications to truly scale up. The software, combined with a unique lidar mapping payload allows drones to accurately map the environment even without GPS. This is the result of more than six years of CSIRO research and there is no other solution on the market which provides all these capabilities.
confluence.csiro.au/display/ASL/HoverMap

Stefan Hrabar

Research Team Leader, Hovermap

Stefan Hrabar has 15 years of drone research experience, specialising in collision avoidance and autonomy for drones. He received his PhD in Computer Science (Robotics) at the University of Southern California in 2006 and since then has conducted drone research at CSIRO. As part of the CSIRO team he demonstrated the World’s first beyond line-of-sight drone collision avoidance and asset inspection. He leads a team of seven CSIRO researchers, has lead a number of projects and currently leads the development of Hovermap, the world’s lightest drone lidar mapping payload.

Lorica Health
Fighting fraud and waste in healthcare

Lorica Health provides advanced claims analytics software and services to healthcare sector funders, providers and regulators. A specialist team of data scientists, domain experts, clinicians, analysts and engineers develop industry specific solutions which target fraud, abuse and waste, while also making markets that improve the quality and safety of health care.
loricahealth.com

Paul Nicolarakis

CEO, Lorica Health

Paul Nicolarakis is a data curious physician entrepreneur who carries a breadth of expertise across clinical analytics, business and health policy. Since completing degrees in medicine and neuroscience at Sydney University and his residency at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Paul has led an award winning aged care electronic medical record startup prior to joining Microsoft as their Asia Pacific clinical analytics lead. Paul served as a Senior Advisor to a Federal Health Minister before commencing at CMCRC, where he is now the CEO of Lorica Health. Paul holds an Adjunct Associate Professor title at the Menzies Centre for Health Policy and was a 2015
Eisenhower Fellow.

Myriota
Low cost, small data, satellite connectivity

Myriota has developed a new satellite communications platform to transmit small amounts of data at a very low cost. Myriota’s patented technology has been developed from the ground up to make critical data accessible and affordable. Myriota uses tiny low powered transmitters, small amounts of bandwidth, tiny low earth orbit satellites and clever signal processing software to transmit small amounts of data via satellite at previously unattainable prices.
myriota.com

Dr Alex Grant

CEO, Myriota

Prior to co-founding Myriota in 2015, Dr Alex Grant was a Professor, and Director of the Institute for Telecommunications Research at the University of South Australia. He is a principal inventor on Myriota’s foundation intellectual property. Myriota is Alex’s second startup. In 2004, he co-founded Cohda Wireless, the world’s leading developer of Safe Vehicle and Connected Vehicle design solutions and services for automotive M2M communications.

Alex is the recipient of the 2013 Pearcey Entrepreneur Award from the Pearcey Foundation, the 2008 IREE Neville Thiele Award from Engineers Australia, and the 2004 Young Tall Poppy Science Award from the Australian Institute of Policy and Science.

Alex has published a book and over 150 technical papers. He holds many issued patents in the area of intelligent transport and wireless communications. He has previously served as an Associate Editor for two prestigious journals, the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory and the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications. Alex is a member of the Australian Research Council College of Experts.

Ninox Robotics
High technology UAV service provider

Ninox Robotics is an Australian owned company whose mission is to enhance productivity within various industries, through increasing automation and improving accessibility to information. Ninox Robotics is able to deploy a UAV team anywhere in Australia and provide clients with various spatial imagery products that can assist their enterprise.
ninox-robotics.com

Marcus Ehrlich

Managing Director, Ninox Robotics

Marcus Ehrlich is Managing Director and founder of Ninox Robotics, an Australian-owned and operated company that specialises in the application of military-grade unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones, for the purposes of invasive pest detection and management, infrastructure asset monitoring, bio-security intelligence and other agri-business purposes.

Marcus is qualified as a lawyer and has been involved in other entrepreneurial endeavours. Actively involved in politics, Marcus served as the youngest ever mayor of Woollahra, as well as deputy mayor, while still at university.

Plutora
Beautiful release and testing SaaS

Plutora is a global startup based out of Sydney which develops an innovative platform for enterprises to test and release complex applications.
plutora.com

Sean Hamawi

Co-founder, Plutora

Sean Hamawi has 12 years of product development, execution, and delivery experience with some of the largest organisations in Asia. Before co-founding Plutora, Sean was Executive Director of Tenstone, a niche professional services company that gained a reputation for strong execution and turnaround capability within large IT programs, with clients such as Lloyds Banking Group, National Australia Bank, and MLC.

Earlier in his career, Sean held team leadership roles in product development, release management, and test management at Macquarie Bank. Sean is focused on the product vision and execution and holds a Diploma in Software Development.

Point Duty
Fighting technology crime with better technology

Point Duty is a software development company that focuses on applications that capture and visualise data from social media networks, peer to peer networks, the dark web and other internet sources. Our products are used by organisations that have an investigative/intelligence arm i.e. defense, intelligence, law enforcement, banking and insurance segments. Our tools are used to combat such crimes as violent extremism, child abuse, fraud as well as the standard crimes investigated by police forces. Point Duty is Tasmania based but have offices in Sydney and Sunshine Coast as well as having recently started Point Duty Inc in the US.
pointduty.com.au

Stan Kaine

CEO, Point Duty

Stan Kaine has over 25 years experience in roles developing and commercialising R&D applications in intelligence, law enforcement, and telecommunications sectors. As Founder and CEO of Point Duty, Stan has used his ICT knowledge, extensive communications and networking skills to take the company from startup through to sales to clients in Australia and internationally as well as developing the evolving relationship with IBM and its channel partners for product sales worldwide.

