The KPMG Global Tech Innovator challenge seeks to recognise the most exciting and innovative tech startups globally. The Australian leg of the comp saw five finalist startups going head-to-head in a pitch off challenge, with Gelomics taking the top spot. Gelomic’s competitors were DoveTail Electric, Eden Brew, Sustainable Salons, and InTruth Technologies.

“All of our finalists came to the table with bold, industry-changing ideas,” said Amanda Price, Head of KPMG High Growth Ventures. “Each entry was unique and demonstrated a high level of global potential, making the selection process incredibly challenging.”

Now, Gelomics’ CEO and co-founder Christoph Meinert will present the startup’s ideas in front of 70,000 investors, policy makers, and industry leaders at Lisbon’s Web Summit. The Web Summit will also decide the global winner of the competition.

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The competition, which seeks to recognise the world’s most innovative and exciting tech start-ups, received a record-breaking number of entries in Australia, with over 155 submissions. Ultimately, only five were chosen.

The Finalists:

• DoveTail Electric – provides an integrated electric system that includes electric motors and battery packs to turn existing airframes into zero-emission commercial aircraft for short flights.
• Eden Brew – developed a technology that uses precision fermentation to brew casein (dairy) proteins which are nature-identical to dairy milk.
• Gelomics – develops solutions that allow pharmaceutical companies to grow human tissue in a petri dish as an alternative to animal experiments.
• InTruth Technologies – a developer of a wearable-compatible app that tracks your emotional state in real-time. The app provides hyper-personalised AI insights, acting as a personal emotion coach and decision-making tool.
• Sustainable Salons – establishes partnerships with salons to collect and repurpose waste materials like hair, metals, plastics, and chemicals. They then transform the materials into valuable resources, such as hair booms for oil spills, soil treatments for plants, and plastic for closed-loop products.

In Sydney tonight, the five finalists will present their solutions in front of a panel of judges and industry leaders. Judges will select a winner based on the criteria: Innovation and disruption, Market potential, Customer adoption, Marketing/buzz, Long-term potential, and Quality of pitch.

Winner to represent Australia in Lisbon

The winning start-up will represent Australia as a finalist at the KPMG Global Tech Innovator final. The event will take place in November at Web Summit in Lisbon. It will see representatives from countries around the world present their innovations in front of 70,000 investors, policymakers and industry leaders.

Amanda Price, Head of KPMG High Growth Ventures, said, “Going global is an imperative and a challenge for Australia startups. We were delighted with the breadth and depth of Australian innovation we saw during the process to select these finalists. Each entry was unique and demonstrated a high level of global potential, making the selection process incredibly challenging.”

The judging panel for the competition includes:

• Josh Geelan, Partner – KPMG Enterprise
• Emerald Scofield, Investment Associate – Main Sequence
• Jerry Stesel, Co-Founder and General Partner – OIF Ventures
• Melissa Widner, CEO – Lighter Capital, and
• Chris Gillings – VC investor – Five V Capital and Founder – Cut Through Venture.

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The program combines access to the largest innovation community in Australia at Stone & Chalk with KPMG’s expertise and knowledge, offering start-ups access to strategic support to accelerate their growth.

For this cohort, the program will focus on early-stage founders building technology that enables businesses, governments, and other organisations to maximise and improve performance and productivity across all areas of their operations, enabling them to address the challenging economic climate that has put immense pressure on their productivity, business performance, and revenues.

“Most organisations are seeking to drive strategic growth, without compromising customer experience or business performance,” Karen Parkes, Partner-In-Charge for Customer and Operations Consulting at KPMG Australia, said. “Times are challenging at the moment, with relentless cost pressures, crowded competition and increasing customer expectations. Clients need a data-driven, AI-enabled way of continually enhancing performance and delivering outcomes.”

