For their October pitch night event, Startup Victoria teamed up with the City of Melbourne and Victoria University to showcase migrant and first generation founders. With sponsorship and support from Stone & Chalk, Weploy, and Marketing Entourage, the panel of judges was drawn from Hatch Quarter, City of Melbourne, Victoria University and WellAware.

Pitches in the order they presented (websites embedded in the names) were:

HealTab

Describing itself as “Your Health Companion”, the founders proclaim (somewhat paradoxically) “we believe in meaningful human relationships via technology”. The idea behind this startup draws on the founder’s own personal experience of trying to find emotional, social and psychological support while undergoing a medical procedure. The team believe they have identified a marketplace solution that allows users to find comfort, support and companionship when they need help prior, during and after medical diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation.

The founders point to the economic effect when patients are “no shows” for their appointments, and have designed a platform to help patients select health companions.
Users pay per transaction, of which Healtab take a 30% commission (based on their research of other marketplaces). It was not clear exactly how the payment, commission and disbursement of fees works, especially as companions get to set their hourly rates, which can range between $25 and $300.  Nor was it clear whether it is the patient who is paying, nor to whom. For example, I would like to have heard how this service fits in within the existing HICAPS payment system and health insurance (both Medicare and private health cover.

The founders say they are talking to health insurance providers, but given the fact that private health insurance is based on community rates, the ability to have such a wide range of user pricing within a policy may be severely limited. Moreover, since insurance policies are having to be regraded to reduce the complexity and confusion when trying to compare coverage, Healtab will have to figure out where their service will fit in terms of extras etc.

Asked by the judges as to how the platform establishes user trust and performs accurate patient/companion matching, the founders claim they are using psychometric testing, although no evidence was provided.

PT Mate

This personal training client management system includes a client app (to allow interaction with their trainer) plus a secure billing and payment system. Offering a freemium pricing model, including a 45-day free trial, the founders state that the costs are tax deductible for business users.

It’s not clear if the team have actually built an app – I have tried registering for a free trial on their website, but I cannot create an account. Overall, this pitch felt a little underdone.

One other point to note – the slide they team presented on competitor analysis was a little disingenuous, as it appeared as if none of the competitors offer any of the services PT Mate is providing. This underlines the need to present pitch information clearly, and think about screen resolution, images, diagrams, fonts and colours especially when projecting onto a large screen.

Undivide

Undivide offers an enterprise and SME solution for staff onboarding, training and compliance. Replacing existing manual and paper-based compliance systems, it claims to manage people, processes and tasks in one place.

Currently gaining traction within the transport & logistics industry, the business model is based on scale rate (per user per month) subscription plans.

The founders claim the platform is configurable, and therefore clients don’t need their own developers. It is also filling in the gaps that many ERM systems don’t provide. The client data is hosted in local data centres or on virtual servers.

It would have been interesting to know if the founders have thought about an end user application. For example an app that enabling freelances, contractors and consultants to keep their credentials up to date so that they can easily share this information from a single source prior to each hiring, contract or engagement. Equally, it would be great to know which other industry verticals Undivide might be targeting.

Passporr

According to the founders, students who want to study English abroad face high upfront costs, and an expensive and complicated procedure, with high interest rates and fees. Passporr aims to change this by offering interest free loans to study English and vocational courses abroad.

Using credit risk and fraud analysis, Passporr is able to charge a $300 flat fee per student, to process loans of between $1000 and $3000 (the average loan size). It was suggested that Passporr takes part of the commission that student agencies receive from universities and colleges for signing up students to their courses. With students expected to repay the loan in 6 fortnightly repayments, the founders claim they generate a 10%-20% return in 3 months – but it wasn’t clear what actual interest rates they are using, or the cost and source of their funding.

Passporr stated that it is currently working with three student agencies (which act as a distribution channel? or as a lead source? Again this was not very clear), and is initially focusing on servicing students who are already on-shore in Australia.

After Australia, Passporr will expand to Canada, and the UK, for on/off-shore students.

On the night, the People’s choice was Undivide (which got my personal vote), while HealTab took out the judges’ prize.

Next week: Fitting your own oxygen mask first