Boosting Female Founders: $11.6 million awarded to 34 businesses in Round 3 grant funding

Thirty-four female-founded businesses have been chosen to receive funding from the Boosting Female Founders Initiative after a Round 3 selection process.

According to the government, the round saw 697 expressions of interest applications that were assessed by an independent assessment committee made up of successful women entrepreneurs.

Launched by the Morrison government in 2020 and headed by the Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISR), the initiative offers grants to help women-led businesses scale into domestic and global markets.

In order to be eligible, the startup has to be at least 51% women-owned and led.

The total grant funding available is $11.6 million for this round. Here’s a rundown of the startups who’ll be receiving a slice of the pie.

Successful grant recipients, Round 3 of Boosting Female Founders Initiative

Accessi Group Pty Ltd: $400,000

Project title: Achieving global expansion of Credit Risk Management Software Platforms

Access Intell’s project is developing a credit risk software to protect businesses from bad debts. Businesses struggle to manage debtors’ ledgers across disjointed systems with limited access to cost-effective credit intelligence. Access Intell aggregates data from multiple sources and integrates it with business systems to deliver a continuous risk assessment on every customer.

The grant funding will allow the business to scale up, expand into global markets, become self-sufficient and create jobs and wealth for Australia.

Bestie Kitchen Pty Ltd: $249,600

Project title: Scale Pet Supplement & Sustainable Food Range

Bestie Kitchen has commercialised intellectual property developed with CSIRO, to make a unique form of nutraceutical gummy chews for pets. This tapped into a growing market for pet supplements.

The key project activities will grow awareness and customer acquisition in Australia, secure distribution with key distributors and retail chains and penetrate key export markets in Asia.

Black Box Trading Company Pty Ltd: $400,000

Project title: Farming tools driven by data

Black Box Trading provides analytics to the agricultural supply chain. The project funding from this grant is key to the product vertical, as Black Box has ambitions to build livestock dashboards to help farmers, feed-lots, and processors with decisions derived from their database of 3.5 million animals.

Black Box’s service is aimed at working across the beef supply chain, from the paddock to grocery shelves to aggregate data, apply machine learning, and give each stakeholder insights into their livestock.

Butter Insurance Pty Ltd: $400,000

Project title: Scaling Butter Insurance – Revolutionising Contents Insurance

Butter Insurance is revolutionising the way young Australians access, purchase and manage insurance. The project will focus on commercialising technology enabling data-led instant quote and bind processes, flexible single-item policies, and cost-effective pricing without lock-in contracts across key distribution channels. Butter’s goal is to bridge the insurance gap for the critically underinsured Australian renters’ market and those under 35.

Compassion Creamery Pty Ltd: $270,000

Project title: Retail-ready launch of Compassion Creamery’s award-winning Oat Creme Cheese

Compassion Creamery is looking to scale its Oat Creme Cheese operations by increasing in-house manufacturing capability in Australia, as well as build commercial capacity including increasing shelf life through formulation alterations. Compassion Creamery will allow hundreds of food service outlets to contribute to the expansion and acceptance of plant-based alternatives in the market; ultimately driven by the urgent need to create a more sustainable and ethical food system.

Driveschool Enterprises Pty Ltd: $300,000

Project title: myDRIVESCHOOL® – social & global

myDRIVESCHOOL® is an award-winning road safety program to teach people how to drive online, using simulation, gaming and artificial intelligence (AI). With BFF funding, it will develop additional learning modules to address behavioural change and combine all for global markets.

Education Ontrack Pty Ltd: $462,833

Project title: Flohh assessment platform scaling and integration

The project for Education Ontrack will focus on integrating Flohh’s online essay marking platform into School Management Systems (SMS) and Learning Management Systems (LMS) to facilitate student data transfer and eliminate double-handling for teachers. This will also enable the business to scale internationally and enhance product performance.

Evolve Communities Pty Ltd: $443,100

Project title: Accelerating allyship and reconciliation supporting Statement of the Heart

Evolve Communities is a majority Indigenous-owned, female-founded organisation that teaches Practical Reconciliation and Allyship. The project will expand its unique frameworks, educational resources, multi-modal delivery, accreditation and licensing programs to make its training and accreditation the gold standard for professionals and organisations in Australia.

Fonz Moto Pty Limited: $393,847

Project title: Fonz Moto – Australian designed & made EV motorcycles market expansion

Fonz Moto designs, builds, sells and rides electrifying two-wheel motorcycles and road scooters for the future of mobility. The project boasts a highly innovative Australian designed and manufactured product that has disrupted the Sydney market and will continue its rapid growth both locally and overseas.

Future Anything Pty Ltd: $294,150

Project title: Future Anything enterprising education applied learning platform

Future Anything’s project will transform teacher-led enterprise education programs into a new student-facing applied learning EdTech experience.

The project will create an innovative new standalone product that will enable Future Anything to scale rapidly and sustainably into the domestic and international markets.

