Innovation

Helping innovative women to get venture capital on board

By Leon Gettler >>

SYDNEY THOMAS is in the business of empowering women in business.

She is an associate of Precursor Ventures, a US classic seed-stage venture capital firm investing in long-term relationships with founders. It targets companies in a pre-launch pre-marketing phase.

Ms Thomas has also been involved in the Girl Geek academy and she recently came to Melbourne to meet female entrepreneurs.

The academy is committed to getting female entrepreneurs to the next stage.

She said women have difficulties raising venture capital. 

“I think the hard part about venture capital is that it is much more an art than science,” Ms Thomas told Talking Business.

“What that means is often people will get introduced to VCs. The VCs will sometimes decide to invest based on data and sometimes based on gut – and a lot of these subjective decisions are often ruled by the sub-conscious, which is often not as thoughtful as the conscious.

“The sub-conscious can often lead to making decisions based on fear, or things we think we know best,” Ms Thomas said.

“That means a white guy can decide to invest in his friend, who is another white guy, just because he is a friend and trusts (him) – but there’s this unknown woman who is a little more scary, a little more untested and so they are less likely to invest in that woman.”

The result: only 2 percent of venture capital dollars went to women in 2018.

HIGH DEMAND FOR FEMALE VC FUNDING

Ms Thomas said there was a high demand from female entrepreneurs for venture capital, but they often do not have the networks and access to money that their male classmates and colleagues have access to.

Women are now finding greater access to venture capital through their networks with women who are already working in venture capital.

Ms Thomas, however, cautioned about relying too much on those women in venture capital.

“The change really happens when you have allies across the whole community,” she said. “Male VCs need to be accountable for investing in women just as women do.”

Ms Thomas said women of colour and ethnic women have even more difficulty raising funds.

She said black women raise less than 1 percent of all the venture dollars as they are ostracised from the groups that draw white female entrepreneurs.

This is something particularly pertinent to her, as a black woman.

“The good thing is people are starting to talk about it. Race has been a very taboo topic and we starting to acknowledge that race exists and should be addressed,” Ms Thomas said.

The key, she said, was to build networks with more diverse pipelines.

This is one of the areas that Precursor is looking into, she said, for Precursor is about “building bridges with people across the country”.

www.precursorvc.com

www.leongettler.com 

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness.

Australian invention Bluechiip safely monitors medical samples in stasis

By Leon Gettler >>

BLUECHIIP is an unusual company that has created unique and patented technology combining secure wireless sample tracking with integrated temperature reading, for use in extreme environments.

It is a technology that wirelessly tracks the identification and temperature of valuable samples, such as tissue, blood, serum and plasma, which are used in research, developing drugs, in vitro fertilisation (IVF), and viral therapies, all stored in environments such as liquid nitrogen. These materials are put into stasis and stored for a long time.

It is a unique and patented technology built into a Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) unit which works in harsh and aggressive environments of minus 196 degrees Celsius. 

Typical electronic devices and radio frequency identification (RFID) technology cannot operate at those temperatures. The technology for Bluechiip devices also survives sterilisation which is important for the tracking of such materials.

The end customer for Bluechiip would typically be IVF clinics, pharmaceutical companies and researchers – but that is a broad market – so the target markets for Bluechiip are original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners which make the consumables, such as blood bags and plastic tubes, that already have a captive market and distribution channels.

The Bluechiip tracking system in the form of MEMS, can read the samples rapidly, even through frost. It can also be moulded into any plastic.

Bluechiip devices are sterilisation resistant, including from gamma radiation. This reduces human error and increases productivity.

Bluechiip also has a multi-sample or multi-viral reader which allows users to read up to 100 samples at once. In these extreme temperatures, the micro-electro-mechanical device will read the sample where a barcode or RFID won’t work.

Without the Bluechiip micro-electro-mechanical device, the user would have to use their finger, or thaw the sample, which is a productivity issue.

IN DEMAND: US AND EUROPE

The technology was developed in Melbourne and has been patented across jurisdictions including the US and Europe and Bluechiip is moving into Asia.

