The Winter ’25 cohort is stuffed with founders chasing the sting of what’s potential and dragging the longer term nearer.
A future the place interval poverty is a factor of the previous. The place anybody can service a machine like an skilled. The place AI doesn’t simply reply questions, however books your Uber, edits your work and fills a hospital shift.
From AI-native workplaces to at-home cervical screening kits, super-intelligent healthcare brokers to haptic gloves that make VR touchable, this cohort is fixing issues you didn’t know might be fastened, and tackling challenges most shrink back from.
They’ve skilled as surgeons. Taught college at 15. Demoed their {hardware} at Open Sauce. Offered firms. And began over.
They’re reinventing how we rent, how we heal, how we really feel, and the way we play. They’ve launched merchandise in weeks, signed clients in days, and raised capital to energy their missions earlier than most of us have had our morning espresso.
This cohort spans industries, cities, and lived expertise, however what unites them is urgency. They’re not ready to be advised what’s potential. They’re constructing it.
Care GP
Sydney, NSW
One-liner: Constructing the AI infrastructure for Healthcare supplier admin
Care GP founder Melvin Chen
Admin is consuming healthcare alive – a 3rd of all healthcare prices are paperwork, not affected person care. That’s $1.3 trillion yearly within the US alone.
Care GP is eliminating that burden with built-in AI brokers that automate supplier admin, beginning with doc processing, billing, and affected person communications.
Their imaginative and prescient? Enabling the primary era of super-intelligent healthcare suppliers.
Led by Melvin Chen (ex-VP at Latch, 3× founder, Forbes 30 Below 30), Ethan Atkins (ex-Fleek, YC W22), and Andy Bui (constructed and scaled AI merchandise to $10K MRR in 2 months), this staff blends product, operations, and engineering excellence.
In simply 3.5 months, Care GP has hit $200K ARR, commercialised 1 agent, and is seeing 50% WoW utilization progress, with three extra brokers within the pipeline.
Founders: Melvin Chen, Ethan Atkins & Andy Bui
Ninja AI
Sydney, NSW
One-liner: Ninja provides anybody the ability to equip AI brokers with related apps.
Ninja AI founder Marcus Schappi
AI assistants can suppose and speak, however they’ll’t take real-world motion (like reserving an Uber) as a result of they lack entry to apps and knowledge. In consequence, on a regular basis duties like reserving rides or sending emails nonetheless depend on customized code and fragile integrations.
Ninja solves that by making it simple to construct, host, and share instruments that AI brokers can use. It’s like an App Retailer, however for AI brokers to get issues accomplished.
The imaginative and prescient? Ninja turns into the default manner AI brokers work together with the world. Similar to APIs helped construct the web, Ninja will energy what AI brokers do.
Founder Marcus Schappi has constructed and bought a number of firms, and specialises in connecting AI to real-world instruments.
In simply six weeks, he launched three platform variations, constructed a totally serverless system, attracted over 700 customers, and has greater than 50 MCP instruments already within the ecosystem, proving robust demand from SaaS groups and AI builders.
Founder: Marcus Schappi
Medlo
Melbourne, Vic
One-liner: Medlo & Doccy solves healthcare entry with AI-powered staffing and hybrid care supply.
Medlo founders Louis Sisk & Jordi Hermoso
Medical doctors need flexibility. Sufferers need quicker care. However the system is damaged – there’s no simple manner for docs to seek out roles, get verified, or ship care on-line and offline.
Medlo is fixing that. It connects docs with short- and long-term roles whereas dealing with credentialing and onboarding. Doccy then allows these docs to supply digital care to sufferers, creating an end-to-end hybrid care platform.
Their imaginative and prescient? To turn into the primary AI hybrid healthcare supply platform.
Louis has spent 8 years working as a physician in Normal Surgical procedure & Emergency. Jordi is a technical co-founder with deep startup expertise, together with constructing cyber and market platforms.
Since launching in November 2024, Medlo has onboarded 310 docs, partnered with 80 hospitals, and is processing over 20,000 hospital shifts.
Founders: Louis J Sisk & Jordi Hermoso
Matchbox
Sydney, NSW
One-liner: Startup recruitment platform to de-risk hiring and fill essential roles quicker.
The Matchbox staff: Nick Glynn, Holly Sanders & Jack Harber
70% of startups fail on account of dangerous hiring. Founders usually lack the time, networks, and expertise to get hiring proper, while conventional recruiters are costly, misaligned, or simply not a match.
Matchbox solves this with a wiser, founder-first strategy. It makes use of AI to deeply perceive a startup’s hiring wants, then connects them with a curated community of domain-expert recruiters and expertise communities. The inducement construction is flipped by rewarding their community solely for a very powerful factor: discovering the right candidate.
The imaginative and prescient: make hiring human-first and AI-powered, so founders can scale confidently, with out compromise.
Led by Holly (previously at LinkedIn, with a background in startups and tech recruitment), second-time founders Jack (Vyro) and Nick (Quickapay), the staff brings 40+ years of expertise throughout hiring, gross sales, technique, ops, and tech—they usually’ve felt the ache of hiring gone unsuitable firsthand.
