Caltex Spark, accelerated by Slingshot, showed off the hard work of their 12 chosen businesses, at Demo Day on 1 August 2018.
Partnering with Caltex, the 12 Startup and Scaleup businesses took part in the inaugural Spark Accelerator 12-week program, with their innovations and new ideas.
Caltex Executive GM of Convenience Retail said: “Some of our customers are huge, some of the biggest corporate organisations and our job is to make life easy for them and provide solutions big or small, that’s the driver for us and it’s why we’re working with these fantastic entrepreneurs as you’re going to see tonight”.
“I think it’s really important when businesses work together,” he said.
“Trying new things and finding new ways is what this is all about.
“Caltex is serious about this, we’re not just a business that puts it on the wall and says ‘we’re interested in innovation’ or ‘doing new things’, we’re putting our money where our mouth is, we’re committing to it because we know the marketplace is more competitive than ever and customers expect more than ever and technology is driving change faster than ever.”
The 12 businesses included:
Startups
Aglo – A retail intelligence platform that uses crowdsourcing and AI to uncover distribution gaps, detect out of stocks and improve in-store marketing.
Conexie – An intelligent communications platform that improves the way businesses channel, engage and analyse important information.
CyclePort – The world’s first universal smart bike parking, charging and sharing system.
Halo – A concierge service for fleet and personal vehicles.
Pak360 – A manufacturer of disposable and reusable compostable food packaging made from only alternative tree free renewable fibres.
Picnic Box – An aggregator of fresh food and deli quality produce in convenient eco-friendly take-away packaging for corporate and social events, or customers on the move.
Scaleups
Autoguru – A two-sided marketplace that enables vehicle owners to get instant quotes for logbook servicing and repairs, and book local mechanics online.
Carbar Autos – An online platform that gives you the confidence and convenience to buy and sell your car.
Camplify – Australia’s largest RV rental marketplace, connecting RV owners with holidaymakers.
Earlytrade – An electronic clearing house that matches payables and receivables to deliver optimal working capital outcomes.
ORDITAL – Enables assets to be described with classified photographs, and asset management system to be populated with data extracted from those photographs.
Ping Data – Reimagining the post purchase experience by automatically sending smart receipts to a customer’s banking app.
Caltex Head of New Business & Innovation at Caltex Australia Beatrice Bowen said the Spark program had been an incredible journey.
“It’s been an absolute privilege…to work with such a talented group of entrepreneurs,” she said.
“I think there’s been three main benefits for Caltex…the first one is embedding a culture of innovation within Caltex that is sustainable and repeatable. The second one is getting an amazing introduction to very talented entrepreneurs and giving us an opportunity to partner with them, and potentially invest, and the third one is really investing in the Caltex brand being one that is synonymous with innovation because that’s a journey we obviously want to to be on.”