Bluechiip managing director Andrew Maclellan said the company’s major market is North America which accounts for 40 percent of the global market. Europe is the next major market, which is at 30-35 percent. The company is also moving into Japan and China. 

Mr Maclellan said major customers include vial manufacturer Labcon North America, which manufactures 1.5 billion consumables a year for the life sciences sector.

He said while there were a number of other industries Bluechiip could target, such as food production, it was now focusing on the bio-preservation market.

“We know there are a number of associated industries we can enter but for us it’s about securing our target market, we maintain a strong focus,” Mr Maclellan said.

“When we’re talking about 300 million-plus samples going into store, and for us each of the chips that we place in there is best to think around $1, so we value our market at around $200 million.

“So if we can penetrate that bio-preservation market and get a good share there, we can run into the delivery of tens of millions of chips a year into that market place – we have a good launching pad to enter into adjacent market places.”

And as he pointed out, Bluechiip is the only company that can identify the sample in those harsh environments.

“There is no other technology that can do what we do,” Mr Maclellan said.

www.bluechiip.com

www.leongettler.com 

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness.  

Hydra Light power – just add water

By Leon Gettler >>

IMAGINE if you could power lights with a battery that generates its own power when activated by dipping it in water.

Hydra Light’s products are aimed at reducing the waste associated with single-use batteries and raising awareness of alternative energy solutions.

Hydra Light has developed technology that can harness the electrons liberated from a magnesium anode, when immersed in water, into a useable direct current (DC) power. The Hydra Light system is a revolutionary technology that creates power using a chemical reaction between metal and water.

All you need to make it work is water and air. 

The HydraCell uses this reaction to efficiently capture electrons released during this process, with the water acting as a catalyst to create this reaction once it comes into contact with the HydraCell.

HydraLight CEO Gerry Comninos said the company’s technology had been patented around the world and it was now in the process of commercialising the product.

“At the moment we have got a range of products that we can use the fuel cell in. So lanterns, lights, torches and power devices which would charge mobile phones,” Mr Comninos told Talking Business.

He said it could also be used on laptops and even miners’ hats.

 

SELF-GENERATING POWER

As opposed to a traditional battery, the HydraCell generates its own power.

And unlike a normal a single HydraCell, would have 250 hours of use. If you left a torch on for eight hours, the batteries would be used up. The HydraCell life would be the equivalent of about 30 AA batteries.

Mr Comninos said the HyrdraCell is recyclable and they are working on one that is biodegradable.

He said it is perfect for communities off the grid or remote communities.

As a result, there is a growing demand for the HydraCell in the Third World.

There is also a big market for the product in the US, among with the survivalists.

He said statistics show there are 1.3 billion people around the world who do not have electricity or who have intermittent electricity

“They are dependent on candles which are dangerous and start fires, kerosene lamps which give off poisonous gases and/or batteries – so we are a cheap alternative,” Mr Comninos said.

He said while the company was based in Melbourne, it had a research team in the Philippines and a contract manufacturing factory in China.

It also had a presence in Canada and the USA and was looking to open an office in London. 

www.hydralight.com.au

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

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How to make activity-based working drive your culture of innovation

By Peter Marix-Evans >>

ACTIVITY-BASED working (ABW) has moved from workplace experiment to corporate standard in just a few years. But if you’re looking around your office and wondering why the shift hasn’t delivered on its promise – it might be because you’re doing it wrong.

Research found nearly two-third of companies plan to adopt a shared-desk workplace strategy by 2020, an increase of 30 percent. In addition to saving space and reducing commercial overheads, businesses are looking to transform their culture with a new way of working.

By its very nature, ABW is a design-led approach, allocating different types of spaces to suit business need. For example, if collaboration is a key aspect of your commercial success, dedicating spaces for people to come together makes sense.

It’s also driven by the need for greater innovation in the face of increasingly global and digital competition. ABW sets out to foster better collaboration and harness diversity of thought, increasing the likelihood of finding innovative solutions to business problems. 