Gaykamangu, Liandra: $437,500

Project title: Liandra Swim international expansion

Liandra Swim is a premium fashion brand that focuses on sustainability whilst celebrating Indigenous Australian culture. Liandra Swim presents contemporary fashion collections showcasing hand-drawn signature prints.

The theme of each collection links the audience to a carefully considered narrative through the ancient Indigenous art of storytelling. The project will support the expansion and diversity of available swimwear inventory in the domestic and international markets.

Givvable Pty Ltd: $397,600

Project title: Givvable – helping businesses reach their sustainability targets, faster

Givvable has developed an artificial intelligence-powered software as a service (SaaS) platform for businesses to discover and track the sustainability attributes of suppliers mapped to widely-used reporting frameworks. The project will leverage existing local distribution partnerships to expand further into the domestic and international markets.

Grant’d Pty Ltd: $382,122

Project title: Grant’d 2.0 automating and scaling The Personalised Grant’d Experience

This project will create a subscriber-based platform that automates its unique grants service, transforming Grant’d into a scalable tech-based business. This investment will boost the scalability of Grant’d by eliminating its current manual processes and removing cost barriers for users through a purpose-built Software as a Service (SaaS) platform using generative AI to deliver and maintain Grant’ds vision to become the go-to digital solution for grant seekers in Australia and globally.

Lactamo Holdings Pty Ltd, $365,000

Project title: Scaling-up Lactamo to respond to demand nationally and internationally

Lactamo is a world first in MedTech innovation for breastfeeding. Lactamo uniquely combines temperature, movement and compression to address the common breastfeeding problems. Independently clinically validated and IP protected, Lactamo is both proactive and reactive for breastfeeding.

The project will focus on 3 key activities consisting of marketing (domestically and internationally), the expansion of the team, and operational expansion support to facilitate growth, creating a secure foundation for the core business areas.

Leap4ward.ai Pty Ltd: $399,600

Project title: Tech development of artificial intelligence-enabled virtual health coach

LeapForward.ai’s project is an artificial intelligence-enabled application that supports injured individuals to recover from a compensable injury or illness. The minimum viable product’s core function will implement a chatbot (“Virtual Health Coach”), which delivers virtual support and responds to users with scripted responses deployed via basic algorithms.

The project will utilise advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning to understand the user’s expression, tone and sentiment.

Life Skills Group Pty Ltd: $300,000

Project title: Develop an SDK to integrate wellbeing data and tools into web-based systems

Life Skills’ project is a Software Development Kit that allows the integration of existing wellbeing data collection, measurement and analysis tools into third-party applications. It is a platform to measure the emotional wellbeing of students.

Lush Organic Hair & Spa Forest Glen Pty Ltd: $150,000

Project title: Penny Black Organic hair products – domestic and global expansion

Lush Organic Hair trades as Penny Black Organic (PBO) and is the only Certified Green Salon in the Southern Hemisphere. Lush Organic has developed 16 certified organic hair products.

The project will focus on scale manufacturing and organic packaging, product range expansion for direct customer sales both domestically and early international sales, recruitment of skilled management team to implement brand awareness and marketing.

Maxme Pty Ltd: $380,599

Project title: Hodie+: Powering the great reconnection in the digital age

Maxme’s project is an immersive and digitally-enhanced human skill development learning experience underpinned by a digital learning application, empowering individuals to take control of their skills, careers, and futures, driving retention and engagement in the small to medium-sized enterprises market. The gamified solution bridges the gap between employees and their jobs, integrated into daily work life through the application.

Meditati Pty Ltd: $330,000

Project title: Commercialisation of tampon innovation to disrupt the FemCare market

The project will undertake multi-cultural research for the commercialisation of a revolutionary applicator to disrupt the FemCare market. Key activities for the project are to create a go-to-market brand, and web-based education for schools and health practitioners. The project is developing a revolutionary soft applicator insertion solution. The New Zealand market pilot study will refine the go-to-market strategy for the Australian release.

Mettleaje Pty Ltd: $225,995

Project title: Scaling Thirsty Turtl skincare to boost global Indigenous extracts market

Thirsty Turtl is an Australian skincare startup that launched in December 2022 with three products. The project will focus on growing the global market for Indigenous-sourced Australian native plant extracts.

This will be achieved through product expansion, sales growth via domestic and export-focused distributors, more efficient manufacturing and employment of specialised staff to build brand awareness.

MIIROKO Pty Ltd: $400,000

Project title: MIIROKO’s establishment and expansion into Japan

MIIROKO’s innovative vegan hair colour formula is free from ammonia, resorcinol, and paraphenylenediamine, empowering women with affordable access to salon-quality hair colour that is both gentle on their hair and environmentally friendly.

The project will focus on enhancing its digital capabilities, establishing a robust back-end team, and securing investment to leverage existing organic growth within the domestic market to scale into the lucrative Asian market, beginning with Japan.

Mineral Fox Pty Ltd: $262,500

Project title: Mineral Fox national expansion

Mineral Fox exists to help people return to nature and is a supplier of innovative, Australian-made natural plasters and renders that provide a sustainable, healthy a beautiful alternative to conventional wall coatings.

