Home Featured Slider Vaxine Pty Ltd named Australia’s ‘Coolest Company’ at the Anthill Cool Company...

Vaxine Pty Ltd named Australia’s ‘Coolest Company’ at the Anthill Cool Company Awards

6

Adelaide-based biotechnology company Vaxine Pty Ltd was named Australia’s “Coolest Company” at Anthill Magazine’s 4th Annual Cool Company Awards, held in Southbank, Victoria, last night.

Vaxine is a South Australian-based biotechnology company specialising in the development of novel vaccine technologies.

Vaxine shot to global prominence in July this year when it became the first company in the world to commence human swine flu vaccine trials. The company also creates and licenses new and improved vaccines to tackle the biggest global infectious disease threats, including hepatitis, malaria, HIV and SARS.

“Vaxine should be very pleased with its success,” said James Tuckerman, Editor-In-Chief, Anthill Magazine. “The Cool Company Awards attracted hundreds of entries from some very cool companies from all across Australia. But, as the judges noted, there is nothing cooler than saving lives.”

The Anthill Cool Company Awards were launched in 2007 as a way to acknowledge and celebrate Australian companies that are doing things differently to bring about positive chance.

When it came to judging the ‘Coolest of the Cool’, the judges applauded Vaxine Pty Ltd as a double-barreled success story – a commercial success and a force for saving potentially millions of lives.

The Hon. Richard Marles, Parliamentary Secretary for Innovation, presents the AusIndustry Innovation Award to Vaxine Pty Ltd.
The Hon. Richard Marles, Parliamentary Secretary for Innovation, presents the AusIndustry Innovation Award to Vaxine Pty Ltd.

The national awards were held at a Cocktail Ceremony at the spectacular Melbourne Recital Centre last night, where category winners and the ‘Coolest Company Award’ were announced. Please find the full list of award winners and finalists below.

“Vaxine can proudly boast that they have won one of Australia’s ‘most unique’ business awards,” said Tuckerman. “The 2009 Cool Company trophies are a sight to behold – individually designed, one-of-a-kind canvas paintings reflecting this year’s Pop-Art theme.”

Vaxine Pty Ltd was also winner of the AusIndustry Innovation Award, presented by the Hon. Richard Marles, Parliamentary Secretary for Innovation.

Full finalist profiles, videos and picture libraries to be released from next week.

Cool Company Award Categories 2009

MICRO BUSINESS AWARD WINNER 2009

flysoloTopgun Technology:

Topgun Technology has developed, produced and patented the world’s first portable powered sealant and caulking gun. Overcoming issues common to gun-applied products in industries from construction to dental, the long-life TopGun® eliminates worker RSI and fatigue, produces no pollutants, reduces material wastage by 15-30% and is fully recyclable.

MICRO BUSINESS FINALISTS

ESPOZ (Etiko Fair Trade):

Etiko Fair Trade is Australia’s first certified Fairtrade producer of 100% ethical and eco-friendly sports and fashion products for the ‘conscious’ consumer. Concentrating on standard consumer items, such as sneakers, thongs, t-shirts, hoodies and sports balls, Etiko is helping bring an end to the use of sweatshops and child labour by sourcing suppliers and manufacturers that avoid these practices and contribute to the welfare of the workers and their communities.

Protein:

Protein is an award winning, multi-discipline brand integrity, design and multimedia production agency. Its proud portfolio of services and achievements includes its own interactive presentation platform, Pitchperfect™, and a Beverly Hills Film Festival award for the film ‘Brother’. Protein One has even applied its creative flair to the meat trade, making a retail butcher’s shop look cool.

COMMERCIAL CREATIVITY AWARD WINNER

ant-ccProtein One:

A finalist in its second category, Protein One’s nominated project in this category was the challenging and hugely successful brand awareness campaign for Vic’s Meat. The objective of the campaign was to generate interest from new customers, increase brand exposure and to develop an educational service resource site through user-generated content. Protein created an interactive website, mobile transport advertising, an iPhone App and wrapped the entire new store in a butcher’s apron!

