The Rise of Sydney Startup Ecosystem

If you are thinking of kick-starting an innovative business and looking for a conducive environment, make sure to place the City of Sydney at the top of your list!

This Global City has been ranked 4^th for its local connectedness by Startup Genome in their 2018 Global Startup Ecosystem Report. In fact, Sydney’s startup community is closely connected, an important characteristic that helps facilitate knowledge sharing. The recently founded Sydney Startup Hub (SSH), an ambitious move by the government, aims to cement the City’s position as a world-leading startup location and innovation destination. It is the largest startup hub in the southern hemisphere. Backed up by a massive amount of $35Mn by the government, its intent is to bring together 2,500 entrepreneurs, incubators and accelerators in a cluster of 17,244 square feet spanning 11 floors, as well as to host industry-related events. The multiple skills, ideas, networks and investment all enable impactful collaboration, create jobs and strengthen the startup ecosystem.

Let’s take a look at the most innovative startups in Sydney that are using technology to disrupt the agriculture, healthcare and energy industries, hence getting the City one step closer to achieving the SDG goals.

HiveUAV

This startup uses the technological upsides of drones, more formally known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), for large scale applications. By setting up automated docking stations, HiveUAV helps agriculture, industry and emergency services monitor remote locations from the air. The stations charge the drones, transfer data and allow control over the drone from remote locations. In addition, networks of Hives communicate with each other to extend mission area and duration. Founders Chris Renton and Ilche Vojdanoski have developed this innovative equipment to allow human pilots to be deployed to other more productive tasks rather than taking care of data collection and threat identification. Learn more here www.hiveuav.com

Wattblock

Co-founders Brent Clark and Ross McIntyre claim that strata committees do not have the required knowledge to provide the best energy solutions. With apartment buildings wasting thousands of dollars on energy and water every month, they believe energy saving in buildings is crucial for achieving or exceeding Australia’s 2020 carbon reduction targets. By estimating and comparing energy waste in buildings to data driven benchmarks, Wattblock aims to be the solution for energy cost, cutting by up to 80%. Wattblock wants to raise awareness on the amount of energy waste in buildings by providing the right information and property valuations to the committees. Learn more here www.wattblock.com  

Leo Cancer Care

This startup develops and commercialises two novel radiation therapy machines for cancer treatment. After a decade of research and development,  Leo Cancer Care (formerly Nano-X), has created a smarter machine, Ruby, that simplifies, streamlines and enhances photon radiotherapy. Another technology, Eve, helps to accurately position patients in an upright orientation for photon, proton and heavy ion therapies. The founder, Dr Ilana Feain, hopes to provide global access to radiotherapy, especially considering that 13 million new patients per year will need radiation therapy by 2020. Learn more here www.leocancercare.com

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Sound Scouts

Clinically proven, Sound Scouts’ application enables children’s hearing to be checked efficiently and reliably without the need of any clinician or calibrated equipment. As a registered medical device, it provides a low-cost, easily administered, reliable test of hearing, with parents having direct access. With this innovative startup, founder Carolyn Mee aims to reduce the number of children who go through years of school at a disadvantage to others because of unmanaged hearing loss. Learn more here www.soundscouts.com

The Yield

The Founder and Managing Director of the The Yield, Ros Harvey, has been named a finalist in Entrepreneur of the Year in the Women’s Agenda 2018 Leadership Awards. An Australian Internet of Things (IoT) AgTech (Agricultural Technology) start-up, it is on a mission to transform the food and farming practices through a secure, scalable digital technology. By sensing, analysing and predicting on-farm growing conditions, and then delivering information in a usable format for our growers, The Yield ensures food production that is profitable for farmers, safe for consumers and good for the environment. This mission is crucial as there is a need for 60 percent more food by 2050 to feed the world with less fuel, land, fertilizer and water. Learn more here www.theyield.com

The world needs 60 per cent more food by 2050. We want to help meet this challenge without compromising the future.

-Ros Harvey, Founder & Managing Director

For those of you entrepreneurs at heart, there are several events taking place in the startup capital of Australia to educate students and entrepreneurs on the ecosystem, such as the different ways to enter the startup ecosystem (Startup Journeys: Dorm Room to Boardroom – Wednesday 3RD October 2018), on the available funding sources (Startup Funding Workshop – Thursday 11th October 2018), and on how to value a startup (Valuing Startups – Wednesday 31st October 2018).

EDITOR’S NOTE: THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED HERE BY IMPAKTER.COM COLUMNISTS ARE THEIR OWN, NOT THOSE OF IMPAKTER.COM   — Cover Photo Credit: Photo by Annie Spratt — First Photo Gallery Credit: HiveUAV — Second Photo Gallery Credit: Sound Scouts — Third Photo Gallery Credit: The Yield