It may have been a very challenging couple of years, but that is not stopping this group of talented, resilient women from forging forward with their innovative business ideas. It is such a pleasure for us to announce our National Evolve Cohort. The Evolve program is designed to accelerate your business growth. Over 8 weeks, our founders will gain strategies and skills to support them in moving forward with confidence and clarity. We are excited to be working with these amazing women taking their businesses and careers to the next level. Let us introduce the National Evolve founders:
Shawnee Fox, Founder of Southern Kuya
"Working for many years in senior roles in a range of industries in both Government and non Government sectors has given me the insight, knowledge and skills to create a company to take a fresh approach to address issues relating to improving and securing global food supply chains. I have created an upcycling, circular economy industry based on byproducts from the seafood industry. Using leading edge technology we are commencing to harness the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of premium grade fish byproducts and developing them into a range of protein, omega3, calcium and collagen products to meet growing world demands in the food and nutraceutical sector. This model has gathered momentum in both domestic and international markets. We currently export products to Malaysia, Japan, and South Korea with further exports planned for the Middle East and Europe in the near future, as we continue to develop and expand our product range."
Santosh Kaur, Founder of SmartHeal
Santosh is a passionate registered nurse and mother of a 5 year old. She has worked in healthcare for over 15 years from frontline to senior management/executive roles. She practiced as a doctor in India, successfully running her private practice before moving to Australia in 2009 and becoming a nurse. Throughout her journey around wound care, she was frustrated to see the simple gaps in wound care resulting in negative patient outcomes. This is how SmartHeal was born in 2020.
SmartHeal replaces the nurses taking cumbersome manual measurements and manual sharing of important wound data with a no touch technique. It aims for healthcare professionals to have live remote access to wound data, make wound assessments and assist with speech to text notes thus saving time, cost and people. SmartHeal also aims to assist healthcare professionals in providing optimum wound care by analysing the wound tissue for infection, moisture and providing suggestions for suitable dressing.
Madeleine Spicer, Founder of OneList
Madeleine Spicer is the founder of OneList, a retailer agnostic price comparison product in its early development stages. Madeleine has developed a deep understanding for media and marketing, having worked in strategy and media buying after completing a Bachelor of Commerce degree at The University of Sydney. Seeing no product in market that allows shoppers to confidently check out online knowing that they have the absolute best price, Madeleine seeks to fill this gap and encourage more intentional purchases in the process. OneList integrates into the organic online shopping experience to identify multiple retailers selling the exact same item. The price is compared across retailers in real time and continually thereafter, notifying the shopper when a new ultimate best price is available. The need to keep up-to-date with retailers’ ongoing sales cycles or email subscriptions is reduced with OneList doing all the work, saving shoppers time and money.
Megan Adams and Erin Larrivee, Co-Founders of OmniTax
OmniTax is a web and app-based solution for U.S. expatriates to file their U.S. taxes from anywhere in the world. There are about 9 million American expatriates, all of whom are required to file U.S. taxes. In order to file U.S. expatriate taxes, expats must navigate government guidance themselves or use costly individual tax preparers to file their taxes. OmniTax was founded in 2021 by former law school classmates, Megan Adams and Erin Larrivee.
Megan practices in Port Macquarie, AU, and is licensed to practice law in Australia and the United States. She is experienced in international and U.S. tax law. Erin Larrivee is a former attorney (license currently inactive) in Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.A.. Her experience includes community equity consulting, strategic planning, communications, and financial regulatory compliance subject matter expertise.
Emma Harvey, Founder of Maintainaboat
Maintainaboat is an innovative mobile app. that brings boat maintenance and repair into the digital age.
"We connect boat owners to boat service providers by creating a cohesive and profitable partnership to maximize boating safety, performance, efficiency and enjoyment. The app increases the residual sales value of a boat through an assessment process called the 'Boat Maintenance System'. The BMS locks in on-time maintenance and assures the health of all boat systems over the life of the vessel. Designed and backed by the best in the industry, Maintainaboat can help 30 million boat owners spend more time on the water, doing what they love. Bringing the joy back into boat ownership." Founded in 2021 by Emma Harvey, a Management Consultant and Sailor who found maintaining her boat laborious, costly, inefficient and time-consuming and encountered problems in the existing model. Emma has an international background in Advisory, Business Strategy and Change as well as deep experience with assurance and operating model design in the Marine Industry. She set about definitively cracking the problem and bringing the solution to customers worldwide.
