Australia’s brightest MedTech entrepreneurs battled it out at last night’s National MedTech’s Got Talent National Finals in Melbourne. The top five teams secured $10,000 non-dilutive, stage-gated funding to kickstart their MedTech startup towards product-market fit and investor readiness. These teams will participate in an intensive 6-week accelerator program, with the most investible team taking out the competition, and receiving an additional $30,000.
Melbourne, Australia. Friday 30th November, 2018. STC Australia, The Actuator and MedTech’s Got Talent (MTGT) announce their 2018 top five emerging MedTech companies to watch, selected at the national awards ceremony in Melbourne last night. These teams secured $10,000, stage-gated, non-dilutive funding to accelerate their path to product-market fit and investor readiness.
The 14 semi-finalists had three minutes each to pitch their business concept to the judging panel of industry executives, investors and sector influencers, who then debated and selected five finalists against criteria including innovation, market, pathway, sustainability and soft skills.
The 2018 MedTech’s Got Talent finalists are:
NanoMSlide – instant unambiguous cellular diagnosis – Associate Professor Brian Abbey, Dr. Eugeniu Balaur, Dr. Caroline Bathje and Dr. Belinda Parker – mentored by Hydrix
Lateroll – complete patient transfer system – Simone Saville, Dr. Cameron Keating, Jane Chen, Sidonie Matthew and Garrick Liu – mentored by The Actuator
TalkiPlay – harnessing technology to explore language in a child’s real-world to accelerate their development – Annie McAuley – mentored by IDE
Ventora – real time monitoring of pressure delivered to lungs in neonatal intensive care – Edward Buijs, Lorinda Hartley, Amy Yu, Seetal Erramilli and Alan Haszard – mentored by Design + Industry
Enlighten Imaging – transforming the way in which Alzheimer’s disease is detected – Dr. Lauren Giorgio Peter van Wijngaarden, Xavier Hadoux & Professor Darren Kelly – mentored by Vestech
The $1,000 people’s choice award for the night was taken out by Horizen – mentored by Procept, who are developing a device for the prediction of agitation in dementia patients.
Each of these five teams will now begin an intensive six-week training program focused on the most critical issues for MedTech startups, such as clinical need validation, regulatory strategy, intellectual property protection, and reimbursement. The program will conclude in March 2018 with an Investor Deal Pitch where the overall ‘most investable team’ will then receive an additional stage-gated $30,000 with no impact on equity or IP.
This program is not possible without the entire ecosystem coming together to support the emerging talent and promising ideas of the future. This includes: STC Australia; The Victorian State Government, The Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport & Resources; The Federal Government, The Department of Industry, Innovation & Science; Artesian; EY; Johnson & Johnson; Medtronic; Cook Medical; Baker; Burnet Institute; Macquarie University; Swinburne University; The University of Melbourne; LaTrobe University; Vestech; K&L Gates; Ingenuity Product Design; IDE; Planet Innovation; Hydrix; Design + Industry; Procept; MiniFAB; Microsoft; Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute; The Social Science; Cogentum; ResMed; The Medical Technology Association of Australia; BioMelbourne Network; Brandwood Biomedical; Truly Deeply; Grant Ready & Grant Guru; F2F Communications; IQVIA; Australian Healthcare Solutions; Accelerating Australia, supported by MTPConnect; and The Healthy Organisation.
“The Australian Government continues to support the commercialisation of our brilliant ideas in the medtech sector. This will not only create highly valued and resilient jobs of the future, but also contribute to fulfil our ambition to become the healthiest nation on Earth,” said Director of Accelerating Commercialisation Larry Lopez.
About The Actuator
The first of its kind, The Actuator is a deeply collaborative national program that gives promising early-stage medical technology companies an accelerated pathway to $2.7 million of funding, capitalising on Australia’s strengths in medical research, healthcare, clinical trials and advanced manufacturing.