Sounds great, right? But when it fails, ABW becomes a major source of frustration for employees, hindering their ability to get work done and, at worst, giving them a reason to leave.

A growing number of studies and horror stories are shedding light on the impact of getting an ABW strategy wrong.

If you’re implementing an ABW strategy or have one in place already, how do you ensure yours is a catalyst for transformation and not a reason for your staff to leave?

SURE YOU’RE NOT HOT DESKING?

One common issue is that businesses with ABW plans end up hot-desking instead. One is based on design principles to improve working conditions; the other is focused on using real estate more effectively. 

ABW is about creating a workspace to suit the type of work activity. For some people this could be collaboration spaces, for others it’s about regular access to a computer with multiple screens.

Hot-desking and ABW are not mutually exclusive – it makes sense for some staff to swap desks based on the activity they’re currently working on.

But it becomes a problem when all staff are expected to adopt a hot-desking approach, regardless of whether it makes sense for their work. Rather than motivating your employees, this often has the opposite effect.

Ensuring you’re not forcing employees to move around your office for the sake of it is key to a successful ABW strategy.

DO STAFF HAVE A CHOICE FOR WORKSPACE?

Your staff are not a homogenous group. While some thrive in noisy, vibrant workspaces, others are happiest with a desk of their own in a quiet area of the office.

Ensuring the flexibility for staff to work in a way that best suits them is critically important.

This means having a workspace designed specifically for the type of activities your staff requires, including collaboration spaces, breakout rooms, quiet areas and relaxation stations. Ensuring people have a choice about where they’re working has a big boost on productivity.

With technology providing us the tools to work from anywhere, staff don’t always need to commute to the office to get things done either.

Providing the flexibility to work from home, the café or the local park is good for productivity and will also help with staff retention.

IS CULTURE AN ENABLING FORCE FOR ABW?

ABW is not only a driver of culture – it’s impacted by it too. There’s no point in having a fantastic setup for a raft of different working styles only for your staff to be too scared to use them. 

This is where culture is key. Business that are focused on output rather than presence have a far greater chance of successfully implementing an ABW office.

The right culture allows people to work in a way that suits their activity and their personality. A constructive culture is key to any workplace transformation and ABW is no exception.

When done well, ABW is a fantastic driver of business culture. It boosts productivity, improves collaboration and drives a more innovative approach to business problems.

But it only works if it’s designed to add value, rather than to cut costs.

This means ensuring it’s designed and built to meet the needs of your staff.

www.shapegroup.com.au

 

Peter Marix-Evans is the CEO at SHAPE Australia, a commercial fitout and refurbishment specialist known for its innovation, needs interpretation, and delivery of large-scale projects that require Australia-wide resources.

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Clever sensors increase bridges’ span

THE Story Bridge is 78 years old. Sydney Harbour Bridge is hitting 95. Australian bridges are designed for a life span of 100 years. Thankfully a clever group of structural engineers are on the case.

“The designers of these bridges allowed for the growth of traffic and load consideration, so safety factors for material strength were built into bridges like the Story and Sydney Harbour bridges,” QUT civil engineering professor Tommy Chan said.

“The Sydney Harbour Bridge is being fitted with 2400 sensors to monitor its structural health. 

“While this bridge has had regular maintenance, strengthening and tests to ensure it is safe, the use of sensors to detect damage caused by traffic, wind, temperature, vibration and extreme events add an extra level of safety by alerting asset owners to timely maintenance.

“Some defects or damage may not be detected using visual inspection only and a sensor system can let us know whether the structure is performing as expected,” he said.

Prof. Chan said the latest Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) technologies provided 24/7 monitoring of large structures and alerted asset owners when some part of the structure needed attention.

“SHM technologies add extra safety measures beyond the traditional method of routine scheduled, visual checks,” he said.

“Using SHM we can determine when structures need a retrofit, rehabilitation and strengthening.

“This is why the Australian Network of Structural Health Monitoring (ANSHM) is promoting SHM systems to be implemented to existing structures and built into new structures.”

