Category Archives: HealthTech

Antler Virtual Demo Day

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As with other virtual demo days I have attended this year, it was remarkable to hear how far the teams in Antler’s Sydney Cohort #3 had progressed in light of the current pandemic and associated lock-down restrictions.

Each participating team was categorised into an industry sector:

Consumer Tech

Remote Social is designed to connect remote and hybrid teams. The ethos is that with the shift in working patterns (heightened by the current pandemic) corporate culture and organisational engagement are “at risk”. The solution aims to foster socialisation and build culture through curated games and activities. Claiming to have generated over 200 organic signups, including team members at big tech brands, the founders are adopting a “bottom, land and expand” customer acquisition strategy. In addition to a seat-based subscription model, the platform will also offer a revenue share for marketplace providers.

Coder One claims to be “the home for AI sports”. The team describe their project as an API platform for AI games, with unique combination of AI and e-sports. The goal is to make AI and programming more accessible via an AI Sports League, where bots compete, programmed by developers. With more than 250 registrations for an upcoming competition, the team are also looking to secure sponsorship deals. The commercial model has three components: free access to programs for developers, individual subscription fees to access games/tournaments, and corporate fees to access talent for potential recruitment.

Feather is an online platform which enables instructors and creators to deliver and monetise their digital services. According to the founders, existing tools are not fit for purpose, complex or clunky. Initially targeting yoga teachers, the solution will sell tiered subscriptions, plus take a small revenue share. The team also see themselves as part of the “creator economy”, but I was confused by the name – is it a deliberate attempt to suggest a link to Dumbo Feather magazine? Plus, there was some feedback that the platform may be vulnerable once tools like Zoom start putting up more pay walls.

Tactiq is a tool to “capture valuable insights from remote meetings”. The founders claim it can be used with any conferencing software, and is platform agnostic (although currently limited to a Google Meet via a Chrome Extension). The product, essentially “speech to text plus”, also generates AI assisted summaries, and the team has attracted over 100,000 users from around 4,500 organisations. Pricing is $9 per user per month, plus $20 per month to access team functionality. While the team appears to know and understand their target users, they were questioned about privacy and security issues. Although the transcription content is not stored on the platform, my experience of other similar tools is that once they are integrated, they have a tendency to “take over” and insert themselves, unprompted, into e-mail and calendar applications – “you seem to have a meeting now – would you like me to record it?”

SaaS

Upflowy wants to help B2B companies improve their customer conversion rates. Intended to be a “no-code” sign-up engine, the team explained that from their experience, in-house developers tend to focus on product features, rather than improving the sign-up experience. Typically, in-house sign-up optimisation is slow, expensive or totally non-existent – the key issues being scaleability and reliability. Essentially a form builder, the solution enables A/B testing, and claims to deliver a 40% improvement in conversion rates (compared to 17% improvement achieved with other optimization tools).

Flow of Work Co is positioning itself as the “Future of Work SaaS”. With a mission to help companies to retain the best people, it is HR tech using AI in the form of a smart matching engine to identify in-house talent, based on proprietary ontology. It also helps employees to find development resources, as well as to match projects with in-house talent. According to the founders, talented staff leave because they are bored or lack career development. With an initial focus on software companies, the team then plans to tackle the financial services sector. The team was asked about integration with existing HR tech stacks, and how they ensure objective assessment of competing project candidates – but it wasn’t so clear how they achieve either.

Portant is an end-to-end project reporting tool, designed to be a “consolidated single source of truth”. Asked why existing project management tools don’t work, the founders identified a number of factors: teams are using different tools, the process is often repetitive and/or highly manual, or project tracking typically relies on data from different sources. The team have launched an MVP on Google Workspace Marketplace, and will soon launch on Microsoft AppSource (and appears to use AWS Comprehend as the analytical tool?). There is an SaaS pricing model, and content privacy is ensured via end-to-end encryption plus the use of private keys.

StackGo helps clients achieve stronger B2B sales via SaaS marketplaces, rather than relying on direct sales. However, the initial setup costs and effort required to connect to existing SaaS marketplaces can be daunting. With an approach based on “build once, deploy many”, StackGo enables users to connect to multiple SaaS marketplaces via a single solution. However, the team, did not explain what the setup costs are for StackGo nor were they very specific about the price range or typical sales value their clients achieve – “free to hundreds of dollars per month”.

EdTech

GradVantage wants to reduce the cost of getting graduates job ready, and reckons it can save employers $30k per new hire. Offering a personalised learning experience for each user, the founders have adopted a “Slack” model – team first, then enterprise sale. Acknowledging that the EdTech sector is crowded, the team think their point of differentiation is the fact that they are a career-entry solution, and not in the K-12 market. The focus is on tech talent and SaaS vendors. Employers pay per learner, and the platform saves time and reduces on-boarding costs. Typically, 30% of program content is about tech applications, and 70% on how to use the tech. A more fundamental issue is the huge gap between university courses and actual job requirements.

