Plus Eight Announces 2018 Program Teams
This year’s Plus Eight accelerator teams have just started their six-month intensive accelerator program. With $400k of seed funding, six months of mentoring and space available, the program received many applications both from Australia and internationally. The Plus Eight program is geared to help startups accelerate growth domestically and globally.
Plus Eight is startup accelerator based in Perth, Western Australia. They invest in great founders, ideas, and teams. The Plus Eight accelerator is a partnership between WA’s leading startup hub, Spacecubed and Telstra’s startup accelerator muru-D, bringing a global network of mentors, investors and partners to support high growth startups.The program is supported by West Australian property group Hawaiian, South-West based Vukelic Group and Seven West Media.
Brodie McCulloch of Spacecubed says “The Plus Eight program partners with muru-D, giving Perth startups access to networks in Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane as well as connections in Silicon Valley, making the program truly global”.
Head of muru-D Julie Trell said that it was great to see the diversity and passion across the new cohort founders, who are all eager to embrace the ups and downs that come with an intense entrepreneurial journey.
“At muru-D we are all about supporting startup founders who are creating positive change through technology. I’m excited to welcome the new Plus Eight cohort to the program and looking forward to seeing them grow and evolve over the coming six months.”
The startups to keep an eye on this year include –
Hopolla
A team of three ambitious young founders who are passionate about travel. Before joining the program the trio was working from a beach in Thailand, connecting with the South East Asian hostel market. The team came to Perth for the first time to interview for the program, and have relocated their entire team from Melbourne to Perth.
A platform for homeowners without any technical skill to design, engineer and manage their own custom building project for 70% less cost and receive instant council approval. Founder Tom Young says “We aim to empower everyday people by merging the building and tech industries into one streamlined & efficient process.”
A tech-enabled food scrap collection service aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by food waste going to landfill. Founder Carly Hardy is a chemical engineer, with experience in bio-medical device manufacturing, who is passionate about the movement towards Zero Carbon.
As two families fresh from the UK, Nick and Marc arrived in Perth with four young children but no network of friends, family or trusted babysitters to rely on. Kin was born when they came up with the simple idea to connect carers and grandparents in a marketplace environment.
Kin makes childcare simple by offering reliable, trustworthy and available carers‚ even at the last minute. Kin eliminates the hassle that comes along with hiring a babysitter, from scheduling to payment. So all that’s left for you to do is schedule time for work, make time for yourself and enjoy date nights.
After suffering through moving house quite frequently Flora learnt that decorating can be quite challenging and expensive. That led to her idea of creating art that is easy to assemble and put on the wall. A few months later they had a 3D printer and started prototyping to make art accessible to all.
Mureus is a modular art startup that creates customisable magnetic modular art for large spaces. With Mureus you can decorate your space easily without damaging your wall. Mureus is easy to assemble and disassemble, lightweight and easy to transport.
Co-founder Jeremey had an idea about enabling greater use of space in the community however, he knew the task ahead what much bigger than him. Dan and Daniel jumped in to help and by early 2017, all three co-founders were working full time in the business.
SpacetoCo makes it possible for individuals to easily list their Space to an online marketplace. This marketplace then serves the general community by handling locational searches, availability, two-way reviews and payments. Everything they do encourages local area economies.
Mentors
Once again joining a high calibre line-up of Entrepreneurs in Residence, former Dropbox Advisor Tim Brewer is excited about this year’s teams. He says, “We hope that the 2018 group of founders and their teams will go on to become role models, inspiring and enabling others to take their part in the thriving innovation culture in Western Australia, stepping up to take their place on the global stage, which is a critical part of our economic future.”
Programs Manager at Spacecubed, Chandra Sundareswaran is pleased with the success of the 2017 cohort saying, “In 2017, six startup businesses went through the Plus Eight program, and have grown into globally competitive companies. We’re pleased with the what those teams have achieved already, and excited to see what the 2018 cohort brings to the WA and Australian startup ecosystem”.
About Spacecubed
Spacecubed is Perth’s largest coworking, collaboration and innovation hub. Our purpose is to influence positive change through the community. Our vision is to empower and connect 100,000 businesses and changemakers by 2025. We are a community of change-driven people, passionate about collaboration, in an environment fostering creativity and engagement for our members.