STARTUP ECOSYSTEM PRELIMINARY REPORT

STAGE 3: INCUBATION & ACCELERATION
Western Australia has seen an increasing number of pre-accelerator programs, accelerators, seed accelerators and incubators launch in the last three years. In
this report we define an accelerator as a structured program to help innovative early stage companies swiftly come to market. They generally provide mentoring,
structured programs (often of 3 to 6 month duration) and provide opportunities for potential investors to meet startups - generally in the form of a 'demo day'.
Startup teams must apply to attend. We differentiate accelerators from seed-accelerators in that seed-accelerators provide seed funding for companies that attend
the program. this is often in the range of $20,000 to $150,000 for a small portion of equity. In this report we define an incubator as an unstructured program and
environment for developing innovative early stage companies. As with accelerators mentoring and administrative assistance can be provided, and investment
may or may not be involved. In Israel seed-incubators are a common model, and in the USA seed-accelerators are increasingly favoured.
RAC SEEDSPARK
1 ST
Seed-fund startup accelerator in WA
Launched in 2014 by the RAC and led by Jamin
Hirte and Nathan Sturcke (RAC) in partnership
with Spacecubed, SeedSpark is WA’s first
corporate accelerator program providing seedfunding
for Western Australia startups. In its first
run in September 2014, 220+ startups entered
a 5 week selection and education process, of
which 3 ideas were awarded $42,500 and their
teams entered into an 8 week RAC-supported
accelerator program. SeedSpark returned in
October 2015, this time involving RAC’s
820,000 members in the selection process and
with $60,000 in funding. In a demonstration of
how the local startup ecosystem is honing skills
and reinforcing itself, two of the three first year
SeedSpark winners had been successful graduates
of the Founder Institute Perth.
FUSION FOUNDERS PROGRAM
32
Investable tech businessess
The Fusion Founder Program, developed by
the investor-led startup studio Atomic Sky
was founded in 2012 by Andy Lamb and
Simon Macfarlane and is an intensive 3 month
business building program for tech startups
run at Atomic Sky. Aimed at building the
capability of founders, the program brings
together experienced entrepreneur and industry
mentors, guest speakers, in-house workshops,
collaboration sessions and startup seminars for
the 8 startups participating in each cohort. The
program includes membership of TechHub and
access to a mentor network, discounted software
development, hosting credits and marketing and
PR services. By the end of the program, a founder
should be able to present a viable, investable
business to potential clients and investors.
AMCOM UPSTART
$320K
Investment in first tech startup cohort
Launched in early 2015 with the support of
Amcom, Upstart was the first tech accelerator in
WA and first to provide seed funding in return
for equity. The program was founded by Robert
Nathan (eGroup WA) and Tony Grist (Amcom
Chair) and offered $40,000 in return for an 8%
equity stake. It ran for 13 weeks at Spacecubed
with 8 startups and 32 mentors, including local
VCs Rob Newman and Matt Macfarlane as lead
mentors, investing $320,000 in total in its first
cohort. Fact: 25% of startup founders in the first
cohort were women and 25% were French!
FOUNDERS INSTITUTE
15
Founder Institute graduates
The Founder Institute is a leading global
idea-stage accelerator program to support the
development of tech startup businesses across the
world by providing high-potential entrepreneurs
with a Silicon Valley developed curriculum and
mentorship. The Perth chapter was launched in
2013 by Directors Claire McGregor and Dash
Dhakshinamoorthy and graduated 15 startups
in 2013 and 2014 through its 4 month program.
It maintains a network of 20-40 experienced
mentors per semester. A Directors’ Prize is
awarded to send a founder at the end of each
semester to Silicon Valley for 10 days to attend
Founder Lab, which follows on from the Founder
Institute and links founders to venture capitalists
and advisors on the global stage. Andrew Hall and
Kirsten Rose are the 2015 Perth Directors.
START SOMETHING
37
Deep research ideas mobilised
Start Something is a pilot activity of UWA’s
new Innovation Quarter (IQ), an initiative to
foster innovation, industry engagement and
entrepreneurship for students, staff and the
wider community. Developed in partnership
with Peter Rossdeutscher (Innovation Cluster)
and with content provided and implemented
by Atomic Sky, the program is designed to
build researcher and post-graduate student
entrepreneurship capability and build up the skills
needed to commercialise their research and better
engage with industry. 122 researchers attended
Start Something’s first commercialisation
seminars, with 37 researchers completing the
commercialisation workshops with a focus
on social impact, sciences, engineering and
technology, with 3 prize-winners. It is intended
to extend the program to other universities and
research organisations.
CURTIN ACCELERATE
$20K
Four researcher startups launched
Curtin Accelerate is Curtin University’s annual
program run over 11 weeks to support first-time
entrepreneurs develop their earl stage innovative
business idea. It is open to students, staff and
Curtin University alumni. In 2015, 4 teams were
selected to commercialise their ideas, receive
mentorship, access to work space, industry
networks and receive $5,000 in equity-free grant
funding. Teams then pitch their developed ideas
at a Demo Day to potential investors. The first
round concluded in March 2014 and was run by
Jeremy Lu (GroupMap); the developed businesses
included a flexible work skills program,
development of precision agriculture algorithms,
a system to insert referees into job applications,
and the synthesising of a quad copter with a
jump jet for drones. A second round launched
in October 2015 and will be be run by VC Matt
MacFarlane (Yuwaa Capital) in 2016.
24