On Tuesday 16th November, six startups will pitch for the title of AISA ‘Startup of the Year’. The award comes with $5,000 in prize money from AISA and CyRise — but it won’t be easy to take home the title.
The 2021 field is perhaps the toughest yet, and each competitor will have just three minutes to pitch their unique product innovation and convince a panel of powerhouse judges:
Casey Ellis (Chair: Bugcrowd)
Kaiti Delaney (Principal: TenEleven Ventures)
Darren Kane (CSO, NBN Co)
Meet this year’s Startup of the Year finalists:
Avertro
CEO: Ian Yip
Avertro has developed CyberHQ®, marketed as “the world’s first Cyber Management Decision System”, helping leaders manage the business of cyber using defensible insights to determine what’s essential, improve cyber resilience, and report on cybersecurity performance.
Avertro began after CEO Ian Yip noticed business leaders reporting a common challenge: a disconnect between the cyber team and everyone else, particularly the executive layer. He left his role as CTO of McAfee Asia Pacific, founded Avertro in 2019, and the company has since raised almost $1 million.
Castlepoint
CEO: Rachel Greaves
With exponentially growing data, stored across dozens or hundreds of systems, the old ways of customisation, integration, migration, and manual governance are no longer sustainable. Castlepoint’s AI can read every word in every document, email and database, and then automatically classify them, based on their content — so you can provide the right level of cybersecurity where you need it.
Born from long experience in security and compliance auditing for government and regulated industry, Castlepoint launched their software in 2018, and has raised over $3million in funding.
Cynch
CEO: Susie Jones
Cynch is a Melbourne-based company on a mission to help busy business leaders prevent a cybersecurity incident from becoming one of the worst days of their career. Cynch’s tools help measure the cyber risk of a business, understand exactly what steps to take to address the biggest threats, and strengthen the cybersecurity of a business in less than 5 minutes.
Led by CEO Susie Jones, Cynch launched its Cyber Fitness memberships in 2019, and supply chain solutions in 2020.
Daltrey
Managing Director: Blair Crawford
Daltry deploys biometric technology to enable users to prove who they are quickly and securely in both digital and physical scenarios. After undergoing a robust identity establishment process, users receive a biometric credential known as a DaltreyID, replacing passwords and swipe cards. The Daltry middleware platform integrates with existing access management providers, combining a smooth user experience with high security.
After arriving in Australia as a backpacker from Scotland, co-Founder Blair Crawford launched Daltrey in 2020. Daltrey has already secured $8.5m in funding, and signed strategic partnerships with clients including Microsoft, Tesserent, and KPMG.
Devicie
CEO: Martin McGregor
Device security processes and features can hinder employees from doing their best work. But Devicie automates end-user device security and management so employees can do their best work safely and productively, from anywhere, on any enrolled device.
The team of Martin McGregor, José Schenardie and Jason Fairburn founded Devicie in 2020 to address the security versus productivity dilemma, and were uniquely placed to support the growing number of employees working from home during the COVID pandemic.
Tide Foundation
Tide’s blockchain-based encryption method leverages cyber-herd immunity to protect sensitive data, such as customer records and financial information. Each record has its own encryption key, and each key is controlled by a decentralized guardian. To breach one organization, an attacker needed to breach everyone. Tide’s technology harnesses the scale and strength of a decentralized network to provide exponential complexity to an attacker.
The brainchild of Yuval Hertzog and Michael Loewy, Tide has already raised over $3 million, and is the first Australian company ever chosen to compete at TechCrunch Disrupt.
The 2021 ‘Startup of the Year’ Award is co-sponsored by CyRise and AISA. Register here to watch these six superstar startups battle for the title during the Australian Cyber Conference.
