Turn your passion for a problem into a thriving startup business.
Curtin Accelerate is a free ten-week program designed for individuals who want to grow their entrepreneurial capabilities and acquire tools to take their innovative product or service to market quickly and effectively.
Our facilitators and mentors are some of the world’s leading innovators and startup founders. Previous cohorts have had the opportunity to learn from high profile individuals such as venture consultant Larry Lopez, Kanopy founder Olivia Humphrey, and angel investor Bill Tai.
Benefits of participating include:
- Access to 40+ innovation and entrepreneurship experts as well as resources through Curtin’s Venture Studio
- $5,000 equity-free grant funding to achieve your next milestone
- Up to $100,000 in AWS credits to use towards scaling your innovation
- Chance to be considered for a $50,000 Safe Note investment through our Kickstart+ Program.
At the conclusion of the program, founders present their innovative idea to Western Australia’s business leadership community, at our annual Pitch Night on 1 May 2025.
Applications for Curtin Accelerate 2025 are now open. For more information about this program and how to apply, email accelerate@curtin.edu.au.
Information Session
Monday 21 October
12:00pm – 12:30pm
Online
Get insider tips and tricks on how to strengthen your Curtin Accelerate applications from Curtin Entrepreneur Programs Manager Sarah Kahle.
Program details
Important Dates
- Applications open: Curtinnovation Awards, Friday 30 August 2024
- Campaign launch: Monday 3 September 2024
- Information session: Wednesday 16 October 2024
- Applications close: Friday 25 October 2024
- Shortlist notified: Thursday 1 November 2024
- Shortlist pitching takes place: Monday 11 November 2024
- Final teams notified: Friday 15 November 2024
2024 Accelerate Cohort
Curtin University is pleased to announce the 13 teams participating in the 2024 Accelerate program. This diverse group of companies, who are rapidly developing the next generation of innovative products and services to benefit society, will over the next 12-weeks convert their business into a scaleable venture taking their innovations to market.
- Tempo: A two-sided marketplace for health providers and health professionals working in the gig economy to fill shifts and contracts.
- Thetford Industries: Thetford Industries Pty Ltd aims to manufacture and supply innovative tools for the construction industry (namely the painting industry) to streamline manual labour tasks, Taking the ‘pain’ out of ‘painting’, and reducing time and waste on the job!
- RapidGraphite: A world-first solution for graphite manufacturers, helping them turn carbon into battery-grade graphite, an essential material used in the making of lithium-ion batteries, in a matter of seconds rather than days or weeks, reducing the R&D process from years to weeks.
- ANI Research: An intuitive web app to empower small business owners to conduct their own market research and extract insights.
- TECHT: An innovative, world-first solution for the gold mining industry in the form of a corrosion real-time monitoring and protection system that extends the life of components of aggressive mining processing tanks.
- Health and Spice: Providing high protein, allergen-free, additive-free, nutritious, plant based Tiger nut milk using innovative scientific processing technology alongside other value-add whole food products.
- SpaceSync: A digital platform that connects leasing teams with quality retailers for short-term lease agreements to reduce vacancies, increase efficiency and streamline the onboarding process.
- DASH: A customisable web platform for managing life administration.
- COMPAS-S: A digital suicide screening tool that uses a predictive algorithm to proactively reduce suicidal behaviour in students and workers.
- Brightstride: To support local governments to meet community demand for climate action, Brightstride have developed Bright Bonds, a fixed income financing instrument to raise the necessary capital to fund projects that can tackle climate change.
- Spectrum Wear: Everyday street wear with inbuilt tactile experiences that allow wearers with neurodivergent or sensory issues to discretely self-regulate when needed.
- Aruma Home: An innovative company that designs solutions that not only tackles the increasing demand for affordable homes across Australia but delivers a much-needed solution for social housing in remote Aboriginal communities.
- Camplus: An all-in-one student experience app addressing the fragmented access to information students need and care about on a daily basis.
Meet Our Accelerate Alumni
VetChip
VetChip is a world-first smart technology providing accurate, real-time analytics and health monitoring for animal owners and veterinarians.
Curtin engineering graduates Ross Khambatta and Zyrus Khambatta participated in the Curtin Accelerate 2021 program along with co-founders Garnett Hall and Maxwell Hall to finetune their innovation. The team have since gone on to win the 2024 Purina Pet Care Innovation Grand Prize and formed a partnership with AgriPark, Charles Sturt University, to advance research trials and testing.
Fibre Economy
Fibre Economy is a social enterprise working towards a world without textile waste. The organisation established a workwear recycling program that provides donation systems at remote mine sites across Western Australia along with community workshops addressing textile waste through education and awareness.
Curtin fashion design alumni Molly Ryan and Claudi Janse Van Rensburg and co-founder Shannon Itzein partnered with Good Sammy to save used and unwanted high vis workwear from landfill, collecting more than 700kg worth of mining uniforms.
Hyprfire
Hyprfire is a cyber-security company developing software solutions to detect and mitigate malware transfer and denial of service attacks.
Its products are based on cybersecurity research at Curtin, which won the overall Curtinnovation Awards prize in 2017. Curtin PhD candidate, Stefan Prandl then participated in the Curtin Accelerate 2018 program to build the business model and go-to-market strategy. The company has now raised $2.25 million and is actively selling its software solution.