The ANZ Innovyz Demo Day, 18th of April, 2013. The ANZ Innovyz Start is an accelerator program for innovative startups located in Adelaide, South Australia.

This blog post is my live blog of the ANZ Innovyz Demo Day.

What is demo day? See http://www.innovyzstart.com/what-is-demo-day-jana-matthews-explains

I thought all the companies did a great job! To read how it all happened, see below!

ANZ Innovyz Demo Day

12:50pm – About to START!

1:05pm – START! – Dr Jana Mathews is kicking off the event. She starts of with a legal disclaimer for the investors here today.  If you’d like to read a little more on Dr Jana Mathews, I blogged one of her presentations to the Adelaide University MBA School, here.

1:11pm – Jana is talking about how every company has a weekly review on Thursdays, and how the accelerator makes them accountable for what they said they would do in the prior week.  The accelerator is looking for people willing to work on a business idea all day, every day.  Significant effort and commitment is required to be ready for Demo Day.

1:12pm – From Week 3, waves of mentors come in to spend a whole week with the startups.

1:13pm – A reference to Innovyz in a day program that is on next week (24th of April). Sounds great! Read more about it here.

1:16pm – The winter intake for Innovyz is open currently. $20,000 in funding plus access to a $20,000 unsecured loan from ANZ. Applications close 14th of June, 2013.

1:17pm – Hon. Tom Kenyon, Minister of Manufacturing, Innovation and Trade for Small Business is now speaking on the Government support of the Innovyz program.

“Economies don’t grow without people willing take risks”

- Hon. Tom Kenyon

1:18pm – Spotted on the way in today to ANZ Innovyz Demo Day:

1:20pm – Nick Reade from ANZ – General Manager of Small Business Banking AUS & General Manager of Corporate & Commercial Banking S.A speaking now on ANZ’s involvement in startup activity around the country.

1:25pm – Nick Reade “we understand startups”. He goes on to ask the audience - Why is ANZ doing this? “We believe it is the key to sustainable economic growth in Australia”.

1:27pm – Jana returns to the stage and is now introducing Glen Smith – Founder and Managing Director at After the Words, one of the Mentors in the Innovyz program.

1:28pm – Glen Smith is introducing FitUsIn, a wotif or lastminute for gym access. FitUsIn has been generating a fair amount of media interest. It was chosen as one of the 225 ground breaking web technologies where the top 6 were invited to pitch in New York last month. FitUsIn came 2nd! Amazing effort.

1:30pm – FitUsIn takes the stage! Enthusiastic start.

1:32pm – Vanessa Picker – FitUsIn is targeting a 3 billion dollar industry, in Australia, but also a much larger market in America.

1:34pm – Some facts supporting the FitUsIn proposition – Gyms have more than 50% unused capacity! 15.4 million people looking to work out whilst on a trip.

1:35pm – Marketing Strategy – signed 110 gyms in less than three months. Targeting Gyms, Consumers, Channel Partners.

1:38pm – FitUsIn has strong plans to expand into New York City. Pitch finishes, very positive response from the investor audience. Well done FitUsIn.

1:40pm – Jana introducing Dave McLauchlan – Founder and CEO of Buddy Platform.

1:41pm – Dave is doing the introduction for Bluedot – location based services and payment

1:42pm – Bluedot takes the stage. Filip Eldic. He says – Mobile phones are great, but why can’t they do more, such as handle payments for carparks, or toll roads, automatically?

1:42pm – Bluedot allows businesses to precisely identify a location anywhere in the world, and take instant payment when entering that zone. Market opportunity in Australia $3billion.

1:45pm – Filip says that no new infrastructure investment is required for Bluedot to detect location and take payment. My experience with phone GPS’s is they aren’t up to this task. So I wonder how this is possible.

1:46pm – Appster have approached Bluedot with an offer to invest. Sounds like strong industry support.

