West Tech Fest names Sine winning startup

Curtin University’s West Tech Fest attracted tech innovators, investors and entrepreneurs from across the country to Perth last week, including Adelaide-based visitor management system Sine, which won the West Tech Startup Challenge.

The startup challenge sought early stage startups (pre $2 million seed funding) to pitch their businesses to a panel of judges and an audience of 400 people, with the intention to foster dialogue and collaboration between innovators, researchers, investors and industry.

Sine uses digital sign-in technology to instantly print out badges when checking-in visitors, contractors, staff and assets across businesses.

Its customers range from local schools to Fortune 500 companies globally, with clients in more than 1,500 cities, including Vodafone and Qantas.

In January next year, Sine founder Antony Ceravelo will travel to Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC) in Las Vegas to compete against a number of international startups. 

“West Tech Fest has been a fantastic conference to be a part of and it’s a real honour to be the winner of the startup challenge,” Mr Ceravelo said.

“Aussie tech is on the move and Sine.co is super excited to attend the XT Challenge in Las Vegas,” he said.

West Tech Fest co-founder and venture capitalist Bill Tai said this year’s finalists were world class.

“The Australian ecosystem has grown remarkably in both quantity and quality over the seven years I’ve been involved with Curtin and West Tech Fest,” he said.

Other finalists were Perth-based loan management platform Credi, Perth-based app data-interpreter Appbot, Perth-based injury prevention platform Soter Analytics, and Adelaide-based Industrial Internet of Things connector Fleet Space Technologies.

West Tech Event also supported last week’s pitch night for student startup program Just Start It. 

Task It from Rossmoyne Senior High School was the junior high winner for its teacher-parent collaborative goal setting for students app.

Split Connect from Seton College was the senior high winner for its communication platform for families after a divorce.

The student pitch off was followed by the hackathon, Hack The Waste for City of Canning, which resulted in three student teams selected to continue to work with the City of Canning on waste solutions.