Five start-up founders and their teams will be chosen and will receive complimentary residency for 12 months at one of Stone & Chalk’s start-up hubs located in Sydney, Melbourne, or Adelaide. They will also receive guidance and support from KPMG mentors and industry leads who can facilitate client introductions and industry conversations to provide start-ups with the resources and support they need to grow.

The program is seeking applications from start-ups building technology in intelligent performance, including but not limited to solutions that drive operational excellence and business performance improvement; reinvention of service delivery and customer centricity; next-generation business transformation solutions; business intelligence, data-driven insights, and decision-making; digital twins; artificial intelligence (AI), AI workforce & agents; intelligent automation; and smart asset solutions.

Eligible businesses must be at Series A or an earlier funding stage and are already operating in Australia at the time of application, or commencing operations by 30 June 2024

Since 2022, 15 start-ups have participated in the Future Technology Program and have gained support to raise capital, enter new markets, and engage new customer segments.

“We’re excited to play a part in supporting the next generation of start-ups who will shape the future,’ Stone & Chalk Group CEO, Chris Kirk, said. “Offering early-stage start-ups the opportunity to address the most pressing challenges faced by modern businesses will be key to enabling businesses, governments and other organisations to maximise and improve performance and productivity across all areas of their operations.”

Applications will close on 26 April. Offers will be made in early June, with the program to commence in July.

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The report notes that global M&A (mergers and acquisitions) deal value declined from US$98.2 billion in 2022 to US$56.4 billion in 2023, and that global VC (venture capital) investment fell from US$88.8 billion to US$46.3 billion in the same period.

Australia reflected the global trend, experiencing a 76 per cent drop in fintech deal value in 2023 to US$587.5 million, while the deal count fell by a third to 95 transactions.

Notable Australian fintech deals tracked by the report include taxi payment platform operator A2B’s acquisition by Singapore-listed transportation firm ComfortDelGro for $109.5 million, and deferred payment loan provider Midkey raising US$50 million in early-stage venture capital. In addition, one of Australia’s leading robo-advisers, Stockspot, was acquired by Korean firm Mirae Asset Global Investments, while Rich Data Co. raised US$17.5 million and SME lender Lumi raised an additional US$15 million.

Dan Teper, Head of Fintech at KPMG Australia, said that 2023 was a challenging year for the Australian fintech ecosystem, with both total deal value and deal count experiencing a sharp decline compared to previous years.

“The local market, as with the majority of global markets, has been impacted by a number of challenges including, but not limited to, a higher inflation and corresponding higher rates environment, and a change in overall risk appetite amongst investors,” Teper said.

“Looking ahead, we expect fintech growth in Australia to continue to be modest, and with interest rates unlikely to shift materially in the near term, funding and availability of capital are likely to remain a key challenge for local players,” Teper warned.

Given the ongoing global conflicts, current high interest rates in place, and the continued lack of exits, fintech investment is expected to remain soft for the rest of the first quarter of 2024. However, as interest rates are expected to stablise, and possibly decline, investment could begin to pick up. AI and B2B solutions will likely remain big tickets for investors, and M&A activity could also start to rebound as investors more seriously look at distressed assets.

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Data from the latest KPMG Private Enterprise Venture Pulse report also reveal that the investment received by Australian start-ups in 2022 was a two per cent jump from the previous year, although only 623 Australian VC deals were made in 2022 – a decrease from 735 in 2021.

The report notes that the record figure came from multiple deals made that were valued at more than US $100 million, among them deals involving Airwallex, Immutable and Scala Pay.

“It was another record year for VC investment in Australia,” Amanda Price, Head of High Growth Ventures at KPMG, said. “Despite the economic cooldown, deal value maintained its momentum in what was a standout result in 2021, although the volume of deals has decreased. This shows that dry powder is still being deployed – what’s changing is the way it’s being invested.

“To put this into context, overall investment in Australia start-ups has leapt 194 per cent since 2019 – and has delivered year-on-year growth every year since 2014,” Price added. “As we move into 2023, VCs are increasingly looking for start-ups that are efficient, responsible with capital, and focused on revenue. When they find them, they’re willing to invest just as much as they have before, if not more.”

