<\/p>\n
While prize money is regularly thrown at promising start-ups in the US, it\u2019s sadly thin on the ground in Australia.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Happily, the situation has improved markedly in just the last six months, with a wave of new initiatives. Startmate is perhaps the premier competition for tech start-ups, offering a decent chunk in initial funding \u2013 $25,000 each in return for a 7.5% stake \u2013 and ongoing mentoring form some of the leading lights of Australia\u2019s tech scene<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The five winners selected for the inaugural Startmate in January also got to head to Silicon Valley to see how they do it Stateside. A welcome addition to Australia\u2019s landscape and, happily, gearing up to return next year.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The novelty element of the Startup Bus competition may have grabbed it the media headlines, but the most worthwhile start-up competition at SXSW could well be its Accelerator program, held with Microsoft Biz Spark.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Last month, 32 budding entrepreneurs demonstrated their products to a panel of judges that includes Y Combinator partner Paul Buchheit, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark. Now in its third year, surely it\u2019s time for an Australian category winner?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n App-based gaming is a booming area but opportunities can be hard to come by for Australian developers. The Launchpad commercialisation program, overseen by entertainment company Jumbuck, goes some way to remedying this.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The scheme chose its first winner, Foolhardy Games, last year and is set to launch a follow-up competition within the next month. Make sure you read the not-so-fine print though \u2013 $50,000 investment requires you to give up 50% if your business<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n We\u2019re giving PushStart a spot for its potential alone, as it only launched a few weeks ago. But for positioning itself as Australia\u2019s answer to the wildly successful Y Combinator, it is to be resoundingly applauded.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The deal? There\u2019s an initial Mentor Connect program, which links you up with a mentor. There will then be a separate competition later this year that will identify 10 leading start-ups and provide them with funding, office space and mentoring.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Details are still a little sketchy \u2013 founder Kim Heras told StartupSmart that the funding will be around $20,000 for a 7-10% stake<\/a><\/a> \u2013 but the arrival of PushStart is a very welcome boost for start-ups.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The number of entrepreneurial courses delivered by Australian universities is steadily rising and, with them, various start-up groups and competitions have emerged.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Melbourne University group Student Entrepreneurs has created the Melbourne University Entrepreneurs\u2019 Challenge, which provides prizes of up to $5,000 for students with a winning business plan.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n However, the real stand-out is the University of Queensland\u2019s Enterprize Business Plan Competition. Not only does the winning team get $100,000 to commercialise their idea, the competition is open to business plans from student and non-student alike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 6. Startmate While prize money is regularly thrown at promising start-ups in the US, it\u2019s sadly thin on the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42235"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}7. SXSW Accelerator <\/h2>\n
8. Launchpad<\/h2>\n
9. PushStart<\/h2>\n
10. Enterprize Business Plan Competition<\/h2>\n