A number of top trending Australia companies were recently highlighted at the inaugural Techboard 2017 National Awards at an event at the Sheaf in Double Bay, Sydney.
Beau Bertoli and Greg Moshal Co- Founders and Co-CEOs of Prospa, and Tim Dean Founder and CEO of Credi
The Techboard 2017 National Awards, based on the culmination of tracking metrics on Australian Startups and a monthly ranking system, comprised two company categories, the highest trending company overall and the highest trending up-and-coming company.
Two fintech companies, interestingly both in different aspects of the lending space, were named as the winners of the two company categories.
Credi.com from Perth took out the Up and Coming Company Category after launching this year and gaining significant market exposure in that time.
Promoting itself as powering the “bank of mum and dad”, credi.com provides a platform for formalising loans between family members and others.
In a comparatively short time Credi has been able to make a real impact on its ranking with very effective PR including using the Techboard platform itself, which significantly improved the company’s visibility on the web.
Credi Co-founder and CEO Tim Dean said he had used his own family experience in Credi’s development.
A couple of years ago I took another call from my son and I always knew how much money he wanted by the pause, long pause I was in for a lot of trouble. So two years later we have built a platform, we have put about $50M dollars of parents money through this, we are a couple of thousand users and we are going global. Thank you very much for this great award, we are honoured.”
The balance of the top ten trending up and coming companies included Watt Watchers (NSW), Snappr (NSW), CancerAid (NSW), Tap into Safety (WA), Spacer (NSW), Black Lab Games (WA), Spacetoco (WA), Formalytics (WA) and Moroku (NSW).
Sydney-based Prospa took out the Highest Trending Company Award after a stellar year punctuated by two very large capital raises and the receipt of a series of national and international awards.
Prospa provides small business loans and this year topped the Techboard Ranking on two occasions, a testament to the public profile resulting from its outstanding achievements.
In accepting the award, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Prospa, Greg Moshal said the company has achieved dramatic growth since it was dreamed up over a few beers.
“We’ve come a long way since then.”
Beau and I were reminiscing that we got the idea for Prospa just a few metres from this spot. We used to meet for a beer and discuss what seemed to be a pretty crazy idea six years ago. We’ve come a long way since then. We’re now a team of 150 people, we’ve helped over 12 thousand businesses, we’ve raised over $200M in debt and equity funding and delivered over $500M to small businesses around Australia. We’re pretty passionate about supporting small businesses and we’re proud to accept this award.”
The remainder of the top 10 included ZipMoney (NSW), Family Zone (WA), NextDC (Qld) , Nuheara (WA), Unlockd (Vic), Airtasker (NSW), Power Ledger (WA), Afterpay (NSW) and Dubber (Vic).
A third category at the awards, the Techboard Startup Community Award celebrated an individual who made a significant contribution to the the person’s local entrepreneurship community.
The objective of the award is to acknowledge and celebrate individuals who work to support and improve their local startup ecosystem.
The winner of the Community award was Peta Ellis, CEO of the River City Labs, an initiative that was founded by Steve Baxter of SharkTank fame.
The inaugural awards were sponsored by MYOB, with Mark Turnbull, National Pinnacle Partner Manager from MYOB saying he was pleased to support to the event promote Australian startups in such a positive way.
“MYOB is one of the original start-ups. From our creation in 1991 we have grown to more than 1.2 million customers and over 1500 staff. We know how difficult it can be to start a business, but we also know the incredible opportunity that starting a business provides. We are committed to creating solutions that help businesses succeed. Part of that commitment is supporting the start-up community. It’s fantastic to see the incredible ideas that have been showcased tonight,” he said.
Techboard is a platform for the Promotion Discovery and Intelligence for and on Australian Startups and Young Tech Companies founded in Perth by Co-founders Peter van Bruchem and Rafael Kimberley-Bowen.
Techboard was founded to help increase the profile of what so many great startups and tech companies are doing in Australia, to amplify the successes of the active startup companies and raise the profile of the sector as whole for the future prosperity of the kids of Australia.
Techboard also finds Australian startups and young technology companies (and now has almost 1900 active company profiles on its platform), monitors and tracks progress of all of these companies and produces a number of data products including the Techboard Ranking of Trending Australian Startups and Young Tech Companies, its Monthly Company Traction Reports which outline news, milestones and funding outcomes it captures for its Ranking and Quarterly Funding Reports.