PredictBGL Diabetes
Safer diabetes through predictive dosing analytics

ManageBGL helps people to better manage their medications. While currently focused on diabetes and insulin dosing, ManageBGL can also help with dosing of warfarin and other drugs such as cholesterol drugs.
PredictBGL.com

Simon Carter

CEO, PredictBGL Diabetes

Simon Carter is passionate about the use of technology to accelerate change and empowerment in diabetes. His career has spanned software sales and marketing, large scale data warehousing (big pharma), user interface design and enterprise software development.

Simon is the CEO of DataMystic, a data conversion and transformation software company, and DownloadPipe.com, a huge software download site.

Simon has had Type 1 diabetes for 24 years, and has an 8 year old daughter who has been Type 1 and Coeliac since she was 2 years old.

Simon enjoys multi-day hiking, rock climbing, karate, skiing and travel, and has travelled extensively through the Middle East and South-East Asia.

Simon is 2014 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in the Melbourne Chapter.

The CEO Simon Carter was unable to be present today, so we have Shaun Mhonde representing the PredictBGL team.

Shaun is a key part of the PredictBGL Diabetes development team, which is disrupting the huge medical devices industry.

Shaun recently completed his Masters in Information Technology from Monash University.

Shaun also enjoys reading manga and watching anime.

Rappsio
Making cloud software and websites simple

Rappsio is an all-in-one cloud platform for digital agencies that makes web application development fast, and secure infrastructure simple. Increase productivity by configuring the core of your web application, code only to solve new and interesting problems.
rapps.io

Chris Were

CEO, Rappsio

Chris Were has over 15 years experience working across many roles and industries in the IT sector, primarily through his own startups. This has included Founder and former CEO of Community Data Solutions, a cloud solution provider to the Australian not-for-profit sector. Previously, Chris was the founder of the innovative real-time search engine Mozzler and the ASX media monitoring service Newsalerts.

ResApp Health
Respiratory diagnostic application for smart phones

ResApp is developing digital healthcare solutions to assist doctors and empower patients to diagnose and manage respiratory disease. We are creating easy to use affordable, clinically-validated and regulatory-approved diagnostic tools that only require a smartphone. Our solutions are designed to be easily integrated into existing telehealth solutions and we are also working on apps to provide respiratory disease diagnosis and management directly to consumers and healthcare providers.
resapphealth.com.au

Dr Tony Keating

CEO and Managing Director, ResApp Health

Tony Keating has over nine years experience in commercialising technology. Tony created the initial business strategy for ResApp and has led the commercialisation of ResApp’s technology to date. Previously, Tony was Director, Commercial Engagement at UniQuest, one of the global leaders in commercialisation of university technology. While at UniQuest, Tony held roles as interim CEO and Non-Executive Director for a number of privately-held, venture-capital funded start-up companies. Prior to joining UniQuest Tony held business development and engineering management roles at Exa Corporation, a US-based software company that is now listed on the NASDAQ.

Tony holds a Bachelor of Engineering, a Master of Engineering Science and a Doctor of Philosophy (Mechanical Engineering) from The University of Queensland. Tony also has an Executive Certificate of Management and Leadership from the MIT Sloan School of Management, and is a Graduate Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Reposit Power
Higher IQ for your energy storage

The brainpower in your standard battery is limited, but with Reposit we can make it nothing short of genius. Reposit learns, adapts and predicts your energy usage so you’re getting the most from your solar. What’s more, you’ll save on your energy bills which means, on average, you’ll pay off your battery in half the time. Reposit even sells your power back to the grid when the prices are highest – earning you GridCredits™ and an even lower power bill.
repositpower.com

Lachlan Blackhall

CTO and Co-founder, Reposit Power

Lachlan Blackhall is the co-founder and CTO of Reposit Power and a world leader in the optimisation and control of grid-connected energy storage systems. Lachlan has a PhD in systems and control theory and is an expert in distributed control systems and data analytics. He has previously worked with large organisations across a number of industries delivering data analysis and systems modelling platforms and solutions. He maintains an adjunct researcher position at the Australian National University.

SPEE3D
3D printing metals, 1000x faster

SPEE3D has developed a revolutionary high speed, low cost, flexible digital manufacturing process that can manufacture equivalent parts to casting processes. This new technology is born out of several industries including 3D printing, patented and owned by SPEE3D. The technology will disrupt industries – from mining supply chains through to automotive production lines. SPEE3D is the first to market in taking digital manufacturing into the mainstream casting market.
spee3d.com

Byron Kennedy

Managing Director, SPEE3D

Byron Kennedy has a passion for developing and commercialising new technologies. At University he founded UNSW’s first ever solar car – Sunswift, before heading off to Darwin to earn a world record with the Desert Rose solar car team. His avant-garde approach to solving problems has made him a natural entrepreneur. His work on solar cars extended on to the commercialisation of axial flux electric motors, electric bicycles, pool and spa pumps and HVAC systems. With a never ending stream of creative ideas, Byron latest venture is the development of a new 3D printer for metals, which works up to 1000x faster than existing technologies.