Introducing INCUBATE Class 18 of 2023
We are thrilled to announce our 18th cohort of startups undertaking our INCUBATE Accelerator Program (and our best yet… if you ask me).
As The University of Sydney’s Flagship Startup Program, we deliver a range of workshops, Pre-Accelerator & Accelerator Programs to support students, alumni, staff & researchers turn their bright ideas into businesses. Over the past decade, we’ve supported over 140 startups, creating over 1000 jobs and generating $100+ million in revenue.
This incredibly diverse and talented pool of individuals represent a range of different disciplines, industries, ethnicities and ages with five of nine of the startups being female-led. We’re proud to be actively fighting the gender-gap and demonstrating INCUBATE’s Guiding Principle of encouraging opportunity through diversity by fostering a safe space for our community to thrive.
Without further ado, we are proud to present Class 18:
BiomeMega
BiomeMega use advanced probiotic biotechnology and synthetic biology methods to address global issues that pose threats to the Australian industry and economy. Founders Gustavo De Cerquieria, Murugesh Sheekar and Peter Valtchev share extensive backgrounds in biotechnology and biochemistry, using their combined knowledge to further leverage BiomeMega to identify opportunities across multiple industries.
Defy-Hi Robotics
Abbie Widin and Melinda Johnson co-founded Defy-Hi Robotics. They are launching the BEAR (Building Envelope Access Robot) to scale tall commercial buildings and autonomously collect and model data for facade inspections. Their analytics platform will disrupt the facade condition assessment industry, and help prevent the thousands of dangerous facade failures around the world each year.
FootPrint Lab
FootprintLab empowers businesses to deploy climate solutions by providing credible, affordable, easy-to-use data in the form of Scope 3 Carbon Footprinting and advice. Co-founders Janet Salem & Timothy Baynes have a combined 30+ years of experience at the UN & CSIRO, they are experts in all things sustainability.
Fortune CookIt
Fortune CookIt plans to cuts through the noise in the food delivery industry. Co-founded by Patrick Zhuge and Carson Liao, they offer a diverse menu of Asian ready-made meal kits to your door — which only require five minutes of cooking until they’re on the table. With no messy prep or boring, mundane weeknight dinners, they already have a dedicated customer base.
Inclusif
Inclusif educates organizations and individuals on hiring, living with and helping those with neurological disabilities. Dr Martin Raffaele (PhD) is a researcher at the University of Sydney who lives with epilepsy and has a goal of driving inclusion in the workplace. Through providing educational content, personalized consulting, and resources, Martin aims to break down the stigmatic barrier to hiring those with neurological disabilities and empower those with a condition by providing community, resources, and support to thrive.
Ohlive Health
Ohlive Health are a digital health technology company that creates interactive pill dispensers to promote the safe and effective use of medications. Co-founded by Su Park, Harry Kang and Jessie Han, Ohlive Health’s mission is to ensure quality use of medicines amongst community.
Our Futures Institute
Our Futures Institute use evidence-based mental and substance health education programs to reduce the harmful use of alcohol and illicit drugs and improve mental health in young people. CEO Ken Wallace works alongside Project & Business Manager Risha Premarajah to facilitate delivery of their online programs.
Safeforge
Safeforge is a decrentralized finance protocol constructing the best possible long-term cryptocurrency portfolio (measured by Sharpe Ratio), communally. The communally-optimised portfolio is tested in real-time with community members able to suggest edits which drive the discard of underperforming branches from the portfolio.
Founded by Julian Kuan, Safeforge currently has a growing community of 400+ individuals, with over 80 portfolios submitted by the community to form the initial base portfolio.
Squadron
Squadron is an on-demand talent formation engine that enables companies to find, deploy & scale distributed squads of cross-functional tech talent. Co-Founders Simona Atanasovski and Jason Boustany founded Squadron in 2022 in response to the growing need for project-led hiring across tech industries.
The next fourteen weeks sees these nine startups undertake our full-time Accelerator Program full of workshops with industry professionals, 1:1 mentoring and community events. If you’re interested in joining us on Demo Day on Thursday June 1st to see these startups pitch, email us at hello@incubate.org.au.
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