The same day as the recent Startupbootcamp event, the latest cohort of 8 founders to complete Startmate’s programme in Sydney held their own Demo Day in Melbourne.

The pitches in order of appearance were (websites links embedded in the names):

Muso

A live music marketplace, connecting venues and artists. Venue booking managers are too busy to research available talent, and artists face an inordinate number of individual processes to manage bookings and post-event admin. So Muso joins the dots, curates the artists, and takes a share of the listing and booking fees. In a world where more and more independent artists are self-releasing their recordings via platforms like Bandcamp and SoundCloud, it makes sense to extend this to managing their own tour bookings. Muso already claims to have booked 400 gigs at an average fee of $300, and also plans to expand into the US, UK and NZ markets. Currently seeking $1.2m seed funding.

VAPAR

Fault detection in infrastructure is highly manual, subjective and very expensive. VAPAR is using machine learning and cloud hosting to automate the analysis of video footage for underground pipes and sewers. A task that can currently take 2 weeks to complete can now be done in 2 minutes. Clients upload their footage and fixed asset data via a web platform, and VAPAR generate a report based on the image scanning. The business model offers a free trial access, a paid pilot project engagement, and a price per metre of pipe. Currently seeking $500k in seed funding.

VEXEV

According to the founders, vascular disease is the single largest cause of death, so there is increased focus on detection and prevention. Measuring and tracking blood flow patterns can be expensive and invasive. VEXEV uses 3D imaging captured from safer and lower cost ultra-scan technology, to measure disease progression, and to monitor and predict patient outcomes. Already secured seed funding from Blackbird Ventures.

Glamazon

This is a marketplace for at-home beauty services, “bringing a salon experience to your own living room”. According to the founders, a beautician could earn $80 per treatment compared to $23 if they work in a salon. Glamazon also offers its own business management platform via a SaaS model.

Cogniant.co

An app to “predict and manage mental health disorders before they happen“. Offers a dashboard interface for clinicians to manage their client case load, using data collected on patients’ activity and behaviour via their smart phone devices and sensors. Looking to raise $1m in seed funding. My personal observation is that a key contributing factor towards certain mental health disorders appears to be increased screen time (social media, apps that track our every move, binge watching, constant content streaming and always being “on”), leading to increased isolation, among other symptoms. While I can see the value of the data capture and analysis, hopefully the process does not reinforce the negative connotations.

Pixelated Induction

Introducing ClickCharge, a scalable wireless charging system that enables any surface to become a conductive medium. Some may remember that Apple tried its own solution, AirPower, that quietly ran out of steam. ClickCharge claims to have 3 times the charging area of AirPower, and can even charge laptops, via its inter-connecting tile design. Having filed an international patent, the founders are seeking $1.7m in seed capital to fund the build of 40,000 units for which they are currently taking pre-orders.

Bioscout

A remote system for crop monitoring and disease detection, using airborne particle tracking and analysis. Having run some field trials with banana and avocado crops, the team has identified considerable cost savings for farmers, both in terms of produce protected, and reduced use of preventive chemicals. (With the industry currently spending $2.5bn on crop monitoring and disease prevention, yet still losing $2.4bn in damaged fruit, any savings must be welcome.) Remote devices provide real-time monitoring and alerts combined with an analytics dashboard. Cost is expected to be $30k per device, plus $2k per month. The latter is presumably to pay for satellite connectivity, as the founders discovered that a key challenge for farmers is the lack of mobile phone reception in remote and rural areas.

Live Graphic Systems

This startup is aiming to reduce the cost of creating branded graphics for live sports streaming, from $5k per game to $100 per game. Current solutions involve manual processes, custom software, expensive hardware and dedicated people to operate them. Live Graphic Systems offers a scalable solution that connects brands to live streaming events, at near-zero marginal cost.

Next week: Startup Vic’s EdTech Pitch Night