SYDNEY
Aug 10
12:30PM – 6PM
12-Micron
Tower 1, Level 2/100 Barangaroo Ave,
Barangaroo NSW
MELBOURNE
Aug 16
12:30PM – 6PM
Metropolis
3 Southgate Ave,
Southbank VIC
SmartCompany, in partnership with AWS, are launching Scale Up: Growing your startup beyond a seed – a new event to help innovators accelerate their startup into the next phase of growth.
Designed for startups from any industry who have had one or two rounds of funding, Scale Up is an in-person event exploring the current state of play for startups, uncovering what VC’s and investors are really looking for, and sharing the secret ingredients for successfully scaling a business.
Hosted in Sydney on August 10 and Melbourne on August 16, each event presents a full day of keynote sessions, panel discussions and fireside chats with Australian founders, VC’s and investors.
Hear stories from an expert panel of SME leaders about how they scaled their startup, network with your peers and learn tactics you can leverage to drive your business into the next stage of growth.
Agenda
12:30PM Delegate arrival and registration
1:00PM Opening
1:10PM AWS keynote
1:55PM Fireside chat
2:40PM Afternoon tea break
3:10PM VC panel session
3:55PM Startup panel session
4:40PM Closing & drinks reception
6:00PM Event end
Host
Rae Johnston
Multi-award-winning STEM journalist and broadcaster
Event MC in Sydney & Melbourne
A multi-award-winning STEM journalist and broadcaster, Rae was the first Science & Technology Editor for NITV at SBS, and her work appears across television, radio, podcasts and online. Rae is also the producer and host of top-rated podcasts Queens of the Drone Age, STREAM with Rae Johnston and Hear+Beyond, Look At Me and Harmful. Rae is currently serving as Governor in Council for Swinburne University of Technology. Rae is a proud Wiradjuri woman.
AWS Keynote
WHY CULTURE IS KEY TO STARTUP SUCCESS
Nikita Le Messurier
AWS Startup Advisor
AWS
Keynote in Melbourne
Nikita is a Startup Advisor at AWS, Airtree Explorer and passionate angel investor assisting Australian startups, with a particular interest in supporting female founded, deep tech and AI startups. Prior to AWS, Nikita worked for WIRED Magazine’s Future Thinking consultancy and AI Cyber Security startup, Darktrace. In her spare time, Nikita is an avid Art Collector.
Wayne Clarke
AWS Startup Advisor
AWS
Keynote in Sydney
Wayne leads the startup account team at Amazon Web Services (AWS) where they assist 1000's of startups across Australia and New Zealand to scale their business. With 20+ years of experience in the IT space, his early career was focused on technical roles and a software distribution venture, then he progressed into software solution sales roles across enterprise and public sector customers. Wayne gained invaluable experience with the likes of Skillsoft, CA Technologies and Microsoft before transitioning to startups where he managed enterprise customers for Replicon and Deputy.
Fireside Chat Session
UNLIMITED HORIZONS: AUSSIE STARS GOING GLOBAL
What does it take to accelerate your startup towards global domination after finding product-market fit locally? How do you know you are ready to scale? How do you “think bigger?” What marketing strategies should you deploy? What people and processes do you need in place? In these fireside chats we go deep with the leaders of two of Australia’s most successful startups.
Employment Hero co-founder Ben Thompson will discuss the steps the HR, payroll and benefits platform has taken to reach the much coveted billion dollar “unicorn” valuation, the importance of acquisitions to growth, and how to assess and then go after the total addressable market for a company with global ambitions.
July co-founder Athan Didaskalou will share battle stars from the turbulent first few years of his rapidly expanding luggage brand July, which has bounced back from COVID border closures to soar internationally, with stores recently opening in Hong Kong and Shanghai, and openings in the pipeline for London and beyond.
Simon Crerar
Editor-in-Chief
SmartCo Media
Moderating in Sydney & Melbourne
Simon Crerar is editor-in-chief of SmartCo Media. Previously, he was the founding editor and then GM of BuzzFeed Australia. He began his career on Fleet Street as a tech reporter for The Times, and has also worked for the Sydney Morning Herald and News Corp Australia. He is co-founder of *PS Media, a collaborative local news startup.
