Forbes Australia has identified the entrepreneurs who are making waves in Australia’s startup scene at the moment.
‘Quick Takes’ featured in Issue 12 of Forbes Australia. Tap here to secure your copy.
Redactive AI
Founded by AI engineer Lucas Sargent and former Atlassian product managers Andrew Pankevicius and Alexander Valente, Redactive AI has security and responsible AI at the forefront of its mission. The Melbourne-headquartered company created a ‘virtual AI engineer’ to fill a skills gap in companies creating AI.
The developer platform helps enterprises manage new data threats and empower their security teams. It is used by an unnamed Australian superannuation fund and a financial exchange as their ‘responsible AI platform of choice.’ Blackbird and Atlassian Ventures led a funding round of $11.5 million in July. The strong founder team and early traction have impressed investors in Silicon Valley. US firms Felicis and Zapier also participated in the recent seed round.
Related
“We loved the Atlassian DNA of the team, commercial instincts, and distribution relationships with Zapier and other partners so early in Redactive’s life stage,” says Victoria Treyger, a general partner at Felicis.
“We see significant market pull from large enterprise customers, especially banks, insurance companies, and others in regulated industries, to build their AI strategy securely.”
Redactive co-founder Lucas Sargent has worked as an AI engineer on regulated public companies for five years.
Mass Dynamics
Paula Burton and her three co-founders refer to themselves and their community as ‘mass geeks.’ They founded Mass Dynamics in 2019 and are now making waves in the fight against disease. The Mass Dynamics platform aims to accelerate life science discoveries and drug development. To achieve that, Mass Dynamics leverages data from proteomics and mass spectrometry, an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions.
The company is headquartered in Melbourne and combines software engineering, product design, computational biology, and machine intelligence. As CEO, Burton leads the team in consolidating bioinformatic data in the cloud, enabling it to be more easily analysed by scientists and subsequently shared with the research community. She studied Computer Science at Monash University and spent a decade at technology consultancy Dius before founding Mass Dynamics.
Burton’s co-founders are Andrew Webb, Giuseppe Infusini, and Aaron Triantafyllidis. Mass Dynamics’ customers and partners include Monash University, Hudson Institute, and CSL. As of December, the company has raised $4 million in seed funding led by Rampersand and grown revenue seven times since.
“Paula and her team have an audacious mission to free humanity from the burden of disease, with the combination of tech, science, and commercial skills to turn their vision
into reality,” says Paul Naphtali, co-founder and managing partner at Rampersand.
Hiringa
Husband and wife co-founders Cathy and Andrew Clennett have extensive experience as engineers in the energy and resources sector. The Clennetts have worked at Woodside Petroleum, Rio Tinto, Todd Energy, Maersk, and Exxon Mobil. Their work has taken them from their native Hobart, to Perth, Copenhagen, the US, and Southeast Asia.
The Clennetts settled in New Zealand more than a decade ago. They set up Hiringa in 2016 to commercialise hydrogen-powered trucks and heavy transportation in Australia and NZ. In April, Hiringa launched Australasia’s first zero-emission green hydrogen refuelling network.
The refuelling stations are state of the art, allowing buses and trucks to refuel in 20 minutes. Three refuelling stations have been established on a thoroughfare frequented by heavy vehicles, with a fourth to come soon. Hiringa established partnerships with fuel supplier Waitomo Group, heavy vehicle fleet owner TR Group, and New Zealand Post.
The NZ government invested $16 million into Hiringa’s network infrastructure. Capital has also been raised from K1W1, Sir Stephen Tindall’s fund, and Mitsui Asia Pacific. “This is a rare opportunity to commercialise green hydrogen and decarbonise heavy-duty vehicles,” says Koji Nagatomi, CEO of Mitsui Asia Pacific.
“We believe New Zealand is an ideal market to develop and demonstrate the viability of green hydrogen as a next-generation fuel.”
Look back on the week that was with hand-picked articles from Australia and around the world. Sign up to the Forbes Australia newsletter here.