“SHM uses various sensing devices and ancillary systems to monitor the in-situ behaviour of a structure to assess and evaluate its condition,” Prof. Chan said.

“We have developed extra SHM technologies to detect, locate, and assess the severity of damage and deterioration in not only bridges and but also buildings, dams and towers. 

“Spending 1-5 per cent of the construction cost of a structure on installing SHM during the build, can provide minimum to comprehensive levels to monitor structures for timely maintenance.

“It is an effective way to detect structural problems and also predict the remaining life of structures.

“Vibration-based damage detection uses accelerometers to identify the dynamic characteristics of bridges, such as frequencies and mode shapes,” Prof. Chan said.

“On suspension bridges we use anemometers to monitor wind speed and direction because there is a lot of aerodynamic interaction between wind, structure and traffic.

“We measure the traffic load and the bridge’s responses to know whether it is performing according to the design assumptions – the system gives an alert if it is not performing properly.

“With a concrete bridge, for example, we need to know the temperature inside the concrete as well as the outside in order to estimate any developing thermal stresses because if a structure needs to expand and it is stopped from expanding it adds stresses to the structure.”

Prof. Chan said bridges deteriorated at different rates depending upon bridge design and materials used.

“This means different SHM systems for different levels of monitoring need to be considered and implemented,” he said.

“The latest SHM technologies could help to determine what needs to be replaced, retrofitted, or rehabilitated.”

Prof. Chan said his ARC-funded research project on the development of prestressed concrete bridges using moving force identification would have been applicable in testing the Morandi Bridge in Genoa that recently collapsed.

“This bridge was the first modern prestressed, concrete cable-stayed bridge. The project developed three different methods to identify prestress force of existing bridges which will be useful to evaluate the loading capacity of existing prestressed concrete bridges.”

Prof. Chan and professor David Thambiratnam, together with other SHM experts in Australia established the Australian Network of Structural Health Monitoring (ANSHM) in 2009 at QUT to promote SHM technologies and raise general community awareness on its need and its value. Prof. Chan remains ANSHM founding president.

www.qut.edu.au

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‘Downward-looking telescope’ to unlock Australia’s mineral wealth

THE Australian Academy of Science is proposing the development of a new ‘downward-looking telescope’ that could look at least 300km beneath the Earth’s surface to unlock Australia’s hidden mineral wealth.

The proposal is one of several in a 10-year plan for Australian Geoscience (2018-27) launched by the Academy’s National Committee for Earth Sciences.

The 10-year plan highlights how the world’s shift towards mobile device technology, renewable energy sources and electric cars will involve massive increases in demand for copper, cobalt, gold, rare-earth elements and other specialty metals.

The committee’s chair, Professor Sue O’Reilly, said one of the challenges for Australian geoscience in the coming decade is to ensure the right infrastructure was in place to know how and where to explore for the critical resources needed for Australia’s future.

“This is where the downward-looking telescope comes in,” Prof. O’Reilly said. 

“A piece of infrastructure like this would transform our minerals sector by making deep Australia visible. It would give us a new understanding of the vertical makeup of the continent and allow us to direct our mineral exploration efforts in the two-thirds of Australia that aren’t currently cost-effective to explore.

“By 2030 global demand for cobalt will be 47 times what it was in 2016 so, unless we can become self-sufficient in this strategic metal, Australia may be held to ransom with massive price increases and chronic shortages,” Prof. O’Reilly said.

“This exemplifies the need to generate new geoscience knowledge that will allow us to explore successfully in the covered areas of Australia.”

The plan also draws attention to the weakness in geoscience in Australia’s education system.

“Geoscience is largely absent in Australia’s school system because of a lack of teachers with qualifications in geoscience. Geoscience should be embedded as a core subject within every level of Australian STEM education and earth science graduates should be incentivised to obtain education qualifications,” Professor O’Reilly said.

The Australian Geoscience plan also calls for an expansion of Australia’s national computational capability to ensure that Australia retains and extends its lead in geoscience simulation and modelling capability.  

