CeBIT PitchFest winners announced

The winner of CeBIT Australia’s PitchFest competition was Look Who’s Charging.

PitchFest allowed 10 of Australia’s leading start-up companies to pitch their company idea to a panel of judges.

Look Who’s Charging is a FinTech start-up company, based in Lake Macquarie, which aims to simplify the process of recognising unknown bank statement transactions.

“Winning the prestigious CeBIT PitchFest competition provides validation that our mission, to eradicate the 10 million plus hours Australians waste trying to figure out who has charged their card, is a core issue that every Australian can relate to,” said Stuart Grover, founder of Look Who’s Charging.

“This is our first PitchFest competition, and already doors have opened with meaningful business and investor conversations. Thank you to CeBIT Australia and TiE Sydney for continuing to foster an ecosystem for start-up organisations and innovation to thrive across NSW and Australia.”

Australian and international leaders in the start-up sector judged each of the 10 entrepreneurs in a Shark Tank-style competition. Judges included Maureen Murphy, commercialisation adviser, Accelerating Commercialisation; Raj Dalal, principal BigInsights and president of TiE Sydney; and James Cameron, partner at AirTree VC.

Look Who’s Charging has won a package valued at over $20,000, including an exhibition stand at CeBIT Australia 2018; a 12-month hosted cloud services package from OrionVM, valued at $1000 per month; and a one-year membership to TiE Sydney.

Second place and third places went to Sydney-based start-ups Rivuu, a social media content approval and scheduling tool, and Sound Scouts, an app that is revolutionising hearing tests for school-aged Australians through gamification. Both start-ups will enjoy a one-year membership to TiE Sydney.

“The NSW Government is investing in our state’s start-up sector because we recognise the potential to create jobs and economic growth. It was fantastic to see eight out of the 10 PitchFest finalists were from NSW — it shows our state truly is the start-up state, home to 40% of Australia’s start-up founders,” said NSW Minister for Trade and Industry Niall Blair.

“Congratulations to Look Who’s Charging for taking out the 2017 PitchFest title and I look forward to hearing more about their progress into the future.”

Earlier in the day, the StartUp conference opened with Nick Kaye, CEO of the Sydney School of Entrepreneurship, reiterating the importance of fostering a culture of innovation through collaboration and active encouragement of students and businesses to be entrepreneurial thinkers within the dedicated start-up stream. Start-ups will contribute $1.09 billion to the Australian economy by 2033.

CeBIT Australia will return to ICC Sydney to showcase the best business technology from across the Asia–Pacific region from 15–17 May 2018.

Image caption: (L to R) Look Who's Charging co-founders Stuart Grover, David Washbrook, Tri Tran and Nicole Grover celebrate after their big win at CeBIT Australia.

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