Athan Didaskalou
Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer
July
Speaking in Melbourne
A leading regular commentator on consumer trends, business strategy and innovation, Athan Didaskalou is an Australian entrepreneur and the co-founder of leading travel brand, July. Athan co-founded July in 2019 with Richard Li to create a brand that people have an affinity with at every consumer touchpoint. July cases are regularly seen on the arms of personalities like Chrissy Teigen, Celeste Barber and Harry Styles and have been featured in Vogue, Rolling Stone and marie claire, as well as being the official luggage partner of the Olympics and Commonwealth Games.
Ben Thompson
Co-Founder & CEO
Employment Hero
Speaking in Sydney
Employment lawyer of 20 years, Ben Thompson, founded Employment Hero alongside Dave Tong in 2014. Since day one, both have been inspired to lift employment to new heights. After working with businesses across the globe, Employment Hero saw firsthand how much employees needed a tool designed to fight the rising cost of living, gain control over their finances, and make work more rewarding.
VC Panel Session
A session of leading VC and Investors discussing the current state of play for startups. In this session, we will learn what investors are looking for at the moment.
This session will discuss the impacts felt by scaling start ups due to economic headwinds, the importance of understanding the addressable market and why failure can be a good thing.
From the micro (getting your pitch decks right) to the macro (can your vision scale to 10 or 100 bigger) we will learn the tactics on how best to capital raise to take your business to the next stage of growth.
Jodie Imam
Co-Founder & Co-CEO
Tractor Ventures
Panel in Melbourne
Jodie is passionate about helping businesses start and grow. Currently the Cofounder and Co-CEO at Tractor Ventures, a Fintech company that exists to help founders unlock possibilities! Jodie set up the Innovation Bay community in Melbourne, and is an advisor to multiple startups and mentor at Startmate. Previously, she co-founded two-sided marketplace, Occasional Butler, which was acquired by rival Airtasker and depo8 coworking. Prior to this she spent nine years as the General Manager for Australian fashion designer Leona Edmiston, Account Manager for Ericsson Australia and also for NCR Corporation in both Sydney and London.
Ben Armstrong
Managing Partner
Archangel Ventures
Panel in Melbourne
Ben is the managing partner of Archangel Ventures, one of the most active pre-seed and seed venture capital firms that has funded 50 companies and backed over 100 founders. Prior to Archangel, Ben was an angel investor and an investor at Telstra Ventures. Ben has made over 200 early-stage investments and has over a dozen exits in companies in Australia and the US.
Laura Faulconer
Portfolio Director
x15ventures
Panel in Sydney
As Portfolio Director, Laura leads a team responsible for growing and maturing the x15 portfolio, providing strategic support to help scale existing ventures, and scouting for new and emerging opportunities. Laura joined x15 from global early-stage VC firm, Antler, where she led the Portfolio function, as well as HealthTech and DeepTech investments.
She was previously Investment Manager at New Zealand’s DeepTech VC fund, WNT Ventures; cofounded The Actuator, Australia's first national MedTech accelerator; and designed and launched The Generator , the flagship entrepreneurship program at Melbourne’s Monash University, where she was also an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Science. She holds a PhD in biomedical engineering from the University of North Carolina.
Jackie Vullinghs
Partner
Airtree
Panel in Sydney
Jackie is a Partner at AirTree Ventures, a venture capital fund based in Sydney. Prior to AirTree, invested in Fintech at NAB Ventures, and was a VP in Equity Derivatives at Merrill Lynch in London.
Ben Grabiner
General Partner
Side Stage Ventures
Panel in Sydney
Ben is a General Partner & Co-Founder at Side Stage Ventures backing Australia's most ambitious entrepreneurs. Ben was previously a Co-Founder of Platoon, a platform for emerging creative talent that was acquired by Apple in 2018. Prior to that, Ben was the first employee at leading UK-based venture fund, LocalGlobe. When not helping founders create and scale transformative companies, Ben can usually be found chasing his two toddlers around the park.