Founders: Holly Sanders, Jack Harber & Nick Glynn
Promosync
Adelaide, SA
One-liner: Automating retail promotions for FMCG manufacturers to maximise their ROI.
Promosync founders Henry Choo & Divyanshu Chauhan
Behind each yellow ticket promotion we see on grocery store cabinets each day, lies a damaged system.
FMCG manufacturers are nonetheless manually analysing and working multi-million-dollar retail promotions utilizing clunky spreadsheets, losing time, inflicting pricey errors, and lacking alternatives to maximise ROI.
Promosync maximises ROI for FMCG manufacturers by analysing knowledge and automating guide processes to create optimum retail promotions.
The imaginative and prescient for Promosync is to unlock real-time optimisation for retail promotions. Much like Google Advertisements for digital promoting.
Henry and Div are the right staff to unravel this long-standing international drawback.
Henry is an trade skilled, having beforehand led multi-million-dollar retail promotion operations throughout firms equivalent to P&G and Nestle. Div is a seasoned tech founder who has efficiently constructed and scaled a number of companies, together with Chefadora, Indebted and Shippit.
Founders: Divyanshu Chauhan & Henry Choo
Integuide
Sydney, NSW
One-liner: AI to information technicians via upkeep & servicing duties.
Integuide founders Slava Chalnev & Hunter Jay
Senior technicians take years to develop their experience; studying which sounds matter, which shortcuts work, and find out how to deal with edge circumstances that aren’t in any guide. However they’ll solely be in a single place at a time, and after they retire, that information walks out the door.
Integuide captures how the very best technicians really work through body-cam recordings, after which makes use of AI to remodel that experience into accessible information for junior workers to do the identical complicated duties. Each perception, method, and hard-won lesson turns into institutional reminiscence, searchable and citable, full with verification in opposition to present documentation and identified greatest practices.
Our purpose is to allow any technician to carry out at a senior degree by giving them AI-powered entry to an organisation’s collective experience, dramatically accelerating the trail from novice to skilled.
Hunter beforehand constructed fruit-picking robots with Ripe Robotics. Slava is an AI security researcher identified for his work in mechanistic interpretability. Collectively, they’re turning tacit information into scalable intelligence for industrial groups.
Founders: Hunter Jay & Slava Chalnev
Luck
Sydney, NSW
One-liner: Luck kills copy-pasting into chatbots with an AI workspace that edits, writes, and thinks with you – inside your instruments.
Luck founder William Kirkwood
Immediately’s AI instruments for work are fragmented. Proper now, utilizing AI means copy-pasting between your doc and a chatbot. It will probably speak about your work, however can’t do it as a result of it could possibly’t edit straight, lacks full context, and also you by no means see precisely what modified.
Luck replaces this messy copy-pasting with an Settle for/Reject workflow in an AI workspace that edits, writes, and thinks with you straight contained in the instruments you already use. Luck has full context throughout your work, and also you see each change highlighted and may granularly settle for, reject or refine.
The imaginative and prescient? One AI-native workspace that connects each instrument and each AI Mannequin – so your work lives in a single place and your AI really understands it.
Luck is led by William Kirkwood, a seasoned Founder and self-taught Engineer. His expertise as a Product Supervisor at Seed, Collection A, and Collection C start-ups, and in a big enterprise has given him deep perception into knowledge-worker workflows.
Founder: William Kirkwood
On The Home
Brisbane, QLD
One-liner: World’s first free interval merchandise, funded by advertisements, not ladies.
On the Home founder Remy Tucker
On The Home is tackling a nationwide disaster: in 2025, over 3 in 5 Australian ladies are utilizing makeshift options for interval merchandise on account of a scarcity of entry.
On The Home installs digital merchandising machines in public and industrial bogs that present free, natural interval merchandise, funded totally by manufacturers trying to promote to their feminine audience.
The imaginative and prescient is daring: from 2 in 3, to 0 in 3 ladies experiencing interval poverty by 2035.
Founder Remy Tucker brings a mixture of frontline ladies’s healthcare perception and industrial expertise, from coaching as a pupil midwife, constructing client engagement via large-scale occasions for LVMH, and launching go-to-market methods for startups throughout social media and model.
Founder: Remy Tucker
Rave
Melbourne, Vic
One-liner: Discovering and sharing suggestions with individuals who get your style.
Rave founder Steph Brook
One of the best suggestions come from individuals who really get you, however there’s no easy technique to swap them. We’re caught in group chats, Notes apps, or influencer feeds that miss the mark.
Enter Rave. Add your favorite suggestions to your Rave profile – movies, skincare necessities, and must-visit spots. Others can discover your suggestions, and also you’ll see theirs in return.
Rave is the place folks uncover what to look at, eat, purchase, and take a look at, based mostly on suggestions from those that really share their style. Rave will energy all the things from what you pack for a visit to how you discover your subsequent signature scent, turning on a regular basis recs into trusted discovery.
