Influential Sydney-based startup accelerator program Startmate has taken on its latest group of hopefuls, as it weighs up an expansion to another Australian city.
The program, which runs for five months, two of which are in the United States, was started by Blackbird Ventures' Niki Scevak in 2011 and invests $75,000 into each of the startups selected.
This latest intake includes low power wireless chips startup Morse Micro, an artificial intelligence company that automates the observation of public spaces called Black.ai and Mentorloop, a software business that helps companies establish mentoring networks.
Flaunter, a platform for lifestyle brands to make their content discoverable and trackable, Construction Cloud and a business for helping people discover wellness venues near them, Honee, are also in the group.
Startmate partner Samantha Wong said the companies had been selected from nearly 200 applications.
"The way the process works is very democratic. Every mentor invests their own money in the Startmate trust and then there are 70-odd people and we collectively vote and decide on which companies," she said.
"The most important factor is the quality of the team, and most have a deep connection with the customer problem. And then it's about how big the market is they're attacking."
Mentors
The new round of startups join a successful list of former alumni, including drone delivery startup Flirtey, which closed a $US16 million capital raise earlier this month, cyber security business UpGuard, which raised $17 million from IAG and Square Peg Capital last year, and cyber security testing marketplace Bugcrowd, which closed a $US15 million round last year.
The Startmate program is based on coaching from mentors, rather than a set curriculum.
"We won't put you through basic marketing 101. Each company is developing different things," Ms Wong said.
Companies are paired with a team of mentors with expertise that can help the business develop. The mentors, who effectively form an advisory board, meet or chat with the company at least once a fortnight and help them build networks with investors and possible customers or partners.
Part of the program also involves two months in the US, where the startups meet foreign investors and have the chance to pitch to them.
The mentors who have signed up to Startmate include Atlassian co-founders Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, Silicon Valley veteran and investor Susan Wu, UberEATS general manager Jodie Auster and former Startmate alumni such as Bugcrowd's Casey Ellis.
Ms Wong said Startmate was considering opening a second program outside of Sydney, and was also looking at ways to attract entrepreneurs working on ideas that required more upfront capital.
"We're not scared of accepting more technical risk and longer research and development times than the three-to-five month program," she said. "We want to attract people doing really interesting, big stuff that's more capital intensive."