1:47pm – Bluedot are after $450k to continue their journey. Good pitch, huge opportunity if they can beat others to it, and do it well.

1:48pm – Jana introducing Travis Kemp, Leadership and Talent Director at Lee Hecht Harrison DBM.

1:50pm – Travis is introducing UniCoach, on campus online productivity training to undergraduates to help them achieve academic success. He says that about a quarter of all uni students don’t finish their journey.

1:51pm – Anita from UniCoach takes the stage. She says that UniCoach is amongst other things, a bullet proof productivity system.

1:53pm – UniCoach has an interesting model, Franchise based and utilising UniCoaches to help students on their journey.

1:54pm – System benefits Students, Parents, Universities, Employers and the Government.

1:56pm – UniCoach will expand via a global franchise model.

1:57pm – UniCoach are after an initial funding of $60,000 to help set up the first team of UniCoaches, with fund raising rounds after that to support their expansion.  Another strong pitch. I wasn’t so excited about this one, but I think that says more about me, than UniCoach.

1:58pm – Jana introducing Martin Haese, Found and MD of Retail IQ, Founded & MD of Youthworks Group.  Martin takes the stage to introduce Memtell. Very compelling speaker.

2:01pm – Jonothan Birkett takes the stake. Memtell enables you to tell the story to your photograph. Too many memories are lost or forgotten. Introducing themselves to the world through aged care industries. Have been approached by Bupa.

2:04pm – Freemium pricing model, with Free, Premium and Enterprise accounts.

2:05pm – Predicting a return on investment of 127% in one year (? need to clarify – not sure if I heard that right!).

2:06pm – Interesting the first one to mention an exit strategy – acquisition by google as a possible goal..

2:07pm – Memtell is after $300,000 from investors here today. The combined problem of who’s looking after our memories and capturing our stories is emotionally compelling. Easy to get drawn into what they are trying to solve.  Yet another good pitch.

2:08pm – Jana introducing Emmanuel Foundas – Chief Representative, Oceania & SE Asia at Condusiv, Managing Director of Theta Group.

2:10pm – Emmanuel is introducing Kicktone. A platform that helps independent bands sell their music and merchandise directly to their fans. Savvas from Kicktone takes the stage.

2:11pm – Savvas talking back through his background in music. Telling a real story. Independent bands are competing in an unfair market. He seems very comfortable, and real.

2:12pm – Kicktone pitch very well done, lots of information and compelling. Listening more than blogging – sorry…

2:17pm – Very entertaining pitch by Savvas. He ends with “My name is Savvas – rock on!”. Kicktone’s presentation captured my attention the most so far, making live blogging very difficult.  Afterwards though, I was wondering how their solution differentiates itself from others out there.

2:19pm – A brief break before the next group of pitches..

2:45pm – And we are back! Jana speaking again, introducing Phillip Vafiadis, Chairman of ANZ Innovyz Start.

2:47pm – Phillip takes the stage and is talking about the history of Adelaide and innovation. The Innovyz program has over 50 mentors now, with more wanting join every day.

2:50pm – On Innovyz – In less than twelve months they have helped twenty companies. In another six months that will 30 companies.

2:53pm – Australian investors invest ten times less than their American counterparts in innovation.

2:54pm – Phillip calls out to the crowd to get involved in the startup community.

2:55pm – Philip says we’ve helped 20 companies, but we’re just getting started.

2:56pm – Jana now introducing Erma Ranieri, Chief Executive (Public Sector Renewal Program) and Deputy Chief Executive, Strategy, People and Culture (DMITRE).

2:57pm – Erma on stage. Looking to build links between people and industry. If we are asking business to be innovative, it is also then important for the government to be innovative and support their efforts.

3:00pm – Erma talks about the Government Unleashed efforts. Supporting business to be innovative. She mentions the importance of mentoring the department’s own people on how innovation works, so that they are better positioned to help industry.

