Home Articles QUT CEA announces first cohort accepted into Australia’s first creative tech accelerator

QUT CEA announces first cohort accepted into Australia’s first creative tech accelerator

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QUT Creative Enterprise Australia (CEA) has announced the upcoming startup companies who have been accepted into the Collider Accelerator creative tech program.

Nine startups from across Queensland will be given the opportunity to grow and scale their business across the five month program, due to begin in June.

Each startup will receive seed capital of $20,000 per startup, as well as access to international facilitators from organisations which include the Virgin StartUp Accelerator, as well as senior mentors including CEA’s Entrepreneur in Residence Mark B. Johnson.

“We have an incredibly high calibre program with over seven international facilitators combined with local industry experts, to ensure we provide tailored expert support to our first cohort”, says Anna Rooke, CEO of Creative Enterprise Australia.

“We’ve had drone delivery companies, personal tailoring apps, fashion ventures that connect customers to emerging designers and startups that will change the way we search for our online purchases”.

“We are proud to deliver another first in Australia for the creative tech industry, with some of our cohort choosing to relocate to Brisbane to undertake this specialist program”.

How were these startups selected?

The businesses were chosen from an intensive startup bootcamp held by CEA last month. Some of the top startups include Carisma, a desktop and mobile app aimed at providing transparency to the car servicing industry. The startup will provide high quality images and information directly from car mechanics to their customers’ mobile to explain what work was done and why.

ArtLife's Kristine, Majella and Brooke
ArtLife’s Kristine, Majella and Brooke

The winner of CEA’s Creative Tech Startup Weekend hosted back in March 2017, photo sorting app ArtLife, is another participant to the Collider Accelerator program. The app is a personal assistant for simple photo sorting that will automatically scan and tag images for easy storage and retrieval.

“Collider Accelerator was created to help support the growing need for the creative industries in Australia, and it’s positive to see how many companies are doing good things across this industry,” says Anna.

Collider Accelerator will be run out of CEA’s new Coterie|9 coworking space, which was officially opened by Qld Chief Entrepreneur Mark Sowerby on Thursday May 25th. The Collider Accelerator is the latest program to be launched with support from Advance Queensland, which is investing more than $405 million to help in positioning Queensland as a hub of innovation and growth.