HealthTech

eQALY is an integrated tech platform that enables the elderly to achieve a higher quality of life in their own home, by predicting their individual needs in advance, and identifying the right Home Care Package funding (which can be worth up to $26k). Using 360 degree data inputs, a risk model, and a proactive care plan, the product takes into account client needs as well as family concerns, plus financial considerations. Although the aged care industry is regarded as being slow to adopt new technology, the founders plan to focus on aged care organisations, who will then distribute predictive data and analytics to care providers and managers. The platform is tech agnostic but IoT devices, AI tools and virtual assistants can be integrated, plus new voice analysis technology is emerging that can monitor client well-being, and
all of the activity monitoring tech is passive. meaning the end user does not have to worry about learning new applications.

Retail and E-Commerce

The One Two is a very specific, and very targeted, D2C solution offering a hyperpersonalised service for fitting and buying bras. According to the founders, current customer experience suffers from ill-fitting products, poor product design, bad materials, and inadequate size configurations. As a result, customers feel overwhelmed and give up. The basic product IP has been tested, along with an on-line measuring and fitting tool, combining to provide better customer diagnosis and product tips. The team have already secured a startup partnership with a global lingerie manufacturer and distributor.

m8buy did not make much sense to me. Maybe I’m the wring demographic, but why would anyone want to “shop online with [their] friends”? Describing itself as “a social layer on any e-commerce store”, it feels like this is aimed at the “buy now, pay later” audience.
According to the founders, merchants will only pay a commission (“low single digit %”?) on successful sales. But it’s not clear whether this is a group buying service, a discount marketplace, or a loyalty programme, nor how it will be differentiated within the Shopify marketplace.

PropTech

Sync Technologies is a digital solution for construction industry – with the tag line of “turning data into insights”. The problem being addressed can be summarised as follows: 1) Building
sites are fragmented and complex 2) Progress reporting and bottleneck identification is poorly done 3) 12% of a typical job has to be reworked 4) 80% of projects are late and/or run over budget. Using a digital twin concept, the solution aims to provide a “single source of truth”, and the team are already working with some key firms, and have 2021 forecast revenue of $2m.
Key obstacles to overcome are entrenched on-site behaviours, and slow the tech adoption across so many stakeholders in the construction industry. The founders claim to have identified the solution via their Construction Assistance System which offers better project and status visualisation via the digital twin.

Next week: Version / Aversion

Startmate Virtual Demo Day

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Despite being under lock-down, the current cohort of Australian & NZ startups participating in the Startmate accelerator programme managed to deliver their Demo Day presentations on-line, including a virtual “after party” where founders were available for Q&A.

Given the large number of startups, and the fact that several were very early stage businesses, I have grouped them into loose clusters, with just a brief summary of each project. More info can be found at the links in the names:

Real Estate

Landlord Studio – tax & book-keeping solution for landlords. I tend to think the need for very niche accounting solutions is either overstated, or existing software platforms like Xero will come up with a plug-in of their own. Also, tax rules vary greatly by jurisdiction, so scaling internationally can be a challenge.

Passingdoor – an online estate agency trying to remove some of the costs and hassles of selling your home. Rather than listing with a traditional estate agent, Passingdoor will find buyers on your behalf (via a matching process?). I assume that prospective buyers will come from: people in the process of selling their own home; buyer advocates; or recent mortgage applicants – which is why the founders will need relationships with traditional agencies (referrals), mortgage brokers (cross-selling) and real estate ad platforms (leads). But given that sellers on Passingdoor only pay a 0.5% commission once an offer becomes unconditional, I’m not sure how the cashflow model will work.

MedTech

Mass Dynamics – scaling spectrometry for improved patient care. From what I understand, Mass Dynamics is using cloud-based architecture to “lease out” spectrometry capacity on demand, and to accelerate sample analysis.

LaserTrade – a marketplace for second-hand medical laser equipment. Rather than seeing re-usable equipment go to scrap, the founder saw an opportunity to create a marketplace for unwanted items. All items are tested beforehand. Has the potential to extend to other types of equipment, assuming the certification process is valid?

Health & Wellbeing

Body Guide – semi-customised rehab exercises to suit your symptoms. With superb timing as we emerge from months of inaction (or poor posture) while working from home during lock-down, this service is an aid to physical recovery, once your condition has been formally diagnosed. I’d probably want to check in with my GP or physio that the programme was right for me, though.

Sonnar – offers a library of audio content for people with reading disabilities. This is a subscription service, which claims to be cheaper than other audio-book services, and with a broader type of content (periodicals as well as books). I was unclear whether Sonnar is cheaper because they don’t need to pay publisher or author royalties (as it is deemed a charity?), or because they only license out-of-copyright content.

