Meet the Pitch shortlist: The six startups about to pitch for $115,000 in prizes

SmartCompany is pleased to announce the shortlisted entries for the third instalment of the Pitch, our early-stage startup competition hosted in partnership with AWS, BlueRock and FinTech Australia.

Hundreds of startups from around the nation submitted their ideas and six have risen to the top.

On August 10, in Sydney, they’ll pitch their hearts out to our guest judging panel, which includes established members of the Sydney VC and startup community: AirTree’s Raaj Rayat, x15ventures’ Laura Faulconer, Adatree’s Jill Berry, AWS’ John Kearney and BlueRock’s Bevan McLeod.

Meet the shortlisted startups who’ll compete in the Pitch

The winner will receive up to $100,000 in AWS credits and $15,000 in consultancy services courtesy of BlueRock.

Here are the shortlisted startups, in no particular order:

Penny

Penny empowers women with the financial education, tools, and support to make confident decisions about their money. Founder Jemi Jeng came up with the concept in 2018 “while working in a small team partnering startups to address complex policy problems, and following a series of candid conversations with other women about their money goals, experiences and challenges”.

Fetchie

Fetchie bills itself as the “game-changing shopping companion that is on its way to becoming the world’s largest e-commerce marketplace.” Founded by Nivya Saseendran and Joseph Joy, it provides shoppers with a personal space to track and discover the best new deals on any website, regardless of location or currency.

“Powered by community and machine learning, Fetchie includes powerful features such as price tracking, price trend analysis, price comparison, deals alerts, in-store barcode scanning and more.”

Gladly

Gladly is made for Gen Z users who wish to better navigate the world of work. Co-founded by Chris Johnson (pictured) and John Ferlito, it specifically, deals in ‘micro side hustles’, providing a platform for workers to create a profile, select a range of side hustles tailored to their abilities and resources, and accept work opportunities when they arise.

“Gladly empowers Gen Z with the capabilities to navigate changes in the future of work,” Ferlito says.

nVest

nVest’s mission is to democratise access to stock markets in the Asia Pacific region. It helps customers – from banks to startups – build investment features into their products. Founded by Sivan Atad, this “bank-grade embedded investment solution allows you to deliver accessible, simple and affordable investment experiences to Australian retail investors”.

Project Olea

Project Olea is developing new technologies to enable agricultural waste to be redirected into the global agrifood system. The team, led by co-founders Justine Cohen, Rebecca Screnci and Mark Cohen, is bringing advanced biotech and food science into the future of food production.

Geniepay

Geniepay, co-founded by Sajid Bokhari and Eric Ding aims to bring the ease and speed of one-click checkouts and sales enablement tools to the world of B2B commerce. According to Bokhari (left), business norms like payment terms are clunky at best in the digital sphere, making it harder for businesses to forecast and manage finances. Geniepay offers more flexible by-now-pay-later digital options for business commerce.

Recently, the winner of our second instalment of the Pitch, Amy Benson and Diolog, announced its hard launch. What will the next winner do? If you’re interested in seeing these candidates pitch live, and hearing the insightful judging feedback, register now to attend the Pitch.

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