COMMERCIAL CREATIVITY AWARD FINALISTS

Forward Thinking Design:

Forward Thinking Design provides interior and graphic design solutions for restaurants, retail, commercial and public applications and is headed by Vanessa Cullen, a 2009 Anthill 30under30 winner. Forward Thinking Design’s nominated project involved the design and conversion of a bankrupt clothing store into a Motocross clothing and accessory store for Krank Clothing at Penrith Westfield Plaza. The project was completed in only two weeks and met the $20,000 budget through the creative use of cost-effective building materials and recycled and reclaimed objects.

gStepOne:

gStepOne.com is a free Google wizard writer that enables users to harness the power of Google’s online applications and tools to create simple, publicly available tutorials. It is ‘lite’, free version of its flagship WorkScript system, developed in response to the growing trend towards web-based resources and designed for rapid business process activation and change in small to medium-sized businesses.

SOCIAL CAPITALIST AWARD WINNER

emFumunda Pty Ltd:

Fumunda produces a low frequency “pinger” device that alerts whales, dolphins and porpoises to the presence of fishing nets in the water.

These acoustic alarms reduce incidental entanglement by 95%. Designed by a team of highly experienced fishers, Fumunda’s Pinger is widely acknowledged as the best in the world and is marketed internationally by distributors in the US, Europe and China, and via direct sales to end users in Australia.

SOCIAL CAPITALIST AWARD FINALISTS

ESPOZ (Etiko Fair Trade):

A finalist in its second category tonight, Etiko Fair Trade is also engaged in the promotion, education and use of sustainable materials. The company has continued to push its social cause agenda by increasing its 2008/2009 sales by 20% on the previous year, despite the GFC.

Online Giving:

Online Giving is an Australian platform that enables individuals to fundraise for charity online. It breaks down traditional fundraising barriers so that people can fundraise in convenient and personalised way, minimising administration costs and maximising donations to their cause.

ONLINE BUSINESS AWARD WINNER

Stateless Systems:

bureauxStateless Systems is a Melbourne-based web development company behind a number of globally recognised sites. The company’s main revenue earner is retailmenot.com, the world’s leading consumer destination for online shopping coupons, discounts and promotional codes, which attracts over 10 million visitors per month and generates over $10 million annually in advertising revenue. This helps fund Stateless Systems’ many other website project, including the recently launched TrendsMap.com, which plots the most popular Twitter topics on a Google Map in real-time.

ONLINE BUSINESS AWARD FINALISTS

CatchoftheDay.com.au:

CatchoftheDay is an Australian retail website with a twist – every day at midday it lists just one deal, available for 24 hours only. It’s a dead simple concept that works. Customers find it addictive and suppliers use it as an avenue to clear large volumes of end-of-line goods within a short period of time. It has become Australia’s most visited online department store within three years, selling an average of $1 million worth of goods per week online.

Ideas Culture:

Ideas Culture taps the wisdom of creative thinkers around the globe via Twitter to source solutions to a client’s problem by morning. Customers pay a monthly fee and receive a pack of ideas along with an evaluation matrix and implementation plan. Ideas Culture’s Twitter agents have 15-30 minutes to work on the problem and receive $100 for four sessions. The company also offers associated services to customers, including support and help running their own idea-sparking sessions.

GLOBAL GROWTH AWARD WINNER

Stateless Systems:

ibwA finalist in its second Cool category tonight, Stateless Systems continues to build on its already stellar global reputation as a developer of innovative websites that service people’s core needs as well as push boundaries. In addition to the enduring commercial success of retailmenot.com, the company’s most recent hit, TrendsMap.com, has proved an international sensation, mapping Twitter’s trending topics in real-time so that events such as the Jakarta bombings show up on trendsmap.com long before they are reported in the mainstream media.

GLOBAL GROWTH AWARD FINALISTS

Aruspex:

Aruspex is a global provider of strategic workforce solutions. Its intuitive CAPTure planning software goes beyond simple reporting to analyse internal and external demographic trends, identify future workforce gaps and guide executives and HR professionals to solve different scenarios. Beginning as a startup in a Melbourne dining room six years ago, Aruspex now has a US headquarters in San Francisco and services a global network of big clients, including Starbucks, Toyota, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Foster’s Group, Worldwide Fund for Nature and IAG.

