Startup 360

Nicole Gibson is a remarkable founder who thinks deeply about what it means to be human in the world of tech. The CEO of inTruth Technologies, the world’s first emotion bio-tech, is a very special guest on Startup 360 this week, sharing her journey from teenage student struggling with serious health issues and the profound impact one educator had on her life, to how she hopes we can all be better...

Startup 360 cohost Majella Campbell is making her own news, with the Fishburners CEO releasing a manifesto on new ways of nurturing early-stage startups. It comes as Fishburners prepares to move out of the Sydney Startup Hub after seven years, as the NSW government shuts it down. This week's guests are Paloma Newton, cofounder of Elita, a pet genetics and stem cell therapy startup; and Aakash Gupt...

Everyone knows the startup-founded-in-a-garage origin story, but Kinde cofounder David Berner can top that. He was in a caravan travelling in outback NSW with his family, with his two cofounders in Sydney, when they built their developer platform, which takes care of "the boring but essential stuff" to help founders move faster. Kinde in a rare-breed, with two technical cofounders, and Dave advent...

Happy horse's birthday! The way the cofounders of podcasting community engagement startup Dome met is positively old-school in an era of swiping left and right. Sophie Greiner and Bella Filacuridi met at an International Women's Day event in Sydney, and the mutual love for the pop culture podcast Shameless launched their friendship. Six months later, their idea for Dome became the Australian entry...

Usually the one doing the reporting, Startup Daily and its parent company Pinstripe Media is in the spotlight this week, having been acquired by SmartCompany’s Private Media. AJ Koch fills in for Simon to share how it came together.  We also keep the celebratory theme going with two phenomenal guests behind some significant raises from the past week.  Chris Wirasinha is the founder of Linkby, the...

Kish Modi had a rule with friends and family once he was out of intensive care and began his treatment for leukaemia: no crying when they came to visit. His mum , a 157cm (5' 2") powerhouse, laid down the law to everyone who came to visit Kish in hospital. "She's like, no tears, zero emotion, rational conversation only positive thoughts only. No one's allowed to cry in front of Kish," he recalls o...

Aubrey Blanche has been part of building culture at two great Australian tech companies, Atlassian and Culture Amp. The self-confessed "proudly woke" data nerd, who believes that bringing empathy to the numbers is vital, sat down with Startup 360 cohosts Simon Thomsen and Majella Campbell to talk about workplace inclusion, how business is dealing with the impact of Trump's war on woke, and her own...

Black Pearl Group founder Nick Lissette had an idea for a AI-driven sales agent for small business about five months ago. It took 90 days to develop and launch Bebop, the latest product from his New Zealand listed tech company, and within 45 days, it hit $1.2 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR). Black Pearl's previous innovation, Pearl Diver, took 45 days and within two years hit NZ$10 milli...

Ammonia is the second most-produced chemical on the planet and without it, we wouldn't be able to feed the world. But making it has been energy intense - until an accidental scientific discovery at the University of Newcastle created the potential for a more environmentally friendly way to produce it. That discovery is a new startup, Facet Amtech, and cofounder James Bradley joined Startup 360 thi...

Listen to your gut and trust it, says Bree Kirkham from F5 Collective, a venture firm backing women-led startups. Kirkham, who worked for pioneering tech brands including ClassPass, Uber and Airbnb, had plenty to say about women in tech on episode 18 of Startup 360 this week. Cohost Simon Thomsen asked the mother of two what advice she'd give to classroom of young girls. "I think a lot of girls an...

ETF - exchange traded funds - have become a popular investment since OG fintech entrepreneur Graham Tuckwell pioneered the sector in Australia more than 20 years ago. The local market grew by nearly 40% last year to around $250 billion, but a decade has passed since a new player appeared on the seen bearing a familiar name. David Tuckwell is following in his father's footsteps with ETF Shares, whi...

Just as Techstars Sydney MD Christie Jenkins was about to go hiking in Patagonia, taking her offline for 10 days, she got a call from Sir Richard Branson's Caribbean retreat, Necker Island. They wanted the acclaimed athlete to speak there. It was "a pinch me moment to be on stage talking about investing in women's sport" and Branson is in the front row taking notes while she was speaking. She hung...

