For the period ending 25 May 2016
Vehicle protective system Rhinohide dominates Techboard’s startup ranking this fortnight 
following a successful pitch on Channel Ten’s Shark Tank which created a bidding war between three of the investors. Rhinohide successfully raised $160k, and as a result the company captured significant mindshare over the past 48 hours, including a lot of TV and radio coverage. Founder Marc Berryman puts his success on the show down to preparation.
“It’s definitely nerve-wracking. You need to know your stuff, you need to know your product inside and out. You also need to be realistic with your projections. I was honest about the lack of sales, and was really selling the potential.”
Marc confirmed that being a Perth startup has been no impediment to securing funding, having raised a total of over $300k from Shark Tank and the WA Angel Investors. The bigger challenge has been manufacturing.
“My original Perth manufacturer screwed me over, he was using mdf tooling which was only good for runs up to about 100 pieces, and wanted $8,000 per aluminium tooling. That drove me to China, where I could get the tooling for about $2,500 per piece. It’s a direct seven hour flight to Guangzhou, and the Chinese are far more skilled at plastics manufacturing than WA, so it’s a no brainer.”
Trying to repulse sharks rather than attract them is our second ranked company, Shark Mitigation Systems, with good strong press coverage, share price growth and web rankings, as well as a record four nominations from our panel of experts. The listed startup completed a successful trial of its Clever Buoy technology off Bondi Beach.
According to the company’s co-founder Craig Anderson, “the trial has validated the stability and robustness of our current Clever Buoy platform to sustainably operate in real-world Australian beach conditions 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, autonomously detecting and alerting the presence of large sharks that could be a threat to beach users. It has a cost structure that is competitive with alternative options on the market, and has received global expressions of interest for deployment.”
Pre-employment screening services company CV Check rounds out the top three, largely as a result of announcing its $1.9m acquisition of New Zealand competitor Resume Check.
Techboard first-timer Smartbots was our fourth highest trending startups. The robotic solutions company has partnered with the Art Gallery of WA in developing a public engagement walking robot.
Here is a taster of Techboard’s latest startup ranking for the period ending 25 May 2016.
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Check out the Archives:
Ranking #14 from 30 March 2016
Ranking #15 from 14 April 2016
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