October 31, 2016

Recycling the road to a winning pitch

Constructing a sustainable future takes top prize at annual startup final.

An innovative use of waste materials that reduces cost and increases the longevity of road construction has won the 2016 iAccelerate Pitch final.

The fifth annual iAccelerate Pitch Final was held recently (27 October), where entrepreneurs get a chance to polish and pitch their business idea to a panel of experts.

The six finalists had five minutes to communicate their value to market as well as identify and explain their competitive advantage in front of a panel of experts and VIP audience, with the aim of connecting the Illawarra’s rising stars with business leaders as they seek investment and collaboration.

Each finalist has had their pitch whipped into shape with formal training from a professional pitch trainer, ongoing feedback at practice sessions and pitching to their peers.

Awards handed out on the night included: Panel Winner, Panel Runner Up, Audience Winner, Audience Runner Up and Most Improved Pitch.

StabilCo's Odette Lawler and Simon Bruce with iAccelerate CEO Omar Khalifa.

StabilCo took out the prizes for Panel Winner and Audience Winner for their concept that reduces costs for construction materials used in transport infrastructure, such as roads, rail, airport aprons, cycleways, landfill liners and other hardstand areas.

Other winners on the night were: Quirky Kid (Panel Choice runner-up), ScrubUp (Audience Choice runner-up) and Digital HomeBrew (Most Improved).

Simon Bruce and Odette Lawler from StabilCo pitched to the panel of experts, outlining how the concept takes waste aggregates and other solid wastes from the construction, municipal, chemical, utility and mining industries, which are blended to form pavement construction materials that are low cost, have a longer lifetime and require less maintenance.

StabilCo founder Simon Bruce said becoming a resident at iAccelerate has been one of the company’s most valuable endeavours to date.

“It’s such a supportive, motivating, collaborative space to work in. Our business has developed and improved a lot in a short space of time, in a huge part due to the advice of the mentors and the iAccelerate Educate program,” he said.

“The pitch program has had us working very hard on better communicating our technology. Five weeks ago, at the start of the pitch program, we weren’t making a whole lot of sense in our attempts to pitch.

“When you’ve been working within your own business, on your own ideas, for so long, you don’t often realise that you’re failing at getting other people to really understand what you do.

“Now we feel so much more confident that we can get our message across and share what we know is a fantastic technology with so much potential for positive impact.

“We are extremely thankful to all the iAccelerate staff and residents.”

iAccelerate CEO Omar Khalifa said the calibre and diversity of the company’s pitching demonstrated that the local innovation ecosystem was flourishing.

“It shows the innovation can happen anywhere, you don’t need to be in Sydney or Melbourne.

"Right here in Wollongong is the environment and support for entrepreneurs to develop their capabilities and present to panels of experts that have great experience and achievements in their fields,” Mr Khalifa said.

“The Pitch event and the lead-up training and mentoring sessions are a runway to help these companies get to a point where they can make a compelling case to investors and access the capital to scale-up, which is a great outcome for them and also the region.”