For the final episode of 2023, Startup West recorded a founders' panel in front of a live audience of more than 400 at Freo Startup Fest, which is part of the annual West Tech Fest, Australia's longest-running tech festival. Host Charlie Gunningham chats with Dr Julia Reisser (Uluu), Amy Carter-James (Raaise) and Jonathan Lilley (Electro Ventures). Each company is heavily involved in developing and funding cleaner, climate-friendly products. Having raised $8.6M, Uluu is commercialising the production of red seaweed as an alternative source of plastics, to change fashion and other industries. M ..read more

Danelle Cross (Curtin Uni) and Chris Tan (Spacecubed) talk with Dan Dawson, founder and director of edtech startup Paperly. Originally from New Zealand, Dan saw the need to reduce paper-based bureaucratic systems in schools. Coding 7 hours a night while holding down a full-time job, he was selected to join the Plus Eight Tech Accelerator in Perth in 2022. This year, the newly established early-stage VC fund Purpose Ventures invested in the business, and his goal is to get Paperly into 10,000 schools. “…It’s one thing starting a company. It’s another thing starting a company with a partner, or ..read more

Australia’s number 1 startup podcast (1) talks with serial app entrepreneur, award-winning founder and all-round nice guy Stuart Kidd. When one startup is not enough, how about four or five? Originally from the UK, Stuart arrived in Australia aged 10, then went back to work there after school, developing his eye for design, tech and online businesses. Back in Perth, he set up Apps People, an app development business, and has launched multiple app businesses over the past few years. Last year, he was voted Startup News Most Admired Startup Founder, and in this episode he shares a lot from his j ..read more

Australia’s number 1 startup podcast (1) talks with Simon Anderson, CEO and founder of Notis (student engagement platform for schools) and Swayz (prompts friends and family to share video content for you). With Notis, established in 2013 in Perth, Simon has raised US$1M over 10 years and is aiming to have a thousand US schools on board in 2023. Simon raised his first $5K thanks to Curtin Accelerate in Perth, then US$350K in an angel round, sold up everything in Australia, moved to Canada, while his kids were young. He's now back in Perth. Meanwhile, his new startup baby is Swayz, a social medi ..read more

Australia’s number 1 startup podcast (1) talks with the CEO of tech recruiting firm Valrose and co-Chair of Women in Tech WA (WiTWA), Tina Ambrose. Growing up in south London, she took on various jobs, found herself homeless at one stage, then later made “the best decision in [her] life” to move to Perth, Western Australia. Working in recruitment, she devised and then set up her own company, and also champions women in technology through her work with WiTWA. “ If I knew then what I know now, would I have started?! There’s a lot of challenges you face. And the answer is yes, absolutely …” ~ Tin ..read more

Australia’s number 1 startup podcast (1) talks with Ingrid Rodriguez, founder of Eikonic, a dental hygiene product looking to help a billion mouths over the next ten years. Born in Chile, and growing up in Perth, Ingrid studied oral hygiene and after years of practice, saw a need to develop a revolutionary product that would assist the 3 billion people that suffer from one type of oral disease or another. “ Do whatever it takes to be you own best friend. That was another great piece of advice, and a quote that I’ve taken with me and my journey. Sometimes as a sole founder it can be very lonely ..read more

Australia’s number 1 startup podcast (1) talks with two of Veintech's co-founders, Nick Buckley and Nik Bappoo, who with a team of 10 are developing a handheld unit that visualises veins to make cannulation (drawing blood) easier. It’s a disturbing fact that the standard ‘miss rate’ for cannulations is around 40%, incredibly high. Once you miss twice, you have to call for help. Set up in 2020, the medtech company closed a seed round last year, won an Accelerating Commercialisation grant, and is moving towards clinical trials. “ No matter how far you get along this journey, it is that vision yo ..read more

Australia's number 1 startup podcast (1) breezes into episode 101, with Rob Kelly, managing director of Agora Livestock, a price discovery marketplace for sheep, cattle and goats. Growing up on the family farm in Kojonup, in the Great Southern, 250 kilometres south from Perth, Rob was into maths and science at school, and studied ag science at university. After a decade in grains trading, he saw that banks had no efficient, real-time way of valuing livestock, which became the idea behind Agora. After five years as a pure B2B subscriptions business, the business has recently launched its online ..read more

For our 100th episode, a real treat: we speak with the inspirational Professor Fiona Wood AM, who with research partner Marie Stoner invented spray-on skin, ‘ReCell’, made famous after the Bali Bombings, for which she was made Australian of the Year in 2005. Growing up in the north of England, the daughter of a fifth-generation coalminer, the self-confessed “sporty nerd” moved to London to study medicine. Emigrating to Western Australia in the '80s, she became the state's first female plastic surgeon, and in the 1990s pioneered the ReCell technology that would greatly reduce permanent scarring ..read more

Australia's number 1 startup podcast (1) welcomes well-known co-host of the Mix 94.5 Brekky Radio Show ('Pete, Matt and Kymba'), and, now startup founder and Plus Eight graduate Pete Curulli. A mad-keen gamer, and co-host of popular podcast for gamers, Game on Aus, he is developing a platform for independent gaming developers, Three Little Pixels, which he plans to launch later this year. Passing through the Plus Eight tech accelerator last year, Pete has been bootstrapping the development of the platform, which Australian/New Zealand developers can register (in the link below). "... Cos when ..read more