SBE Australia is pleased to present the 2023 Global cohort. This program serves as the on-ramp into our alumnae network: an international community of world-class entrepreneurs, investors and business development professionals committed to supporting entrepreneurial businesses and the women who lead them.
Nicole Cook, CEO of SBE Australia says "As we selected businesses for the 2023 program, the first full year post-pandemic, we had a strong theme of 'People and Planet' in mind. These founders are solving problems that are both deeply personal and globally important as we collectively assess our impact on our planet, our people, and our workplaces. SBE Australia is laser focused on supporting women-led businesses that are scaling across borders with programs, advisory, investment, connections, and community."
The SBE Global program is sponsored in part by Hamilton Locke; Partner Cristin McCoy said, "We are thrilled to be part of the SBE Global Program which is specifically targeted at assisting scale ups and high growth companies to accelerate to Series A and beyond. Through our experience in venture capital and private equity transactions, we will deliver our knowledge, expertise and support to the participants and their companies. Through our partnership with SBE Australia, our aim is to drive meaningful change for women entrepreneurs."
The program kicks off in March 2023 with a group of seven exciting businesses. We are looking forward to supporting them as they take their business to the next level.
Laura Henshaw & Stephanie Miller, Co-founders, Keep it Cleaner
KIC is a leading health and wellness app that empowers people to take charge of their own health journey in a way that is balanced, works for their lifestyle and makes them feel their best. KIC prides itself on building the best fitness and wellness technology that champions three core pillars including movement, mindfulness and meals, executed through health experts and trainers who are accessible for the community anytime and anywhere.
KIC's brand is a leader for the target demographic of 18-39 year old women, with a powerful social media presence across multiple platforms equating to over 2.2M engaged followers across channels.
Joanne Howarth, Founder & CEO, Planet Protector Packaging
PPP is an impact-driven enterprise on a mission to eliminate polystyrene (EPS) from cold supply chains. PPP is in a race to become the market leader in sustainable insulation that does not harm the planet.
PPP manufactures a multi award winning, disruptive and sustainable alternative called WOOLPACK. The product is made from waste wool unsuitable for the textile industry, it is wool ordinarily destined for landfill. WOOLPACK is compostable and at its end of life, the wool breaks down to deliver valuable nutrients back into the soil.
WOOLPACK delivers superior thermal performance. It is used to ship fresh food, pharmaceuticals, processed and live seafood catch, supplying for both B2B and B2C distribution chains. The product arrives flat-packed, and requires less materials handling and storage space, taking up to only 20% of an equivalent volume of polystyrene. Less pallet movements and freight translate to lower carbon emissions. With operations in Australia and NZ, PPP is now poised for global scale.
Jodi Geddes & Kate Pollard, Co-founders, Circle In
Circle In is a digital-first employee benefits platform that provides on-demand access to expert advice for caregiving employees and their managers at every life stage. With over 700 data-backed resources developed by global experts, the Circle In platform caters to every life stage, from caring for the elderly, or planning a baby through to the teenage years, providing caregivers with personalized resources when and where they’re most needed. Users can access bite-sized, practical support and their company’s latest policies along with inspiration from real stories of lived experience.
Crucially, Circle In helps managers provide tailored support to the caregivers in their teams by providing conversation guides and timely reminders that support their teams and build stronger connections through empathy.
Leading companies know that supporting caregivers is good for business. And 80% of users say the support provided by Circle In makes them feel more positive towards their organization. By preventing employee disengagement and turnover, Circle In provides proven ROI – but more than anything else, it's the right thing to do. After all, an organization is nothing without its people.
Christine Khor, Founder & CEO, Peeplcoach
Peeplcoach is the only scalable and accessibly priced development solution combining modulised and structured training and 1:1 and group coaching suitable for employees at all stages throughout their career. Peeplcoach's mission is to ensure that every person has equal opportunity and equal access to an experienced coach to accelerate personal, professional and business impact.
Peeplcoach's programs support employees from individual contributors, emerging, developing and executive leaders, however our key focus areas are emerging and developing leaders.
Ami Bateman & Sian Murray, Co-founders, Pleasant State
Pleasant State is working towards a sparkling clean world that's free of toxic cleaning chemicals and single-use plastics.
Pleasant State creates ethical products that make home care a form of self-care. Pleasant State is proud to have developed Australia's first effective, healthy, single-use plastic-free, and beautiful just-add-water cleaning solution. Think Berocca but for cleaning!
Developed and manufactured in Australia, and tried and tested against the best household brands. It's super effective, no nasties and no B.S.
Pleasant State is looking to change the game by focusing on a bigger purpose, not just profit, and is proudly Australia's only B Corp certified cleaning brand.
Renata Sguario, Founder & CEO, Maxme
The skills people need to perform at peak are changing. Maxme exists to democratise the development of Human Skills, the must have skills of the Digital Age. We believe success isn’t just about IQ, it’s about developing these Skills to maximise both work and life potential.
Maxme is a best-in-class human skills specialist. Enabled by Hodie, the soft skills development app, Maxme delivers soft skills training in a scalable way. Our fully-curated hybrid development programs equip people with career defining skills to improve engagement, wellbeing and ultimately performance and impact.
Maxme has developed curated, digital first, gamified solutions to solve the growing skills gap impacting employee performance.
Shaeri Datta, Co-founder, Autism 360
Autism360 is a fully online healthtech company that offers tele-health service to families all over Australia (and abroad) within the neurodiverse community. Autism 360 started simply as blog in 2018, and then evolved into a telehealth service - way before Covid and telehealth became the norm.
To put it simply, Autism 360 aims to ease the lives of parents in theneurodiverse community via use of technology, content and community.