Good Thnx – promises to be “the world’s best gifting and recognition tool, with impact”. Aiming to provide a service for businesses, individuals and partner charities, Good Thnx is still in development. But as part of the Startmate Demo Day, gave attendees an opportunity to allocate a small financial donation to a selection of charities.

Food & Agriculture

Cass Materials – With the search for sustainable alternatives to meat, Cass Materials is developing a cheap and edible high fibre cell scaffold on which to grow cultivated meat – otherwise known as bacterial nanocellulose (BNC). I’m not opposed to the idea of “meat substitutes”, but I’m generally wary of what are sometimes called “fake meats” – vegetable proteins that are so processed so as to resemble animal flesh. I’d rather go vegetarian (I’m not sure I can go full vegan, because if we weren’t supposed to eat honey and yoghurt, why do they taste so good, especially together?).

Digital Agriculture Services – An AgTech platform is using AI-powered applications for developing a range of data-driven solutions across rural, agricultural and climate applications. The potential to bring more business insights and practical analysis to farming and allied industries is of huge potential in the Australian economy.

Heaps Normal – This company has taken a novel approach to producing non-alcoholic beer. Rather than chemical extraction or other processing to remove alcohol from ordinary beer, Heaps Normal has managed to brew beer without alcohol content.

Energy

Gridcognition – Using digital twin mapping of buildings, structures and locations to optimise the planning and operation of distributed energy projects. Given the value of lower transmission and storage costs, as well as more efficient energy generation, Gridcognition is aiming to bring their “decarbonised, decentralised, digitised” solutions to a range of industry participants.

ZeroJet – Helping the marine industry transition to sustainable energy solutions with the development of electric propulsion systems. In particular, targeting small inshore craft which are ideal boats for this type of engine.

Logistics & Analytics

PyperVision – This startup has developed a system for fog dispersal at airports. By aiming for zero fog delays, PyperVision is helping to reduce disruption in the travel and logistics sectors.

Arlula – An API service to stream satellite images from space. As we know, satellite imagery is an important input to modelling, planning and analysis. Arlula also offers access to historic and archive content.

Database CI – A platform for in-house software developers to access the right sort of enterprise data for real-life testing purposes. For example, realistic and appropriate “dummy” data that does not compromise privacy, confidentiality or other obligations.

Law on Earth – On-line access to self-serve legal documents, forms and precedents, plus lower-cost legal advice. With a mission to “empower the public to safely manage their own legal needs”, Law on Earth already has a tie-up with Thomson Reuters, one of the largest legal information providers in the world.

Next week: Are we there yet?

Antler Demo Day – Rewired

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As with the recent Startupbootcamp Virtual Demo Day, the Antler incubator program also ran its Demo Day Rewired as a live webcast. Both online events were an opportunity to see what their respective startup teams could achieve in less than 3 months, and a chance to interact in real-time with the founders themselves. The main difference was that Antler decided to stream the event live (rather than broadcast pre-recorded presentations) which worked surprisingly well in the circumstances – and not just the technology; it must have been really challenging to pitch to an empty room, with no ability to “read” the audience.

Like Startupbootcamp, the majority of teams were only formed at the start of this cohort, and to do this during the current pandemic lock-down must have been especially challenging.

Of the 12 teams to present, half were SaaS solutions, two were curated marketplaces, two were related to carbon offsets, while the remaining pitches offered a support platform for people suffering addiction, and an investment solution aimed at Millennials.

All of the SaaS teams, deal in some way with managing other SaaS applications, as follows:

Intalayer – streamlining software development and product management tools

motiveOS – streamlining CRM, accounting and billing systems to track sales commissions

meetric – streamlining productivity and collaboration tools

Elenta – streamlining workplace L&D services

CloudOlive and Hudled – streamlining the procurement, provisioning and management of SaaS stacks themselves

Given the similar nature of these concepts, there was some commonality in their approach to problem identification, solution design, and market sizing. A number of the audience questions also asked why existing incumbents in each of the specific verticals wouldn’t simply come up with their own solution (even if it was simply to offer 3rd party plug-ins, which leading SaaS platforms such as Xero and Salesforce already do)?

Both Pathzero and Trace aim to make it easier/cheaper to go carbon neutral (via carbon credits and offsets) for SMEs and consumers respectively. Both solutions are essentially curated services, to help customers access, evaluate and verify carbon offsets and make informed decisions about going carbon neutral. Other traditional solutions involve repackaging wholesale schemes (often expensive to administer, since they are not designed for small businesses and retail consumers), or they lack transparent reporting and certification. Blockchain (as a form of immutable distributed ledger) and tokenisation (to streamline the origination, structuring and distribution of carbon offset assets) are also concepts that are being explored.

