Holly Brooks

A huge congratulations to the winner and 27 nominees of Startmate’s 2024 Women Leader of the Year Award. These stories of leadership are so incredibly inspirational to read, exactly the stories we need to shine a light on, for the very reason we started it because “you can’t be what you can’t see”.

At Startmate, we believe in the power of visible role models. The saying “You can’t be what you can’t see” rings true, especially in leadership.‍When women see others thriving in leadership roles—whether as managers, mentors, or trailblazers—they’re more likely to believe that they, too, belong at the top. This is why we’re running the #LadymatesLeadership Award: to showcase and spotlight the incredible women leaders in the ANZ tech and startup ecosystem.

If you haven't heard - We've just launched three different memberships: Ladymates Leadership, Ladymates Collective & Engineers Collective. Included in these memberships are "peer advisory groups" that meet once a month and form an incredibly valuable and popular part of the membership experience. Keep reading for more information around these peer advisory groups that we keep harping on about.

This cohort is ending online abuse, rethinking firefighting to make it safer and more effective, and building novel ways to support mothers post-childbirth. They are revolutionising the tender process, transforming the fitting room experience, finding new ways to extract oil, and re-creating the physio-patient journey. They’re creating a new thermal heating and cooling system to halve energy costs and emissions, catching bugs before your users do, enabling digital health companies to expand globally, and using human avatars for live interviews to power recruitment.

Startmate offers some pretty epic L&D opportunities. Here are some hot tips for persuading your employer to invest in your education – even if there’s no set L&D budget or tuition reimbursement policy. 

We sat down with Lutjen Lee Winter’23 Student Fellow and founder of Farmbite an online marketplace enabling people to buy, swap, and sell locally grown produce. Since completing the Student Fellowship, Lutjen has taken a hiatus from his studies (B. Laws at RMIT University) to pursue entrepreneurship. He’s since participated in Cohort 7 of Blackbird’s Giants program, has just been accepted into RMIT’s pre-Accelerator LaunchHub and is on the precipice of launching his app.‍

We sat down with Alea Young, Summer’24 Student Fellow who is passionate about entrepreneurship and startups. Alea shared her experience of the Student Fellowship, the startup she pitched during the Founder Challenge and why she is so interested in founding. 

We sat down with Charlotte Jones, Winter’23 Student Fellow who is passionate about entrepreneurship and startups. Alea shared her experience of the Student Fellowship, the startup she pitched during the Founder Challenge and why she feels drawn to founding. 

We sat down with Archer Simmonds and Davin Karunanayake, Summer’24 Student Fellows and co-founders (alongside Dhruv Verma) of Huddled (previously Grouptag) a student-first communication platform centralising class discussions, assignments and social messaging all in one place. Archer and Davin share their experience of the Student Fellowship, the evolution of their startup and why they have chosen to pursue the founder pathway.

The Summer24 Cohort is ready for lift-off. ‍If we had to use one word to describe this group, it would be hungry: hungry to solve problems, hungry to prove themselves, hungry to leave their mark on the world. Already they have demonstrated an intensity and focus that has us incredibly excited to watch them unleash over the next 3 months.

Heidi Dumesich is a dedicated and skilled professional in the field of sustainability. Heidi is currently the Sustainability Manager at Ventia. In this role, Heidi is responsible for managing, reporting and implementing innovative sustainability practices for the Sydney Roads Asset Performance contract (SRAPC) with Transport for New South Wales (TfNSW).

Hear from John Keith, a banker and early stage growth investor that recently graduated from the Climate Tech Fellowship.

Hear from Shu Das, an experienced Chartered Accountant and recent Climate Tech Fellowship graduate.

Madeleine is a lawyer, writer, tech policy researcher, former federal election campaign manager, and Chief Problem Solver at circular economy powerhouse, Alchemy Global Solutions. She is also the sixth generation in a thriving family farm business and has worked with researchers, startups, and investors to develop tools and networks that support nature-positive management of farming landscapes.

The Winter23 Demo Day cohort is here, and they are going to make our lives 100x better. They are running through brick walls to tackle the thorniest problems frustrating industries world-wide. From AI-powered recruitment and misdiagnosed prenatal ultrasounds to inflatable space solar panels and vaccine nebulisers, the Winter23 cohort is one of our most innovative yet.

Ok. So we all hear the words “Product” and “Manager” thrown around. But WTF actually is Product Management and what does a Product Manager do?‍Why are they so flippin important? And why are they in such high demand? ‍Well. Let us tell you!!! 

‍When Connor Finlayson founded the Unicorn Factory in 2018, his intentions were simple: Find more clients to freelance for. ‍Today, the Unicorn Factory is the largest freelance marketplace in New Zealand. Wowza. ‍“When I started out, my plan was just to build a landing page so I could advertise myself and some friends as freelancers.” ‍“I had zero coding knowledge. All my experience was in sales and marketing so I didn’t really know where to start.”

With our No-Code Fellowship right around the corner, we thought it would make sense to spotlight some of the incredible community members leveraging no-code tools to change the world. Here are 7 of the most impressive Startmate companies and operators using no-code.

When most people hear the word “code” in a sentence, they think of a complex arrangement of GREEN letters, numbers, and figures trickling down like raindrops against a black backdrop. It’s giving Matrix vibes.‍Or maybe that’s just me?‍If “code” is a mysterious puzzle of digital green rain, then WTF is “no-code”, how the hell do you use it, and Why TF is Startmate running a Fellowship dedicated to it?‍By the end of this article, you will have all the answers to these pressing questions. 

Revolutionary climate-tech startup Kelpy is on a mission to eliminate plastic packaging, replacing it with sustainably sourced, marine degradable seaweed bioplastics. 

If you haven’t personally experienced the horrors of renting, chances are you know someone who has. Renting is a painful experience further exasperated by the fact that a whole generation of renters have been excluded from the prospects of homeownership. But don’t despair. Leesy’s vision is to make renters love renting. 

We can debate over timelines or whether the movie ‘Transformers’ was in fact a documentary, but in the meantime, the future of self-driving transport is here and knocking at our door. Founders Tim Snell, Joe Bullock and Pat Ivory have been answering some of these knocks, launching Pitcrew AI in 2020.

It’s not everyday you meet a founder who has spent the last 20+ years solving some of the world’s greatest humanitarian issues. Cameron Higgins is a neuroscientist and the founder of Resonait, a med-tech startup innovating the treatment of depression. 

If you asked Raj Bagri six years ago what her life’s purpose was, she would have told you it was to build an impactful company that will change the world. Today, she is the founder of Kapture, a climate tech startup that is decarbonising diesel generators to fight climate change.