The National Committee for Earth Sciences has been supported in the development of this plan by the Australian Research Council, Geoscience Australia, the University of Melbourne, the University of Queensland, Macquarie University and the Australian Geoscience Council.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) estimates that within two decades 16 percent of cars – about 282 million – will be electric, which equates to about 2.8 million tonnes of cobalt.

Set against a current global annual production of cobalt of only about 100,000 tonnes – and Australia’s annual production is around 6,400 tonnes – the world will not be able to move en masse to electric cars without an enormous increase in finding and producing cobalt. Currently, 63 percent of the world’s cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and its market share is currently set to rise to 73 percent by 2025.

BNEF has estimated that by 2030 global demand for cobalt will be 47 times the demand in 2016. Unless Australia can become self-sufficient in this strategic metal, the country will be held to ransom with massive price increases and chronic shortages.

www.science.org.au 

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Westpac’s new division funds ‘clean and connected’ scale-ups

CLEAN and connected businesses are paving the way for Australia’s future economic growth – revealed in a new report from Westpac – and as a result the bank has launched a new division to help fund leading ‘scale-up’ companies.

Westpac’s Smart Industry Report on Emerging Industries identifies significant changes required to support a new breed of Australian businesses that are transforming traditional industries.

According to the report, one major challenge hindering innovation and Australia’s growth is the maturity of its capital market.

Westpac’s national head of emerging industries, Reeta Dhar said Westpac recognised these pioneering start-up and scale-up businesses struggle to scale without financial backing. She said Westpac has committed to filling a gap in the market “through a holistic banking service that can help set businesses up for success”. 

“Westpac wants to back the businesses that are backing Australia, which is why we are the first bank in Australia to set up a network of specialist bankers dedicated to emerging industries, and a risk appetite to provide debt funding to scale-up businesses,” Ms Dhar said.

Westpac’s report has identified it is the current wave of technology innovators who are ‘driving the transition to a digital and low carbon economy that provide the transformative potential Australia requires to prosper over the next decade’.

“We are committed to understanding the strategies, technologies and business models of these transformative companies and are unlocking a range of services that allow them to extend their operating runway, including access to debt,” Ms Dhar said.

Unlike the US, which offers a broad range of financial lending instruments to start-ups, access to debt funding for entrepreneurs in Australia has traditionally been challenging. Regulation and government are also impacting the digital and low-carbon sectors capabilities to accelerate growth, the report found.

In addition, Ms Dhar said, the report showed Australia needed to lift its game when it came to equipping people with skills relevant to the job market in 2030.

BANKING ON SCALE-UPS

Ms Dhar said Westpac had spent the last two years innovating core banking services so the bank could continue to aid the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Automotive technology start-up SEA Electric has been working with Westpac’s new Emerging Industries division to support the expansion of its Australian and international operations.

SEA Electric founder Tony Fairweather said access to trade finance had been the biggest challenge until now, but the next hurdle is incentivising customers to create demand for the business to be able to scale in the future.

“Australia is lagging behind in terms of supporting the electronic vehicle revolution,” Mr Fairweather said.

“We can learn from countries like the UK, US and New Zealand, which offer support and incentives such as rebates, registration eliminations, free tolls and special parking in cities, to transition people across the electric vehicle threshold early on,” he said.

The report concluded that while the transformation to a clean and connected economy in Australia is still in its early days, there is a multitude of positive indicators for the future.

Ms Dhar said, “Change and transformation can be confronting, but it is an exciting development which we are dedicated to supporting.

“Although it is a while away, and hurdles remain, there is still time for every part of the economy to not only adapt but participate in the opportunities that this will open up.

“All of us have a role to play in nurturing those businesses and industries that will fuel Australia’s future prosperity and Westpac is committed to playing its role to help emerging businesses meet their full potential.”

www.westpac.com.au/business-banking/industries/emerging-industries

The Smart Industry Report: Emerging Industries download: www.westpac.com.au/content/dam/public/wbc/documents/pdf/bb/Emerging-Industries-Smart-Industry-Report.pdf

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