In the curated marketplaces, Mys Tyler is a platform for women’s fashion, and RightPaw is designed to help dog breeders connect with prospective dog owners. The former may find an opening now that Amazon has decided to decommission the Echo Look (an AI-supported camera offering fashion advice) although Amazon claims most of the features have been incorporated into the main Amazon Shopping app. While the latter made the point that during Covid19 lock-down in April, online pet scams increased 5-fold.

Combining clinical research, community networking and self-help solutions, Aurelius is designing an online support system for people who suffer from addiction, or living with family and friend who do. It’s quite an ambitious goal, given the value will be in providing highly personalized, proven and achievable outcomes for their users, but the team are not, and do not claim to be, medically qualified professionals. It was not clear from the pitch how the service will be funded.

Finally, Yolo ex is designed to be an investment platform aimed at Millennials. On the one hand, it was suggested that younger people don’t have access to investment products and services suited to their needs, since current solutions are geared towards older investors. On the other, Millennials are said to be more likely to research and do their own analysis on investment choices and opportunities. Part of me thinks that if it was that easy, superannuation brands and financial planners would find it easy to engage with this demographic (remember those colourful ads for Kinetic Super, before it ended up merging with Sun Super?). Another part of me is encouraged by what I have seen after more than four years working in the Blockchain and crypto space – the adoption of Bitcoin and other  digital assets by younger people demonstrates that they looking for alternatives to what the major banks and traditional wealth management providers offer them. And not all of them are looking to make a quick buck via RobinHood and Hertz….

Next week: Music during lock-down

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pitch X – Launch Into A New Decade

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Last week I was invited to be one of the judges at the final Pitch X event of 2019 (and of this decade), organised by Academy Xi and Melbourne Silicon Beach Group, and hosted by YBF Ventures. My fellow judges were Abena Ofori of MAP and Michelle Bourke of Foresight Digital.

As usual with Pitch X, each pitch was given 90 seconds to present, and the top 3 were then invited back for a 5 minute pitch. After each pitch, the panel of judges were given time for Q&A. The pitches in order of presentations in the first round were:

MotionAI

Remote monitoring system for people who require care, in case they fall or need assistance in their home. Designed around a combination of machine learning, AI and motion sensors (that don’t track facial recognition). Only decision-based information is sent to the monitoring network.

Sola.io

Investment platform to fund solar power under a virtual power plant structure, bringing together investors and producers, who might not otherwise have access to the financial and production benefits of this renewable energy resource.

Oyumz

Bringing home-cooked meals to the food delivery market. Currently in beta launch, looking to bring on new cooks and suppliers. Limited number of providers at this stage, and having to manage regulatory (food hygiene and licensing) and logistical (delivery, inventory, geography) challenges.

CPAP Buddy

Developing CPAP (Continuous positive airway pressure) oxygen masks, designed for premature babies, and intended to prevent brain damage or other injury that can arise from incorrectly fitted or poorly designed devices. Combines real-time monitoring with continuous visual feedback and detection of interfacial contact pressure.

Travels by TM

Helping people to gain the confidence and resilience to go travelling alone. Part curated travel planner, part counselling course, part self-help guide. As judges, we felt it was difficult to see how this business would scale, given the very personal nature of the service.

Mentor Community

Positioned as a match-making mentoring platform, it is designed to overcome some of the challenges people can experience in trying to find a suitable or appropriate mentor. Very difficult to know what technology is being deployed (to match mentors and mentees), in what is an uneven “market place” – more people seeking mentors than there are people willing or able to mentor them. And no opportunity to examine the financial model.

Fulfilled

Bringing “zero waste” cleaning products to the market. Distributes concentrates, that simply need diluting in water, and avoids the use of single-use packaging. Using Australian-produced botanical ingredients. There was some confusion on the business model – the pitch mentioned a home delivery subscription service, and supplying to professional cleaning companies.

VibeDate

Describing itself as a curated service offering unique and personalised dating experiences. No doubt there is a market for outsourcing your date decisions (or just to get some fresh ideas), but this was another pitch that would be difficult to scale, and again, it wasn’t clear how technology is being deployed in the solution.

PetMate

A total marketplace for pet products, services and solutions that also uses ML, AI and data analytics to track, recommend and predict your pets’ needs.

Cari

Another customised CPAP solution for premature babies, but also targeting neo-natal infants with sleep apnea conditions. Already at prototype stage (and scoping manufacturing options for medical grade silicon), but with at least 2-3 years of clinical trials before achieving medical device approval, the team have already identified multiple channels to market including hospital purchasing committees.

The three winning finalists were 1st: Sola.io; 2nd: MotionAI; and 3rd: Cari

As part of their prize, the winners will be featured in this blog in the near future. Stay tuned for more updates…

Next week: Signing off for Saturnalia