This project will support accelerated national expansion through additional headcount, systems, marketing and training.

More Good Days Pty Ltd: $396,318

Project title: Digital evidence-based pain management program for fibromyalgia

This project will accelerate the build of More Good Days’ pain management digital platform, and help accelerate growth across Australia and internationally.

Neomorph Pty Ltd: $300,000

Project title: NeoMorph – an innovative mouldable alternative to the dental-made mouthguard

NeoMorph Prodigy is an innovative over-the-counter, re-mouldable alternative to the dental-made mouthguard. The patent pending design interlocks a dual polymer combination to provide a mouthguard that is securely custom fitting, protective and comfortable, to address the current concerns of end-users and the Australian Dental Association.

Our Trace Pty Ltd: $400,000

Project title: Automate carbon footprinting for SMEs to scale in Australia and overseas

This project will focus on automating the process of collecting data from businesses and enhancing the accuracy and useability of the carbon inventory to power decarbonisation and enable Trace to scale. By integrating with technology that companies use every day, such as spreadsheets, accounting and travel management software, Trace can gather data required to measure, reduce and track emissions and establish channel partnerships with third parties already servicing our target customer.

Parking Spotz Pty Ltd: $388,917

Project title: Parking Spotz – Electric Vehicle (EV) charging market expansion and execution of growth plan

Parking Spotz is developing an integrated hardware and software solution that automates parking bay security and optimises usage, turnover, and a return on investment through data-driven insights for electric vehicle (EV) charging bays.

The project will focus on product integration with new EV Charging partners, optimise and automate manufacturing processes for scaled production, execute a sales growth plan with the recruitment of specialised management team, and launch new data analytic modules to deliver valuable insights and position us as leaders in parking and EV data analytics.

Pixii Pty Ltd: $133,740

Project title: Changing women’s experience everywhere by bringing equality to bathrooms

The project will result in a second-generation dispenser for Pixii organic period products being brought to market, including new tech-enabled capabilities for stock monitoring and automated re-ordering. This will enable more building and facility managers to offer period products as part of their fundamental hygiene suppliers to staff and guests, just like soap and toilet paper.

The Paw Grocer Pty Ltd: $400,000

Project title: Scaling for expansion in the domestic and export premium pet food markets

The multi-faceted project will scale The Paw Grocer in both domestic and export markets. The grant funding will be used to improve our manufacturing capability and production efficiency, implement an inventory management system, and bring new products to market.

The One Two Pty Ltd: $362, 521

Project title: The OneTwo domestic and global expansion

The OneTwo creates an easy bra shopping experience with hyper-personalised e-commerce, including a proprietary world-leading fit algorithm and innovative products.

The project aims to accelerate revenue growth in two years through commercialisation into the domestic and international markets, as well as investments in intellectual property and technology.

Theratrak Pty Ltd: $150,000

Project title: Theratrak, scale-up and market expansion to support the disability sector

Theratrak is developing an innovative online and mobile application-based tool for therapists working with children with disabilities. Theratrak will support a wider cohort of people living with a disability, such as adults living with autism, intellectual disabilities, cerebral palsy and other physical and mental health challenges.

Vapar Innovation Pty Ltd: $300,000

Project title: Innovative AI sewer technology expansion to the USA

Vapar Innovation is developing artificial intelligence for sewer technology expansion into the United States of America. Vapar will implement a channel strategy to reach early adopter customers and set up sales operations internationally.

VETNexus Pty Ltd: $200,000

Project title: Bridging the national digital skills gap: Leave no-one behind

VETNexus has developed a Digital Literacy Licence (DLL) which is a suite of online courses with digital badges. These badges can be displayed on a participant’s social media profile and resume to verify their skills when applying for employment.

The DLL takes participants on a journey of discovery and decision-making, actively engaging with the concepts covered to ensure they have developed the full range of foundational digital skills by the time they complete their full DLL.

The project will include digital skills roadshows, marketing materials, and learning content to promote and raise awareness of digital literacy.

X-Hemp Pty Ltd: $480,000

Project title: Scaling X-Hemp, building homes, elevating women, capturing carbon

X-Hemp uses waste agricultural materials and purpose-planted crops to make environmentally friendly hemp building products.

The project aims to deliver synergistic investments in people and processes, equipment and business-enabling infrastructure, new product development, branding, marketing and new market activation.

Zondii Pty Ltd: $427,000

Project title: Zondii wool scanning device + female leaders project

Zondii’s technology goes beyond the human senses to measure the true value of food and fibre. The prototype is currently in on-farm beta trials and its application in wool measurement has attracted a growing waitlist.

The Zondii wool scanning device + female leaders project will fund an industrial design and refinement process; product launch in Australia and New Zealand; and professional development for Zondii’s female leaders.

This project will establish Zondii as a financially sustainable female-founded startup, with a commercial product in domestic and global markets, and will provide economic growth for wool growers, improved earning potential for women, and job creation internally and within the industry broadly.

This article was first published by Women’s Agenda.