3:01pm – Jana now introducing Houssam Abiad, Adelaide City Councillor, CEO of Digimob, Executive Director of By Felici Pty Ltd. It is interesting to hear is background in founding companies, and great that someone like that has become part of Adelaide City Council.

3:03pm – Houssam takes the stage. Adelaide the city of entrepreneurs? Fact or Fiction? Do we have what it takes? Could Adelaide be the startup capital of Australia? Everyone is listening.

3:05pm – Entrepreneurship is organic. All we need to do is water and fertilise the soil around entrepreneurship. Communities, governments and industries need to work hand in hand.

3:06pm – Houssam is talking about the benefits of entrepreneurship on the economy.

Houssam says that the recent motion to name Adelaide as the city of entrepreneurs isn’t about saying we are there, it is about saying where we want to go.

3:09pm – Houssam says that Adelaide will not be able to compete in manufacturing.

3:10pm – Adelaide has a great work life balance, the 5th most liveable city in the world, the perfect ground for a low cost startup. It has an ideal test marketplace.

3:11pm – Houssam makes a possible reference to Holden and the government assistance. He says startups are our future, and this is where the money should be spent. Not in industries with dying competitive advantage.

3:12pm – That was a great speech by Houssam. Very compelling, the audience was hanging on every word. Applause all around.

3:13pm – Jana back again to introduce Phillip Vafiadis (again), to talk about Toward the Stars, but also to mention how lucky we are to have Jana here in Adelaide, helping to build our city of entrepreneurs. I couldn’t agree more!

3:13pm – Towards the Stars – a market place and community that provides resources and gifts to inspire girls to be Strong, Smart and Daring.

3:16pm – Ines, CEO of Toward the Stars takes the stage. She mentions how less girls are studying maths and sciences, and how we precondition girls to be sugar and spice and all things nice. About how we teach girls from a young age that their value is in their looks. Is that what we want to be teaching girls? She mentions how there has been increasing levels of eating disorders in girls over the last 20 years. Ines believes that we precondition girls to not succeed. Ines is telling her pitch using simple, but relevant cartoon graphics. Its surprisingly effective. I’ll add in a photo of one shortly.

3:20pm – What is Toward the Stars? A market place for items that positively support girls around the world, etsy-like. All pitches so far have had a market size type slide. On Ines’ she understates the size of the market opportunity, to only 12 million people. She then adds “but guess what, everybody knows a girl”.

3:23pm – Another great pitch. I think she’ll make it work!

3:24pm – Jana introducing Simran Gambhir, Director Actio Consulting, Former CTO News Interactive and FlyBuys.

3:25pm – Simran on the stage. He is introducing Singa, something he strongly believes in. At the end of the Innovyz program he will be joining Singa as a Director. Singa is a platform that enables people to connect through real-time singing on the internet. The Singa app has had million downloads in China in 7 days. That’s validation.

3:27pm – Yang takes the stage, speaking Chinese. Then a long pause. In this moment, I wonder, do we need a translator? I don’t think I’m alone. Then he bursts into English. That got our attention, neat.

3:27pm- Singa – A musical platform enabling people to become more connected through singing.

3:28pm – Yang shows us what the app looks like. Plays a ridiculously cute audio of a girl singing twinkle twinkle little star. Improvements in network speeds will help their product to do more. To make people go “WOW”.

3:30pm – End of june they will be releasing verison 2, which will enable two people to sing, at the same time.

3:31pm – Revenue streams – selling songs inside the app. Gamify the singing experience, virtual gifts can be bought. Talking to hardware manufacturers to produce musical singing packs – microphones, docking stations etc.

3:31pm – Yang is now talking about their three year roadmap, to work with mainstream social media platforms.

3:32pm – We believe having real time is real fun. Yang asks himself so how big is this market? O M G he says, prompting a chuckle from the audience.  I think Singa could become a ridiculous hit. Well done guys & good luck.

3:36pm – Jana now introducing Dr Craig Mudge, Managing Partner, Pacific Challenge. Jana says she was astonished to find Craig living here in South Australia given how famous he is in America.

