Last week, we held the Plus Eight Pre-Accelerator Pitch Night in our space, where 16 innovative startups who took part in the six week program were able to pitch their businesses to like-minded founders, a panel of judges and a community of startup ecosystem supporters.
The Plus Eight Pre-Accelerator program is a six-week business acceleration program that connects startup founders with a community of successful mentors, investors and advisors, and teaches them key content through weekly facilitated sessions to grow their skills as a founder.
The 2023 Perth program, made possible thanks to the support of the City of Perth and Spacecubed, was coordinated by Juliette Lucas, and facilitated by Jeremy Chetty, Co-Founder of Student Edge who acted as the Entrepreneur in Residence.
Throughout the program, the startups were able to learn about business model development, validation and customer testing, product and prototyping and much more. They were also able to connect with a range of mentors and industry experts, including Stan Sozynski, Danielle Giles, En Khong, Asheesh Malaney and Danny Morris.
Last Thursday, we gathered in the FLUX Basement for the end of program Pitch Night, which acted as an innovation showcase for an audience of over 100+ Spacecubed members, like-minded founders, investors and supporters attend to hear the 16 startups pitch.
Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas opened the evening with a few inspiring words, before each startup took to the stage to pitch their business to attendees and a panel of judges including Josh Van Ross, Managing Director at Drone Sky Shows, Pia Turcinov, Director at Fund WA, Nate Sturcke, Ecosystem Lead for the Innovative Society Initiative and Isabelle Charter, CEO of Drip Invest.
Throughout the pitches we were introduced to a range of innovative businesses, which spanned industries including, healthcare, automotive, mining and AI and much more (see the full list of startups who pitched here).
After a long deliberation from the judges, it was time to announce the three winning teams.
In third place, winning a three month coworking membership at Spacecubed, $50 Como Treasury voucher and three month tax and business services support was Masha Polshinskaya, Founder of Mediqa, a tech-enabled career marketplace for healthcare jobs whose custom matching technology offers hospitals the fastest, most effective way to hire qualified nursing staff.
In second place was Percy Ryder, Founder of SYNC, who won a three month coworking membership at Spacecubed, $100 Como Treasury Voucher and three months of tax and business services support. SYNC aims to keep people connected while they're away at work, and their families and friends are back home.
Taking home first place, winning a six month coworking membership at Spacecubed, $150 Como Treasury Voucher and six months of tax and business services support was Natasja Kleinman, Founder of Flexi-Tribe, whose mission is to reshape the landscape of business management by providing a tailored virtual team of resources.
First and second place have also won the chance to pitch at Freo Startup Fest, running as part of West Tech Fest in December. The winner of this pitch event will gain automatic entry into the bootcamp for the 2024 Plus Eight Accelerator program, one of Australia’s largest seed-funded programs.
To support Flex-Tribe and SYNC as they pitch at Freo Startup Fest on Thursday, December 7, you can learn more and access tickets here.
Plus Eight is on a mission to support early-stage Australian entrepreneurs and startups, through to high-growth ventures through our range of growth programs, events and community. Learn more about Plus Eight including how you can get involved here.
