Amcom Upstart names winners

Tech accelerator Amcom Upstart has named the eight successful applicants to be offered a placement in its program and an equal share of $320,000 in funding.

The program will offer tech startups Circadyn, Hydralert, Birds Eye View, GeoMoby, Snaptch, Australian Geotomography, Offpeak Games and Homecamp a three-month mentoring program and dedicated work space at tech hub Spacecubed.

Snaptch was a Business News app of the week last month.

The startups' ideas included monitoring and managing fatigue with wearable technology, efficiency tools for managers, virtual reality gaming, and technology that connects campers to landowners’ outdoor space.

Of the 70 applications received from both Australia and overseas, 12 were invited to pitch their ideas to an investment committee, which included Amcom Telecommunications chairman Anthony Grist and local venture capitalists Matt Macfarlane and Rob Newman.

“The quantity and quality of applications received in response to the Amcom Upstart call out proved overwhelmingly that, not only is there a need for early stage funding in Perth, but that there it depth of innovative talent,” Mr Grist said.

“The business community just needs to nurture and support that talent.

“Any one of the (winners) can be a category killer and lift the profile of the Perth tech community nationally and internationally. In fact, most of them have the ingredients to be very significant businesses.”

The Amcom Upstart accelerator was created in partnership with e-business association eGroup WA and Spacecubed.

The program will begin on June 2.

See below for the list of winners:

Australian Geotomography is the brainchild of Bryden Quirk, who spent five years developing and testing the 'microscope in a needle' for which he won the Emerging Innovation Category at the 2014 WA Innovator of the Year awards. Bryden is now focused on lowering the costs of exploration drilling by using very low-cost commodity electronics made available due to the widespread adoption of mobile phones.

http://australiangeotomography.com

Birds Eye View is an application for managers. It helps managers get more done every day; showing everything happening in their team at-a-glance, so they know exactly what their people are working on, and how they are going. Birds Eye View replaces a manager’s paper notebook, tracking tasks, priorities, challenges and achievements, and engaging with staff. Birds Eye View is a concept being developed by Damian Bramanis.

http://birdseyeview.io/

Circadyn, founded by psychologist Felicity Millman, has developed a solution for managing fatigue in the transport industry. Fatigue is a major cause of road fatalities in Australia. Circadyn uses information from wearable technology and smart-phone data to provide an alert and dashboard system to monitor fatigue in real-time to improve work and personal lives.

http://www.circadyn.com/

GeoMoby’s software allows businesses to take advantage of laser focused geo-targeted messaging, solving real-world problems across several industries; from increasing sales in retail and hospitality, to providing better safety in mining and construction, to increasing efficiencies in banking and payment systems. GeoMoby was founded by Chris Baudia and Zac Durber and was recognised as one of Australia’s most innovative young tech companies by Tech23 in 2014.

http://www.geomoby.com/

Homecamp connects campers and landowners across Australia and helps people find desirable places to camp where regular campsites are not available. Homecamp was founded by David Abitbol and Audrey Krukoff after they spent a year traveling around Australia together.

https://www.home-camp.com.au/

Hydralert, is a real-time, non-invasive, convenient, automated self-testing device for minimisation and control of heat stress. With global temperatures rising, the need for employers to control heat stress risks adversely effecting employees is emerging as a priority. The idea for Hydralert was conceived by Ryan Wynch, an occupational health specialist, while working in a remote mining and oil and gas site in far north Western Australia.

Offpeak Games is developing one of the first online multiplayer virtual reality combat games for Oculus Rift and other leading-edge VR platforms. Oculus Rift was acquired by Facebook In 2014 and is due to release headsets to the retail market in the first quarter of 2016. The company was founded by Liam Poli and Christopher Parkin (who became friends while studying engineering at UWA six years ago) and Andrew Ravenscroft.

https://share.oculus.com/app/valiant

Snaptch is a mobile portfolio app for models, designed to streamline the worldwide modelling industries shift into the digital space. The app was developed by Tori Bowman, who won the fashion category at the 2014 Australian Mobile & App Design Awards and was named one of the top five female Australian app developers in Marie Claire Australia in January 2015.

http://www.snaptchapp.com/

Disclaimer: Business News chief executive Charlie Gunningham is one of the mentors on the program.