Sarah Gibbins
Head of Experience
Rampersand
Panel in Melbourne
Throughout her career, Sarah has worked in complex environments with ambitious founders. Across the globe, Sarah has worked in brand, marketing, product development roles for large corporates, startups and a family office. As Head of Experience at Rampersand, Sarah is responsible the end-to-end experience of the founders they back, and the investors who support them. Sarah's speciality is identifying market opportunities and addressing organisational challenges to scale brands and products.
Startup Panel Session
A session where we learn from those who have successfully launched and scaled in Australia. Learn:
- How they pitched, to who and how many times
- Their first 5 hires – who were they and what did they do to grow the business?
- How each of them uncovered the addressable market of their product service
Ash Brown
Founder & CEO
Empiraa
Panel in Melbourne
Ash Brown, a former leader with 15 years of experience in SME management. Frustrated with the disconnect between business planning and execution, Ash created a solution to help businesses align their plans in a simple and effective way. With a strong belief that work should feel good, Ash is committed to making business simpler.
Barb Hyman
Founder & CEO
Sapia AI
Panel in Melbourne
Barb Hyman is the CEO and founder of Sapia.ai. Barb founded the business because she wanted to humanize what had become a torturous process: Getting a job, and deciding who to hire. Barb is passionate about elevating every HR touchpoint into an experience, with smart chat at the centre of every people process. Hyman brings to Sapia.ai more than 30 years' experience as a HR leader and solicitor. Barb has led Sapia.ai to become one of the most trusted mobile-first smart hiring automation platforms, used by ASX and FTSE-listed companies including Woolworths, Qantas, AirCanada, Holland & Barrett, and EnergyAustralia.
Dr. Dean Freestone
Co-Founder & CEO
Seer Medical
Panel in Melbourne
Dr Dean Freestone is the CEO and co-founder of Seer – a pioneering medical technology company making healthcare more equitable, scalable and accessible through home clinical monitoring. With a current specialisation in epilepsy, Seer is reimagining how and where people undergo long-term brain and heart monitoring for faster paths to diagnoses and better patient outcomes. Dean has devoted his career to neural engineering, beginning with a PhD at the University of Melbourne on ‘Seizure Forecasting and Reverse Engineering the Brain’. As a Fulbright Scholar, Dean studied in the Neural Statistics Lab at Columbia University in New York, and since then, his research has continued to explore ways in data science and machine learning can be combined with engineering methods to advance understanding and treatment of epilepsy.
Rory San Miguel
Co-Founder & CEO
Propeller Aero
Panel in Sydney
A passionate advocate for robotics, Rory is the co-founder and CEO of Propeller Aero, a drone mapping and analytics company which helps construction sites map, measure and manage their worksites. Today, the company marks its 9th year, employs more than global 210 staff, and it’s products are used by more than 15,000 worksites every month. His journey with drone technology began during his mechatronics engineering degree at UNSW, where because of Propeller’s growth he earned the prestigious title of Entrepreneur of the Year in 2016.
Adam Grocke
Founder & CEO
Sherlok
Panel in Sydney
Award winning mortgage broker turned fintech entrepreneur Adam Grocke is the founder and CEO of Fintech startup Sherlok, Australia’s first automated repricing and refinancing tool for mortgage brokers. After over 12 years as a mortgage broker (and winner of awards like Broker of the Year and Top 30 Brokers Under 30 in Australia), he was sick and tired of banks offering better interest rates to new mortgage customers while existing customers were being charged a ‘loyalty tax’ (a higher interest rate the longer they’re with the bank). So he came up with a solution: Sherlok, an AI platform that analysis brokers customer data to predict churn then automatically lower their home loan interest rate save them money and their now launching instant refinancing to switch lenders.
Danielle Owen Whitford
Founder & CEO
Pioneera
Panel in Sydney
Danielle, a former corporate executive, founded start-up Pioneera in 2018 to improve our mental health by tackling the crippling issue of workplace burnout and improve positive productivity. Pioneera’s world-first solution uses artificial intelligence informed by evidence-based psychology, to identify signs of burnout and provide tech-assisted early intervention. Ahead of its time, Pioneera is now the only product in the market that can provide real-time mental health data to meet new safety regulations and ESG reporting requirements and is gaining strong interest across both large and small Australian businesses. Danielle has raised capital and accessed both federal and state government grants to help grow her business.
