Pitch at Palace reflections

What a gigantic fortnight it has been!

Exodus Space Systems has been busy selling our idea of a street sweeper for space in a variety of different forums, and meeting some absolutely amazing people along the way.  The most high profile of these was the Pitch at Palace pitching competition, run by a magnificent worldwide organisation which was set up by his royal highness Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, in 2014.  The 2019 Australian final was hosted at Perth’s government house by WA Governor Kim Beazley.

If you’ve been reading our previous entries you’ll know that in the last week of August we pitched in the WA state final of Pitch at Palace, and as a result were selected to participate in the Australian national final on October 4th – also in Perth.  At the time, we thought we were one of the 8 WA companies selected to be amongst the 42 Australian finalists, but as it turned out, there were 13 WA companies in the final!  This was because of the wildcard system, as well as several WA companies flying interstate to qualify through other state finals.  Even though it’s a long list, I do want to acknowledge each of them individually because it was the amazing people behind these companies that made the experience what it was, and I think it’s important to acknowledge the increasingly thriving entrepreneurial scene in Perth.

First among the WA companies was eventual global finalist Orthocell, which has done some amazing work in nerve regeneration.  DiGii is social media for year 5-6 students with AI moderation to address bullying and other forms of abuse.  Noisy Guts uses a special belt sensor to non-invasively detect irritable bowel syndrome and other gut conditions.  Quipmo is recreational equipment for the moment: an online rental marketplace for travelling fun-seekers.  The Volte is a high fashion online rental marketplace that helps reduce clothing waste.  Jugglr is an online jobs platform to help new mums get back into the workforce.  Kinchip Systems improves health outcomes with better medical data management.  Assisting Your Life to Achieve (AYLA) Inc‘s “You Matter” boxes make possible the 24/7 assistance of homeless and disadvantaged people.  The Difference rounds up your electronic purchases to the nearest dollar so you can contribute “spare change” to charities of your choice.  Virtual CSI is using virtual reality as a tertiary teaching tool for crime scene investigation, MARKR Systems allows easily updatable and translatable augmented reality signage at events, and Gelavo saves food wastage by turning ugly avocados (and other fruit rejected for cosmetic reasons) into a healthy snack.

And THAT was just the WA cohort.  The two other global finalists came from interstate with powerful stories, and these were Soldier.ly who use technology to detect stress and anxiety in returning veterans, and Xceptional, who have an online jobs platform for people on the Autism Spectrum.  Additional companies from interstate who really made a strong impression on us included Augmented Bionics, who are building a non-invasive alternative to the cochlear implant.  Capricorn Power have developed a new way to convert waste heat to energy, potentially having a massive impact on climate change mitigation efforts.  Cynch helps small businesses deal with cybersecurity issues through customised programs.  Ecoblends Australia is working on a beautifully simple concept of colour-changing toilet paper to detect a number of gut-based cancers and other conditions.  Farmwall uses the power of aquaponics to bring healthy snacks into the office.  GoAct has some potentially game-changing technology for using the biomarkers found in a simple blood test to diagnose mental illness.  GoNap is a boon for parents of young children with an eco-friendly and very portable nappy kit.  HackHunter has some nifty tech to help offices secure their wifi networks by detecting malicious devices.  Kognat uses very impressive deep learning techniques to automate video editing processes.  SensaWeb has a realtime environmental radiation monitoring solution for workplaces where radiation sources are in common use.  Tendril Care is a platform for aged care service which aims to solve the more inefficient aspects of that industry, and Wheel Alert Technologies has a simple sensor for realtime monitoring of truck brake condition which will save lives and money.

The entire event was streamed live on YouTube, and you can watch it here (Exodus is on stage at 1:40:40):

We’d like to repeat our congratulations to the three companies who made it to the global finals in London, and especially would like to thank all the organisers at Pitch at Palace, as well as staff at Murdoch University for making this a well-run and an incredibly valuable event.  At least two outcomes from Pitch at Palace have resulted (in the week since Pitch at Palace) in new conversations with – and pitches to – potential investors.  Also, as we requested in our ask, we’ve now begun conversations with corporations who have both the ability and interest to help commercialise the technologies we are developing.  Hopefully more to come on this soon!

Lastly, it was a pleasure to be invited to speak at UWA on Wednesday, 9th of October for the Australian Institute of Physics (WA) quarterly meeting.  Being able to speak for one hour (rather than the 3 minutes or 30 seconds at Pitch at Palace) was quite a different kind of presentation, and it meant being able to do a deep dive into Exodus’ technical plans with a number of scientists present, which led to some very good audience questions! One unexpected result from this is that we’ve had a request to speak to some school kids about the exciting things that can happen when you study STEM subjects, which is something we’re definitely open to doing more.  If you want to know more about this, or want to hear more about why Exodus would be a great company to invest in or sponsor, please get in touch!