Home Articles These ten Australian tech companies have won places on Latin American accelerator

These ten Australian tech companies have won places on Latin American accelerator

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Ten of Australia’s best tech companies have been announced as finalists in a unique Latin American accelerator program. After extensive mentoring, the finalists will battle it out in front of judges in Santiago.

Industry leading innovators in the agtech, energy, mining and water sectors are represented in the prestigious LatAm Market Entry Acclerator Finalist shortlist for 2018.

Building on the seven years of successfully growing Australian technology businesses, this new program has been launched to connect Australia to the rapidly growing markets of Latin America. With an initial focus on Chile, the finalists will receive mentoring and connections to accelerate their growth and then present at high profile events in Santiago to drive sales.

The finalists include companies providing smart ear tags for cattle, portable solar solutions, mine safety equipment and water treatment technologies.

‘The Judges were looking for Australian technology companies with the greatest chance of building significant export markets in Latin America,’ said John O’Brien, the Program founder.

The program is focussed on the four sectors that are common to both Australia and Latin America:

  • Agricultural technologies to drive efficiency and productivity across all aspects of food and beverage production and processing.
  • Energy technologies that improve efficiency of existing assets and enable the transition to a low carbon economy.
  • Mining equipment, technology & services that improve operational performance of the extraction or processing of minerals.
  • Water Technologies that improve treatment options, improve production and utilisation or provide control and monitoring solutions.

The Program is supported by the Australian Government through the through the Council on Australia Latin America Relations (COALAR) and will be delivered by Australian CleanTech. The Program design is based on the highly successful Australian Technologies Competition that has mentored 200 emerging Australian technology companies over seven years. Many of these companies are now thriving both at home and in export markets.

Commenting the opportunities for Australian businesses, O’Brien said, ‘This program opens immense opportunities in a market environment that is often overlooked. The working environment is much easier than most of Asia and customer needs are very similar to those at home.’

The finalists will travel to Santiago in April 2018 to meet with customers, business partners and investors. The winners will be announced in Santiago following an assessment by a panel of Latin American judges.

Agritech finalists

Ceres Tag (QLD)

Ceres Tag is developing the only all-in-one smart ear tag that can give almost real-time information about animal location, their health and well-being, rates of growth and market potential. The smart ear tag will have vastly greater functionality than current identification tags in the market and will cost only marginally more. The data collected by the smart tag will be made available to existing farm management software.

Weedtechnics (NSW)

Weedtechnics’ provides a unique patented non-toxic weed control solution, eliminating herbicide use. Weedtechnics’ SW Range creates Satusteam©, the condensate of superheated water, delivering it directly onto weeds, destroying soft tissue cells on contact. Its technology includes high efficiency heat transfer in a range of applicator head sizes for weed management in agriculture, horticulture and urban environments.

Energy tech finalists

Obzervr (QLD)

Obzervr is a field data collection and business intelligence analytics platform offered as a Microsoft Azure cloud-based SaaS. Obzervr provides the ability to collect, organize, store, analyse and view data, captured by your mobile workforce in the field. Obzervr has a unique workflow in Sampling and Laboratory integration initially for the Oil & Gas and Water sectors.

SunSHIFT (NSW)

SunSHIFT is a pre-engineered, pre-fabricated, moveable turnkey solar photovoltaic (PV) solution specifically designed to overcome the limitations of traditional solar PV and enable new users, such as miners, to adopt alternative energy. SunSHIFT Arrays and Blocks readily integrate with fossil-fuel generators and battery storage for turnkey energy supply solutions. SunSHIFT Modules have low assembly costs, improved safety and quality and reduced construction risks.

Mining tech finalists

Core Resources (QLD)

Core Resources is an award-winning process technology business. Core’s proprietary Toowong Process is a novel technology enabling the safe and hygienic removal of highly toxic contaminants from mineral concentrates produced by mines and to fix the contaminants in an environmentally stable and non-toxic form. This addresses a global environmental problem. A key application for the Toowong Process is miners who own mining projects with problematic arsenic contents, as is common in Latin America.

HI Mining (WA)

HI Mining’s HE22 Hustler handheld mining drill is fully hydraulic requiring no reticulated air services. This breakthrough is made possible due to the drill’s incorporation of innovative hydraulics pressure management capability. Visually similar to traditional handheld mining drills, Hustler’s unique technology delivers 25% more drilled meterage/minute, has zero point-of-use emissions, is quieter, lighter and has 50% reduced vibration resulting in a 65% reduced user cost.

PTronik (NSW)

PTronik manages the problem of gas and dust removal from industrial processes such as cement, abrasive blasting, mineral processing, waste recycling and agriculture. PTronik is focused on providing state-of-the-art measurement and control solutions that can be fitted as OEM or aftermarket equipment to all brands of air filtration and dust collectors. Its systems take full control of the dust collectors day-to-day operation whilst tracking the short and long term performance and maintenance needs of the dust collector.

Safescape (VIC)

Safescape has two unique innovative technologies that offer both cost and safety benefits to its mining clients. The Safescape Laddertube provides the safest possible secondary means of egress for mine workers and is a lighter, more durable and cost-effective option than comparable products. The Safescape Edge Protector is a modular cantilever wall that creates a vertical front face to a rock bund on the edge of an open pit ramp increasing safety, reducing stripping ratio, increasing NPV and reducing the overall road width.

Water tech finalists

CleanTeQ Water (VIC)

Clean TeQ Water has developed a mine water treatment solution based on Continuous Ion Exchange. The solution combines High Density Sludge (HDS) with Clean TeQ’s patented DeSALx® ion exchange technology. The process economically treats acid mine drainage to very high quality water, whilst creating no brine.

Envirosuite (QLD/NSW)

Envirosuite provides the most comprehensive and intuitive real-time environmental monitoring, investigation, prediction and control software in the world. Built on insights from 30+ years’ experience, Envirosuite seamlessly converts data into action, enabling real action in real-time. Clients include BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Anglo American and Glencore in the mining sectors, and Thames Water (Europe’s largest water utility) in the wastewater sector.