Vaxine Pty Ltd:

Vaxine is a South Australian-based biotechnology company specialising in development of novel vaccine technologies. Vaxine shot to global prominence in July this year when it became the first company in the world to commence human swine flu vaccine trials. The company also creates and licences new and improved vaccines to tackle the biggest global infectious disease threats, including hepatitis, encephalitis, malaria, HIV and SARS.

BIG KAHUNA AWARD WINNER

boxsyoui Pty Ltd:

Launching in March 2008, Youi provides affordable and extensive insurance cover for home building, home contents and car.

While few people consider insurance companies cool, Youi has innovated by avoiding generic risk profiling. The company aims to isolate the most cost-effective premiums for customers by asking them a more detailed series of questions at the point of application.

BIG KAHUNA AWARD FINALISTS

CatchoftheDay.com.au:

A finalist in its second Cool category tonight, CatchoftheDay.com.au is a genuine heavyweight in the Australian online shopping space. An antidote to the information overload typical of online retail sites, CatchoftheDay’s one-deal-a-day simplicity has seen it become Australia’s most visited online department store, delivering revenues in excess of $20m per annum.

M2 Telecommunications Group Limited:

Founded in 1999, M2 Telecommunications took its current form in 2001 when it began reselling telephone calls and developed a new sales channel to support the service. The company focuses on the SME business segment, offering customers flexibility in rates, bundling and personalised service. M2’s profit has increased from $200,000 in 2003 to $7.5 million in 2009.

X-FACTOR AWARD WINNER

ghFranklyn Scholar:

Franklyn Scholar provides workplace training Certificates and Diplomas to companies nationally. Launched to overhaul the fragmented workplace education and training sector, the company now offers 96 accredited courses to companies of all sizes, employs more than 200 professionals across Australia and will train more than 16,000 people in their workplace this year. Prominent national clients include Telstra, Flight Centre, David Jones, OneSteel, Toyota Boshoku, Sanity, Nike and Boost Juice.

X-FACTOR AWARD FINALISTS

Simurban (Simmersion Holdings Pty Ltd):

Simurban is a desktop simulation program that allows anyone to fly around an accurate, realistic 3D environment, just like in a game. It is used extensively by a range of clients, such as local councils, developers, architects, engineers and surveyors. The business has increased revenues each year to $1.8m in FY09 and invested $2.8m in R&D. In 2010 it will launch Mycosm, a suite of software enabling the simple creation, sharing and collaboration of real-time 3D environments.

Stateless Systems:

A finalist in three categories tonight, Stateless Systems has used the phenomenal commercial success of retailmenot.com to fund the creation of a growing list of creative and experimental websites, from information visualisers to simple content management systems. All of these sites are intrinsically aligned to Stateless Systems’ goal of making the web a simpler and richer experience for users, which is the foundation of the company’s success.

INNOVATION AWARD WINNER

ausindVaxine Pty Ltd:

A finalist in two categories tonight, Vaxine’s great innovation is that its vaccines are made from a highly pure synthetic protein rather than being based on an actual virus. This increases the vaccine’s effectiveness while at the same time reducing side effects. Additionally, plant-sugar-based vaccines avoid the conventional addition of potentially toxic compounds, such as aluminium and mercury.

INNOVATION AWARD FINALISTS

Papyrus Australia Ltd:

Papyrus Australia has developed and patented a cost-effective, environmentally-sustainable technology that transforms the trunks of banana trees into a range of veneer, paper and board products. The technology uses no water or chemicals and produces no waste. It uses minimal energy to operate and generates extremely low greenhouse gas emissions. The company raised capital via a public float in 2005 and plans to expand globally through technology licensing and joint venture partnerships.

Southern Innovation Pty Ltd:

Southern Innovation develops, markets and licenses patented pulse processing technologies for the rapid, accurate detection and measurement of radiation. The company was born out of research to review suitable technologies for the accurate and rapid detection of legacy landmines. The resulting technology, SITORO®, provides a 20-fold improvement in the efficiency of radiation detectors, with wide application in areas such as airport baggage screening, oil exploration, mineral analysis and the early detection of cancer.