Tag Archives: #accelerator

Startupbootcamp Sports & EventTech Demo Day 2021

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I have to admire the resilience and perseverance of startup entrepreneurs, who continue to build their businesses in the face of lock-downs, travel restrictions and associated economic challenges. Starting a new business is hard enough at the best of times, let alone during a global pandemic. The latest installment of Startupbootcamp‘s series of virtual Demo Days was another example of how founders and their teams have just knuckled down and got on with the job – this time, in the area of Sports and EventTech.

The 10 startups featured a mix of market places, content creation and distribution platforms, coaching and performance services, and fan engagement. In alphabetical order, they were (links in the names):

Atlas Coaching

Founded by and for women, this is a digital coaching service designed to provide better access to (and feedback from) professional athletes and quality coaches. This is one way to help female athletes offset the costs of being a professional (as well as help pay for their own coaching). A good example where the gig economy meets digital delivery.

CityGuyd

An app that brings AR into sporting events and tourism, to offer an enhanced fan experience and match-day activities, through virtual city guides, which could be presented by professional sport stars who are competing in the event you have come to see. For organisers and venues, the app provides great data on attendees. Offered as a
white label solution plus SDK.

Famecast Media

Designed as an all-in-one content platform, it connects creators and consumers – not just in sport coaching and training, but across music, education, hobbies, well-being and fashion. The founders reckon that creators spend 70-80% of their time on the tech, and only 20-30% on monetizing their content. A huge challenge is that disparate digital tools don’t play nicely together…. The suite of services combines content, streaming, ticketing, branding and merchandising – all built on a commission and revenue share model.

Full Venue

Presenting itself as a data analytics and AI platform for events and venues, the founders see the current pandemic as an opportunity for new business, as economies start to open up and fans want to return to live events. Using AI-based marketing tools, it claims to predict the likelihood of a fan making a purchase (both tickets and merchandising. Again, uses a revenue share model based on a % of the sales generated.

Homefans

This marketplace connects communities of fans who are traveling to attend events and watch live sports, with local fans and supporters. The latter can offer access to local experiences that visitors might not otherwise be aware of. Describing itself as “like Airbnb for Sports Experiences”, the platform takes a 20% commission fee.

PromoShare

Described as a “monetized fan community”, this platform enables organizers and promoters to realize the value of “billions” in unsold tickets for sports, events and concerts. Using primarily word of mouth, fans get to sell unsold tickets on behalf of the events – a form of “social buying”. It integrates into major ticketing platforms, and has proven that fan-generated content can directly lead to ticket sales, by offering the “ambassador” fans access to rewards and other engagement incentives.

refbook

According to the founders, managing sport officials is currently unsophisticated and disconnected, and lacks adequate no digital solutions. This is intended to be an holistic platform to help officials, and leagues co-ordinate, recruit, manage and process payments. With 200+ clients already on-board, the team must be doing something right! (It wasn’t clear from the pitch whether refbook can handle training, certification, accreditation and disciplinary aspects of officiating.)

Row Nation

The only startup here that is directly supported by the relevant sports body, this is a platform for indoor rowing (of which there are apparently 4+ million participants in Australia. Backed by Rowing Australia, it is positioning indoor rowing as a major
e-sport (“like Peloton for rowing”), and a significant part of the digital fitness market. Combining “community, connection, and competition”, at its core is the ability to track and compare personal performance.

SportMatch

A platform the early identification of future sporting talent, which, according to the founders, is currently a slow, sporadic and long-winded process. This solution uses predictive analytics based on measurements and movement, and takes an evidence-based approach to performance data.

SportVot

This is a live steaming service for community-based and grass roots sports and tournaments. The founders claim that only 1% of all sport (in terms of actual participation) is televised, so this is designed to bring access to local sport enabling organizers to broadcast (OTT) their competitions using standard smart phone devices. The platform monetize the content via streaming fees and advertising.

Next week: Same, same – but different?

 

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?

Demo Day #1 – Startupbootcamp

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Energy and climate change are proving to be hot topics in Australia’s federal election campaign. Not surprising, given that proposed changes to current policy settings brought down the last Prime Minister. With that in mind, it was impressive and refreshing to hear what founders participating in the latest Startupbootcamp Energy Australia accelerator program had managed to come up with over the course of 12 weeks. The 10 projects presenting at this month’s Demo Day offered a range of solutions that our political leaders and their advisors might want to acquaint themselves with.

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

Builtspace

The challenge for many commercial building owners is that their facilities managers lack full visibility into the physical design and fabric of the infrastructure they are responsible for. And much of the in-house knowledge literally walks out the door when staff leave. Builtspace has developed a SaaS platform that creates a “digital twin” of each building, managing everything from the asset condition to real-time maintenance transactions, all connected in the cloud. Claiming to reduce ticket backlogs to deliver a 75% productivity gain, and a 5x ROI, including increased energy efficiency, the founders are currently looking for re-sellers in Australia, and are in the process of raising Series A funding.