Australia’s VC performance has been noteworthy given that global venture capital investments fell for the fourth consecutive quarter in Q4 2022, falling from $102.2 billion on 9767 deals to $75.6 billion on 7641 deals. Global investment overall has fallen to its lowest levels since Q2 2019. That is despite the large deals in the energy sector in 2022, including alternative energy vehicles, battery technologies, and alternative power generation and distribution technologies, as governments and businesses seek to secure energy independence and meet their climate obligation.

The Americas and Asia secured the largest deals during the quarter accounting for the largest share of VC investment globally during Q4 2022. The US recorded the largest proportion of investment with Asia second,

Global venture capital investment is expected to remain subdued this year with consumer-focused businesses seeing the most strain. The IPO window, particularly in the US will likely remain closed well into 2023, with little to suggest it will reopen fully in the first half of the year. It is also expected that there will be an increasing number of down rounds and an increase in M&A activity.

“Globally, we continue to see downward pressure on valuations in early 2023, leading many companies to postpone fundraising efforts in hopes of better times ahead,” Price said. “However, these companies can only hold off so long and we anticipate an increase in down-rounds during the first half of 2023 as companies begin to exhaust cash reserves.”

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The competition, launched on 31 March 2022, aims to recognise and help ventures that accelerate positive outcomes for nature and biodiversity.

The four finalists were:

• Agronomeye – for its agri Digital Twin and “source of truth” technology to measure and optimise “natural capital”.
• AirSeed – for its tree-planting drones, machine learning and biotechnology seed pods to regenerate land at scale.
• Ecocene – for its technology toolkit (SaaS) that delivers ecological insights and intelligence to accelerate nature positive outcomes.
• ULUU – for its carbon negative and home compostable plastic alternative made from sustainably farmed seaweed.

The team from ULUU, piectured here, were announced as the overall winner, and they will receive the inaugural KPMG Nature Positive Prize of $100,000. All four finalists will also each receive access to a pool of tailored support valued at $200,000 to help scale their businesses, drawing on KPMG’s expertise in consulting, tax, and accounting services. They will also have the opportunity to feature their solutions and expand their networks with beneficial industry, business, science, knowledge, and community partners at a KPMG Nature Positive Showcase event to be held in September 2022.

“ULUU stood out because of its unique application of synthetic biology to solve a massive environmental challenge: plastic,” Andrew Yates, CEO of KPMG Australia, said. “The judging panel was impressed by the science behind ULUU, and by the team’s approach to building a carbon-negative supply chain with positive social and economic impacts.

“The challenge created tremendous interest and response,” Yates added. “The entries we received covered a wide range of nature-positive solutions and sectors, including Indigenous fire management projects, plant-based proteins, AI and blockchain eco-technologies. I would encourage those who were not successful this year to continue their work and commitment as there is no doubt every single venture has the potential to shape a nature-positive future.”

Carolin Leeshaa, KPMG Australia’s Global Leader Natural Capital & Biodiversity, and one of the judges of the KPMG Nature Positive Challenge, added, “What really stood out for us was the remarkable innovative spirit of Australian start-ups and their commitment to make it real. The KPMG Nature-Positive Challenge is a celebration of the outstanding entrepreneurship, ingenuity, and vision of all Australian ventures. The potential has only just begun to be tapped. What this also shows is that together, our actions can move us forward towards a nature-positive future.”

ULUU co-founder Dr Julia Reisser said that being awarded the KPMG Nature Positive $100,000 Prize money would make a huge positive difference to the next vital stage of development of the business.

“As a young start-up with a mission to replace plastics with materials that are good for the world, to win the KPMG Nature Positive Prize is a huge endorsement of our vision,” Dr Reisser said. “The prize money, and the advisory support from KPMG, will be instrumental in helping us hone our strategy and ensure ULUU delivers the significant environmental and social impacts we believe it can.”

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