Rebbecca Wilcox and Jennifer Lees, Co-Founders of jrstrategicbio
As we understand more about health and disease, we recognise that dogs and cats develop the same diseases we do and drugs that work in humans work in our pets, and vice versa.
Leveraging decades of combined postgraduate scientific, international, and Australian preclinical and clinical drug development and industry experience, we apply a uniquely innovative approach to delivering expedited novel therapies to the veterinary and human population.
We value add to early preclinical and clinical stage biotech companies and academic institutions, by taking promising human medicines through veterinary clinical trials, and then registration in the veterinary market. In this way, we generate parallel, highly economical, and accelerated revenue streams for new therapies, as they progress to human trials, whilst improving animal wellbeing through access to cutting edge technologies. This provides biotech companies multiple exits, partnering and funding opportunities, brings social capital, and informs and accelerates pathways to human clinical trials.
Bharati Babbar, Founder of ApplyKart
"Having spent 10 years in the corporate world in roles like working for Vodafone in rural areas of India to understand how mobile was launched and accepted in villages, working with Citibank and understanding how powerful a small acquihook can be in motivating customers to apply for a credit card which is going to be an integral part of how they spend money for rest of their lives, in 2018. I decided to move to Australia for a 180-degree turn in my life. Now, a passionate Tech entrepreneur and a co-founder at ApplyKart and A One Australia Education Group, I am exploring new waters and trying to fulfil the dreams of people from 2nd-3rd world countries wanting to move abroad and make it big! We, as a team, don't only understand the dreams, but make a difference in people's life, first by helping them take the first step on the ladder, and then by helping them get their first job in Australia at the moment, before going global! Even after spending a decade working with multinationals, it took me 6 months to get a job which I wanted to work for in Australia, making me think how difficult it must be for a young student who is a fresher, a person with a disability or a person from the LGBTQ community who might still be trying to get comfortable in a work environment in their own skin! My aim is to make hiring possible in two hours for anyone wanting work! With Over 1000+ candidate Signups on mvp already, we are soon coming up with the beta version of ApplyKart. This will reduce the skill-shortage gap, which got created in markets across the globe due to Covid-19!"
Lisa Brincat, Founder of She Backs Me
Lisa Brincat is a passionate advocate for bridging the Gender Equality gap. As a Chartered Accountant and Business Strategist she uses her financial and commercial knowledge to support women and non-binary founders to grow their operations. Lisa started investing at the age of 15 and is role modelling Gender Lens investing for women. Shebacks.me is a community-owned and operated venture capital firm, seeking to increase financial inclusion by taking context of women and non-binary founders into account. Shebacks.me works with private investors to deploy capital to women and non-binary founders who are post-revenue with growing businesses that are capacity constrained. The investment funding we provide of between $10,000 and $100,000 will see the funded business grow its top-line revenue and meet existing customer demand.
Olivia Bates, Founder of Nourishing Bubs
Nourishing Bubs was founded by Olivia Bates, a Sydney based paediatric dietitian. After graduating from UOW in 2013, Olivia went on to work as a dietitian for a start-up almond milk company before using her food industry and dietetic skills to launch frozen baby food company, Nourishing Bubs. Knowing the importance of establishing healthy eating habits in the first 1000 days, Olivia was disappointed with the ready-made options for babies and children, most of which were heat-treated, shelf-stable options older than one’s baby. This led to the development of her Solids Starter Pack, a pack containing ten unique vegetables with four small portions of each, all frozen to lock in nutrients and designed to make it easy for parents starting on their solids journey. In addition, Nourishing Bubs emphasises the importance of nutrition education for parents and caregivers so they can have both the knowledge and the tools to set their children up for success.
Marg Booth and Lauren Finnen, Co-Founders of 5 Minutes for Me
5 Minutes for Me is a wellness and mindset App with short 5 Minute audio content on the topics of Wellness, Mindset, Productivity, and Resilience. The educational audios and tips are by Doctors, Psychologists, PhD specialists, Professional Speakers and Authors who are experts in their field, as well as people with lived Mental Health experiences. The App also includes Meditations for 5, 10 and 20 Minutes, as well as Positive Quotes. Marg Booth the founder of 5 Minutes for Me has extensive experience and management in retail and corporate travel. Now working in the conference and event industry she has owned Great Expectation Speakers and Trainers for 18 years. Lauren Finnen has a vast background in different sectors from which she has developed skills in social media, marketing, and digital content creation.