Carnegie’s Den finalists announced as aggregations services shine

ComWriter, Performance Centre, Productify and Pointsbuild have been named as the four finalists for the latest Carnegie’s Den.

The four startups were picked from a competitive bunch of applicants, according to MH Carnegie and Co head of new business ventures Nigel Hawtin.

“The overall trend of applicants was very much around aggregation of services or data, the services were across the board, legal, medical, accounting, sales and education,” Hawtin says.

“The finalists were those that best demonstrated the need for the product, a solid customer base and/or established revenues and they are all online or cloud-based solutions.”

• Pointsbuild: A provider of online continuing professional development courses for the building industry. Founded in 2007, it’s been profitable for several years, provides more than 70 online short courses, and delivers over 1000 courses a month.
• Productify: An open source platform which makes it easier for retailers, suppliers and manufacturers to exchange product information such as product size, colour and images. It allows information to be uploaded onto websites quicker, with fewer errors. It’s been growing rapidly since being founded in June 2012, with year-on-year growth of 80% and has been working with some of Australia’s largest online retailers, including Westfield. The startup plans to launch in the United States early next year.
• Performance Centre: Founded in 2006, Performance Centre offers cloud-based applications for sales people to track performance. Its customers include SingTel Optus, Suncorp, Foxtel, Vodafone, Sensis, Johnson and Johnson Medical and Fuji Xerox. This month it will be launching an extension freemium product called SalesGrid, to provide sales tools and tips.
• ComWriter: A cloud-based writing program for academics that combines word processing with advanced referencing tools. Founded in 2011, it released a test product in June 2014 with 4,400 users from 41 countries.
• Hawtin says those four are the confirmed finalists, and more may be revealed closer to date of the event. The final will be held at The Church, 262 Liverpool Street, Darlinghurst, Sydney on November 21. The finalists get the chance to pitch in front of a room full of accredited investors and the winner will receive a $15,000 investment prize and strategy advice from Mark Carnegie.

Follow StartupSmart on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.