ANZ Innovyz START names inaugural start-ups for accelerator program

A marketplace for pre-loved baby items and a farm business management software provider are among the 10 companies selected to take part in the first three-month ANZ Innovyz START program.

The ANZ Innovyz START program, a start-up accelerator scheme modelled on US-based incubator TechStars, kicked off in Adelaide in February.

The three-month program, launched by Innovyz and ANZ, is part of the Global Accelerator Network. It is the first accelerator in Australia to be based upon the TechStars format.

Innovyz aims to equip promising start-ups with the tools and strategies to make them ready for investors, who will be introduced to them on the final day of the program.

In return for an 8% equity stake per founder, for up to three founders, each of the founders will be given $6,000 to help with the cost of establishing themselves.

The Innovyz program will be led by US business guru Dr Jana Matthews, who has moved to Adelaide to work on the project full-time.

More than 130 companies from Australia and overseas applied for a place in the program, but only 10 were chosen. Of those 10, five are based in Adelaide.

One company is based in Sydney and one is based in Brisbane. Only three are based outside Australia – one in New Zealand and two in the United States.

Matthews says she is “extremely pleased” with the high calibre of applicants, from Australia and around the world.

The successful companies are as follows:

• Adelaide Baby Bargains – a free online marketplace for pre-loved baby and children’s goods (Adelaide).
• Be Intent – an online HR solution that measures mindset, staff engagement, optimises people performance and delivers measurable productivity improvements (Auckland).
• Captioning Studio – speech to text, video search, web-based captioning and subtitling, and tools for those who are deaf and hard of hearing (Adelaide).
• Cipher This – software that automates the creation and integration of puzzles into any author’s original content (Boulder, Colorado).
• ConfPlus – Mobile service to facilitate registering, scheduling, networking and communicating at conferences (Madison, Wisconsin, and Beijing and Shenyang, China).
• Credit Key – a web “transaction brokerage” service that reduces the amount of time between the issue and payment of invoices (Adelaide).

• iStudent – recruitment of international students with online search and enrolment (Sydney).

• LEAPIN – cloud-based property management system featuring smartphone room check-in and a complete web check-in system for the accommodation industry (Adelaide).

• www.mysupervisoronline.com – online resource, support and networking site to assist Honours, Masters and PhD students (Brisbane).
• P2P Agri – farm business management decision software (Adelaide).

These 10 companies will be mentored by 45 mentors from Australia and overseas, who will maintain an ongoing mentoring relationship with the participants.

The mentors will help the companies refine their business models, shape their business plans, offer advice on marketing and product positioning, and leverage their own personal networks.

According to Stephen Dunn, chief executive of LEAPIN, the program is the “perfect fit” for his company at its current stage of development.

“We have completed R&D and cleared the proof-of-concept stage,” Dunn says.

“Over the last few months, we’ve validated the market demand for our systems from key decision-makers in our industry, with investment funding from the Australian Government.”

“We’re now ready to commercialise it.”