Steph Claire Smith is the co-founder of Kic, a fitness app which she bootstrapped and launched alongside business partner Laura Henshaw in 2018. She’s also the co-host of the company’s podcast, KicPod, which has been downloaded more than 14 million times and boasts 160,000 unique monthly listeners. Kic claims the app’s revenue has grown year-on-year since its inception and non-app revenue streams are on track to increase by 200% this year. On her own, Smith has amassed a social following of more than 1.5 million, and continues to leverage that following to boost Kic’s presence. 

As a high school student in Australia, Sam Crowther spent time working with the Signals Directorate (NSA equivalent), an experience that drew him into cybersecurity. After a stint as a security consultant at Macquarie Group, he realised a large gap existed between adversarial tactics and the security tools available to defend against them. In 2016, he launched Kasada, a bot-mitigation software that detects and stops automated attacks on websites, mobile apps, and APIs. The automation software deploys new tactics compared to traditional bot-based management. For example, presenting itself differently to adversarial attacks every time – and has found particular success selling to e-commerce customers. Kasada has accumulated $39 million in funding from investors including In-Q-Tel and former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. 

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Cofounded in a garage by Christopher Durre, Kieran Start and Max Mito in 2017, Strongroom AI has developed a suite of software for Australia’s pharmacies and healthcare providers. Its products help them document prescriptions, sign off on medications as well as record and manage transactions. The company has raised $15 million in funding from government grants and investment firms including Sydney-based Artesian Investments, Kalytix Ventures, Intervalley Ventures and Tyson & Blake. In March this year, it also acquired Member Benefits Australia to continue bolstering pharmacy data. It estimates this partnership will address the critical global challenge of effective drug management and reducing adverse events, which currently imposes a staggering $1 trillion cost on healthcare systems, contributing to 20% of hospital admissions and readmissions. 

Founded in 2019, Esper Satellite Imagery designs satellites to better respond to climate change by employing hyperspectral imagery to detect chemical changes in the Earth’s mass and atmosphere. It advises a range of stakeholders, from farmers to miners and meteorologists. Esper this year plans to launch ‘Over The Rainbow,’ the maiden mission of two hyperspectral cameras. Iqbal and Lorenczak’s goals of assisting businesses and easing life amid rapid climate change won support of the Australian Federal Government, which provided A$578,000 in manufacturing grants to the startup. (It’s so far raised just $1 million in seed funding outside of these grants). 

Redactive AI’s ‘virtual AI engineer’ removes the specialist data engineering knowledge developers need to learn to build, implement and maintain secure AI-enhanced applications. Its enterprise-grade developer platform allows software teams to connect fragmented data sources to build and ship permissions-aware, secure generative AI agents and applications. Founded in 2023 by ex-Atlassian product managers, Redactive raised $11.5 million in its seed round earlier this year, co-led by Californian VC Felicis and Blackbird, supported by Atlassian Ventures.