Two-week old Aussie start-up wins 50,000 euros in seed funding

A two-week-old start-up has won €50,000 ($69,500) in seed funding from Nokia and Microsoft’s joint investment program, AppCampus.

Project Tripod is an app that enables photographers to line up and take exactly the same shot. It will include a series of editing tools and effects, including extensive time-lapse and photo-sharing capabilities.

Founders Catherine Eibner, a start-up adviser at incubator Blue Chilli, and Jordan Knight, director at software development company Xamling, told StartupSmart they’re thrilled at the “phenomenal” breakthrough.

Both have worked for Microsoft, with Eibner previously coordinating the Microsoft BizSpark Australia accelerator program, while Knight has done some development work with them.

Microsoft and Nokia do not take a stake in the company in return for the funding. Project Tripod will need to meet a range of quality criteria and be exclusively available from the Microsoft store for 90 days once it’s launched.

Eibner told StartupSmart the success of the start-up is due to the straightforward and open concept.

“It’s one of those really simple ideas that people just go ‘of course, that just makes sense’. It’s really relatable, so people know how they can use it. Everyone has their own interpretation of how they can use a virtual tripod,” Eibner says.

Their immediate focus is on successfully applying for a patent and developing the company’s website so they can begin gathering sign-ups for beta testers.

“With any start-up the biggest challenge is testing your product market fit and making sure what we’re building people will actually use. And to learn from the feedback people give us when they start to play with it,” says Eibner.

She says the first stage of the project involves building, testing and validation of the app in order to assess how people will use it.

They plan to launch the app within three months. The development will be managed by Knight and his company Xamling.