Based by Steph, a former Atlassian engineer, Rave already has early traction. She launched her MVP centered on podcast suggestions and attracted 10,000 customers in simply three months. Now she’s scaling Rave past podcasts, constructing it right into a discovery platform for all the things you’re keen on.
Founder: Steph Brook
June Well being
Sydney, NSW
One-liner: Australia’s first at-home STI and cervical screening kits for girls and folks with a cervix.
June founder Grace Toombs
Solely 62% of eligible ladies are getting cervical screening. STI charges, like syphilis, are skyrocketing, but lower than half of Gen Z ladies commonly see a GP, usually on account of disgrace or stigma.
June Well being is altering that. It provides self-collection kits for STI and cervical screening, shipped straight to your door. Swabs take simply 5 minutes to finish and are analysed by NATA-accredited labs—all from the privateness and luxury of dwelling.
The imaginative and prescient? To turn into the worldwide dwelling for girls’s sexual and reproductive well being supporting her from first bleed to ultimate interval, from ache to prevention, each step of the way in which.
Based by a proud First Nations girl, ex-med pupil, public well being researcher, and endometriosis affected person, June Well being blends private perception with scientific rigour.
Since launching in March 2025, June has secured Australia’s largest pathology supplier, gained paying clients in each state and territory, and achieved 5 earned media options all with out spending a cent on advertisements.
Founder: Grace Toombs
Leakster
Brisbane, Qld
One-liner: Leakster detects and pinpoints water pipeline leaks by listening to the water community in actual time.
Leakster founder Sara Richardson
Australia loses 269 billion litres of fresh ingesting water annually earlier than it even reaches clients. That’s hundreds of litres each second, leaking from underground pipes and costing utility time and clients cash.
Leakster is altering this. Utilizing acoustic sensors and AI-powered software program, it detects, locates, and tracks leaks in actual time, lowering water loss and saving upkeep groups hours of investigation.
The imaginative and prescient? Change reactive water upkeep with sensible, real-time monitoring throughout international pipe networks.
Founder Sara Richardson spent 15 years as a utility economist, listening to about this drawback day by day, whereas dwelling via a Queensland drought so extreme, her city had water trucked in. Now she’s constructing the answer she at all times wished existed.
Founder: Sara Richardson,
On Zero
Sydney, NSW
One-liner: Constructing reasonably priced and open haptic gloves for digital actuality.
On-zero founders Freesia Gaul and Sean Coulon-Clark
Most individuals utilizing digital actuality solely get a headset. That’s as a result of the additional gear, like gloves that allow you to “really feel” issues, is dear and sophisticated to make use of. In consequence, VR hasn’t modified a lot for on a regular basis customers in almost a decade.
On Zero is fixing this. They’re constructing reasonably priced, customisable gloves that assist you to contact, seize, and work together inside digital worlds, making VR extra actual and extra enjoyable for everybody.
The massive concept? Let anybody totally step into digital actuality, not simply see it, however really feel it too.
Founder Freesia Gaul began constructing these gloves whereas finding out quantum engineering. She first realized to code utilizing headsets as a 10-year-old, and is making her youthful self’s dream tools.
“The one restrict this trade ought to have is creativeness,” she insists.
She’s gained awards from MIT, taught university-level courses since she was 15, and co-founded ACES, one in all Australia’s fastest-growing {hardware} communities, all earlier than 20. Her co-founder, Sean Coulon-Clark, studied mechatronics and has labored alongside her on {hardware} initiatives ever since.
Their first tester, a software program engineer at Roblox, was shocked:
“Woah, I’m feeling one thing! What!?”
Since launch, they’ve demoed their gloves at Open Sauce to overwhelmingly constructive suggestions, and are aiming to showcase them at SXSW and CES subsequent.
Founder: Freesia Gaul, Sean Coulon-Clark
HeySTU
Melbourne, Vic
One-liner: STU is a private desk companion robotic that helps folks with ADHD keep centered, organised, and on monitor.
The HeySTU staff: Ikya Thearam, William Cerdelli & Matteo Beretta
In a world filled with distractions, folks with ADHD usually wrestle with focus, job administration, and burnout. It’s not simply irritating, it’s pricey. ADHD is linked to greater charges of job loss, psychological well being points, and productiveness loss, with international financial prices within the billions.
STU is a pleasant, conversational desk robotic designed to assist folks with ADHD. It helps customers break down their ideas, plan their day, examine extra successfully, and keep on prime of duties, like a useful teammate that sits beside you.
The staff behind STU has each lived expertise with ADHD and deep technical experience in machine studying. Collectively, they’re constructing instruments that genuinely perceive how neurodiverse brains work.
In simply 4 days, STU’s early take a look at launch grew to 150 customers, with over 1,000 folks now on the waitlist. The primary prototype was inbuilt simply two weeks, and pilot partnerships are already underway.
Founders: Ikya Thearam, Matteo Beretta & William Cerdelli