This week's Startup 360 sees Simon Thomsen return with a new cohost - Fishburners CEO Majella Campbell. And to celebrate our guests this week are two "Fishies" founders - Barb Woodruff Swanson from Done Life, and Mossy Taheri from proptech Rising Returns. There's a bit of a travel theme to this week's show, and with Majella's parents currently cruising off the coast of Italy, Simon wants to know w...

Fresh off a wedding and honeymoon in Hawaii, Cheryl Mack is in the building to join AJ in guest hosting duties.  And what better way to ease back into reality with a deep dive in to the Government’s proposed superannuation tax with startup legend Alan Jones of M8 Ventures.  As two people at the coalface of angel investing, Cheryl and Alan have a LOT of thoughts about the potential for this new tax...

Guest hosts AJ Koch and Claire Bull step in and put the microscope on medtech.  While the action this week was in Melbourne for Digital Health Fest, we went under the hood of the medtech rollercoaster with two guests right at the coal face. From a funding point of view, you would be hard pressed to find a more in-tune resource than Emerald Scofield of Main Sequence Ventures. Starting out with a ch...

Founding cohost Kayla Medica is stepping away from the show because of work commitments and Simon Thomsen is devastated. But edge-of-millennial Kayla's not sure if she's heard Mental As Anything's song, If you leave me, can I come too? So he's leaving too - for two weeks to recover - and AJ Koch will step as guest host of Startup 360. For Kayla's final show, their guest is someone she's long admir...

Happy democracy sausage weekend. As Australians head to schools and halls on Saturday (although around 20% of the population has already voted) to cast their verdict on the last three years of the Albanese government, Startup 360 cohosts Simon Thomsen and Kayla Medica took a look at the policies and election promises for the tech sector from both Labor and the Coalition. It was a short conversatio...

It’s something ACS, the voice of Australia’s technology sector, is hoping to change. ACS CEO Josh Griggs joined us on the couch for Startup 360 to talk about what matters: backing Australian R&D all the way to commercial success. The 50,000 members-strong IT body has released an election position paper with 9 recommendations for the next government across 2 major pillars: skills and commercialisat...

To understand a little bit of what women founders deal with in the hunt for investment, consider the comments from a VC that got back to Camille Goldstone-Henry, cofounder of biodiversity startup Xylo Systems. Xylo helps companies address environmental protection alongside development, and landed a major international client. The VC described it as “a fluke”. Startup 360 cohost Simon Thomsen was g...

Teenage entrepreneur Liam Fuller thought it would be funny to take a photo of him taking a client call and working on his laptop sitting in a toilet cubicle at school. The world did too, with more than 1.5 million viewed his posts on LinkedIn. The school principal was less impressed and the 17-year-old was suspended for two days. Now he’s wagging school in Ireland and currently visiting Australia,...

Julie Trell believes play makes you a better founder. American-born Julie has been helping startup teams around the world build their imaginations and sense of adventure for decades as the founder of Playful Purpose. One way she does it is with “Yes…. and…” She gives Startup 360 host Simon Thomsen and Kayla Medica a simple and powerful explanation of its impact. “Being heard is so close to being l...

Is the title “founder” this decade’s version of wanting to be a Masterchef or influencer? Startup 360 cohost Kayla Medica has a theory. “So many people now have glamourised being a founder, being an entrepreneur, that there's a whole host of people who just start businesses with that in mind, and they're not actually starting a business because they've encountered a serious problem that they're dr...

When do you know you’re CEO material? It’s the question Startup 360 host Simon Thomsen put to Majella Campbell, the newly appointed CEO of Fishburners, Australia’s pioneering startup coworking space. Majella talked about her mentor, Myles Baron-Hay, the former Sydney Swans CEO, saying “why not?” when she had her doubts. "When I was unsure about taking on this role, he simply asked, ‘Why not?’,” sh...

Welcome to the Startup 360 with Kayla Medica and guest cohost Cat Long from climate tech startup Trace. Tomorrow, March 8, is International Women’s Day, and this year's theme is “For ALL women and girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment. This week’s episode explores the challenges women face as founders, from funding to parenting and the self-doubt you can feel as a female founder (and even if you wa...

Welcome to the Startup 360 with Kayla Medica and Simon Thomsen. It’s all about founder fun, finding out what makes people tick and staying human. This week, Kayla and Simon celebrate Mardi Gras in Sydney this weekend talking about their favourite works by musicians and writers. Kayla recommends a Japanese all-women band, f5ve, loved by the queer community around the world. Simon sounds a bit in lo...