3:38pm – Dr Craig Mudge takes the stage, to introduce metriXcare, a health care analytics company that enables companies to reduce their costs while also improving quality. He talks about the courage of young engineers to achieve great things. He also takes time to thank ANZ for doing something that banks do not normally do, in supporting innovation. On metriXCare, he says this company has a marketing pull and a technology push, and investors like that. The technology push is analytics and big data.

3:43pm – Dr Chris Farmer takes the stage to pitch metriXCare. He says that the world health organisation puts the chance of harm in a hospital of one in ten. In Australia that figure is one in sixteen. At Dr Chris’s private hospital, its one in a hundred. Remind me to get any treatments at his hospital, where-ever that is.

3:46pm – Are our hospitals safe? Steve Govis, the CEO, joins Chris on stage to answer.

“How could you tell if a hospital is safe. What data would you need?”

3:47pm – How do you measure quality in a hospital? How do you link this to cost? The goal is to manage costs at the same time as improving quality.

3:48pm – Their previous company was called Edgebox, which achieved strong success.

3:49pm – They have selected 20 hospitals to start, but believe their total addressable market is 966 hospitals, in Australia. This is a global problem though. Targeting 24m revenue in 5 years.

3:50pm – Like all pitches today, they have taken time to talk about the quality of their team.

3:51pm – “Saving Costs, Saving Lives”. This team looks really, really solid. I don’t think they will have trouble raising their target of $500k.  I would invest in this one.

3:53pm – Jana is now introducing Dr Moira Smith, Tech Entrepreneur & CEO BEng (Hons), PhD, MIET, MRAeS.

3:54pm – Dr Moira is introducing DataMunch, via a recorded video. Making sense of big data is what DataMuch is about. Putting big data in reach of everybody.

3:56pm – Claire Richardson, CEO of DataMuch takes the stage. If you read this Claire, thanks for helping me get started on my MBA journey.

3:57pm – Claire talks about using data to help a solar company target its marketing.

3:58pm – “Match external data with your organisation’s”.

3:58pm – Pricing model of DataMuch, and then some revenue predictions – Year 5 of $40.3 million. This is just for the Australian market. 2.1 Million small to medium sized businesses in Australia. DataMuch believe they can have 9000 of these as customers in five years.

4:01pm – Key value prop – Matching internal data sets with internal ones, and then making this accessible to users.

4:01pm – Mention of DataMunch’s competitive advantage, which includes exclusive datasets.

4:02pm – The team introduction. A key part of any startup pitch.

4:03pm – Targeting Series A funding in 18 months in the USA. Requiring $475,000.

4:04pm – “Making data easy”. Another good pitch, but it was clear they are much earlier in their life than the others pitched today. I think investing here would come down to the quality of their big-data team.

4:04pm – Jana back again, I think we have only one more pitch to go. Jana introduces Teri Whiting, Managing Director of Giant4, who will introduce Agent Anything.

4:06pm – Teri says AA have harnessed human capital. married that with edge technology, and to your front door, solve your problems. This is a simple concept, executed well. Teri points out that this team has managed to pull this together across continents, a testament to their seriousness & ability. AgentAnything has been targeting New York City for the last two years, one of the toughest markets in the world.

4:11pm – Harry Schiff takes the stage. A very polished pitch. Great information slides.

4:14pm – An interesting point was how cheap it was for AA to obtain signups in Adelaide. He also talks about the power of building a marketplace, which is what AgentAnything is doing.

4:17pm – It’s amazing that AgentAnything have come to Adelaide, to test and scale their concept here.

4:19pm – Harry nailed that pitch, and I think he knew it. Well done. Best pitch of the day.

4:20pm – That’s the end of the ANZ Innovyz Demo Day, Jana’s now doing the wrap. A great afternoon, thank you to ANZ and Innovyz for making this happen, here, in Adelaide.