Ecologic

A home energy audit app that offers tailored advice at scale, Ecologic uses cloud-based simulations to deliver proposed energy efficiency solutions and enables users to connect to appropriate suppliers. The team has identified that the combination of a lack of independent information, unknown costs (and limited finance) and inadequate service co-ordination creates a barrier to adoption for many consumers. In addition, consumers need simple and actionable insights. Currently generating referral fees and sales commissions, the founders are investigating a subscription model for Uber-style consultations, and a white label B2B solution. During the boot camp, Ecologic has obtained 1,500 customer profiles, identified a channel partnership model with a number of local councils, and secured a pilot integrated utility service with Energy Australia. To address the issue of consumers’ access to finance, the founders are exploring a project finance facility, to offer customers zero upfront installation costs, and using the energy savings to pay down the debt.

Elemize

Using a distributed energy model, Elemize claims to have found a solution to Australia’s comparatively high energy bills. Via its LiberPower application, the team are working with property developers and builders to help them install custom renewable energy solutions to deliver “free energy” to their residents and tenants. Part of the solution involves the system taking control of the batteries in each home, to obtain maximum efficiency.

Fohat

One of the problems with domestic-scale solar energy systems is that we can end up with too many solar units – which in turn can, with things like feed-in supply arrangements, cause network and transmission constraints. Fohat aims to solve this problem with a software solution to manage microgrids. With the owner’s permission, the operating system can have visibility over the whole network by taking control of each battery, by directing network capacity to where it is needed, and/or diverting excess supply into designated batteries. The platform also supports energy trading (but not at the level of individual consumers), and has recently secured a pilot with the City of Melbourne to install a microgrid and battery system at the Queen Victoria Market. The startup profile also mentions the use of blockchain technology, but this important aspect was not described during the pitch.

ivcbox

It was a little difficult to understand what this browser-based video chat service was doing at an energy accelerator. But the fact that it only takes a 1.5% sales commission compared to the 22.5% cost of a face-to-face sale, means it should appeal to energy retailers who have encountered greater customer churn due to price comparison sites and increased regulatory transparency on fees and charges. The service uses facial recognition and identity verification, which means the API platform can also be extended to banks and insurers.

Nostromo

Nostromo has developed a “world first” modular Ice Thermal Energy Storage system, using a glycerol heat conversion process. Typically, 60% of the peak energy usage by a commercial building is for cooling purposes, yet the peak demand amounts to only 400 hours a year. Designed to support demand side management and storage, Nostromo has secured $5.5m in seed funding, including $1.5m in grants to develop demo solutions.

Powerdiverter

Around 2 million homes and businesses in Australia are already using solar energy. Storing and managing that energy remains a challenge. Powerdiverter is a hardware device that uses electric hot water tanks as energy storage units. It doesn’t require any plumbing or additional electrical work. It plugs into the existing solar system to divert all the surplus energy into the tank. A typical lithium battery solution has a 12-year payback, versus 1.5 years with Powerdiverter. The business model includes device sales (7,000 have already been installed, mainly in the UK), a subscription service and licensing agreements with energy providers.

RedGrid

One of the problems with our current electricity network is that it is built on “imposed” grids, not coordinated intelligent devices. This means an overloaded grid, and high energy costs. RedGrid aims to solve this, with a Platform-as-a-Service model, where every smart device will have machine-to-machine communications, delivering energy on demand capability. This so-called “Internet of Energy” is constructed on a decentralised demand management solution that is private, scalable and secure. The team is currently focused on universities and facilities management, as well as consumer markets, and are planning a crowd funding equity raise.

Senno

In an era of growing concern about how social media platforms and other service providers harvest, trade (and compromise) our personal data, an increasing number of Blockchain-enabled solutions are using things like self-sovereign digital identity and attention economics to put consumers in control of their own data, and empower them to monetize these assets. Senno is using digital wallets to help owners secure their personal data and to determine who has access to it, in return for specified rewards. Where does this fit into the energy market? Well, Senno proposes to share (non-personal) data and consumer behaviour on energy usage with retailers, in return for a share of the revenue derived from the metadata, under a SaaS model.

UCapture

According to the founders, consumers want to reduce their carbon footprint, but they don’t want to pay to do so, they are reluctant to change their behaviours, so they need incentives to do so. Using a browser extension (Chrome and Firefox), UCapture enables consumers to shop online at participating retailers and “earn” carbon credits in return. Consumers can also receive coupon codes. UCapture receives a sales commission on each transaction, and allocates 2/3 of the commission to carbon offset projects. (While unexplained during the pitch, it seems that each purchase is calibrated to an equivalent amount of carbon offsets – whether that is based on the ticket price, or the actual carbon footprint of each item is not immediately clear.)  UCapture is enabling corporate clients to batch install the extension on their networks, allowing their employees to participate. On the positive side, UCapture is giving consumers indirect access to carbon credit schemes which are often only available to wholesale participants. On the negative side, it does seem incongruous to be encouraging consumers to spend more and to buy more stuff, in order to save the planet.

Next week: Demo Day #2 – Startmate