The Techstars Sydney Accelerator has invested US$1.44 million (A$2.2m) in 12 early stage startups announcing its class of 2025 today.
From surfing to strata management, music, marketing, finance and biotech, it’s a wide range of ideas and solutions to big problems.
The founders include a former concert violinist, an early AirBnb employee, a PHD researcher in the top 2% of scientists globally, the person who launched Canva’s legal team, a globally-recognised crypto lawyer, and several second-time founders, including one who did the US Techstars program for her first company and is back to build her second one in Australia.
The 12 startups each received US$120,000 (A$180k) investment, and for 7 of the 12 teams it’s their first funding. Techstars Sydney is backed by Investment NSW, a state government body.
This week they begin a 3-month accelerator program in Tech Central in Sydney. Everyone’s there in person, with half the founders moving from interstate or internationally.
Techstars Managing Director Christie Jenkins said they’re adding a few things this year.
“In the startup world we expect founders to lead their company from idea through to IPO. But too often we spend all our time coaching founders on how to grow their company and no time on how to improve as individuals and leaders,” she said.
“This year we have a leadership track. Every founder will get an executive coach, and we’re bringing in speakers from elite sport and the Special Forces.
“We also have a huge international focus. Whilst we have 100 mentors here in Australia, Techstars also has 26 locations, 3100 mentors, and 3500 alumni companies globally. We tap into them to help founders get their first international customer or fundraise squared away.”
Jenkins said conventional startup wisdom says to back cofounding teams, yet 9 of the 12 companies backed in 2025 are solo founders, in part because new AI tools allow an individual to do more.
Techstars program manager Gwen Masonsong – a finalist in the Startup Daily Best in Tech Awards – is also pleased by the diversity in the people they’ve invested in.
“Of the 12 teams a third of the teams include women, and 5 are culturally and linguistically diverse,” she said
“Earlier in the year we actually partnered with Build Club to run a cash-prize challenge. We asked competitors to use data science to help us source underrepresented and under-the-radar founders,” she said.
“We’re not at parity yet, but we’re happy those efforts ended up reflected in our pipeline too. In our 150 first round interviews, 36% of founding teams included women and 61% were racially or culturally diverse.”
Here are the 12 startups you’ll see at the Techstars Sydney Demo Day in December.
Briefcase, founded by Kirk Simmons: Creating the digital courts and tribunals of the future.
CorFin.AI, founded by David Stephen Sta.Maria and Silven Victor D. Epistola: An AI native platform for finance teams to control, process, and analyse every expense in one place.
Crystal aOS, founded by Joni Pirovich: Simplified crypto legal, risk and compliance management so crypto innovation can thrive.
Juxtabyte, founded by Hugh Le: A new way for large enterprises to compliantly manage their data, and improve data discoverability internally.
MuseAI, founded by Jad al Masri: AI assistant for organising musicians’ notes and audio clips.
OncoRevive, founded by Samira Sadeghi and Mohammad Tavakkoli Yaraki: Rapid, affordable, and precise cancer diagnostics with a newly invented liquid biopsy testing method.
Onsite, founded by Nathan Croxton: Helping run buildings – an all-in-one platform for building management with real-time issue tracking.
Our Leg Up, founded by Michael Ragavan: Creating a new investment product for homeowners to get a return on their built up equity, and using those funds to help banks lend to new homeowners who don’t have a 20% deposit.
Slice, founded by Amy Stevens: The first platform that automates delivery of financial and legal services behind property transactions.
SurfLab, founded by Antony Arena and Jesse Morse: Personalised surfing coaching platform with AI-powered coaching, community, and commerce to guide surfers through every stage of their journey.
VetNotes, founded by Mitch Sigley: Automatic clinical note taking for veterinarians.
Zipline AI, founded by Michelle Reeves: Empowering brands to co-design new products and content with their customers using AI.
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