Back

New piggies kicked to market

November 2015 - Under the latest round of the Entrepreneurs' Programme, the Australian Government is offering ten businesses commercial assistance worth a total of $8.5 million.

The program's Accelerating Commercialisation element provides eligible businesses commercialising a novel product, process or service with assistance worth up to 50% of a project's expenditure over a maximum period of two years.

To date, the program has delivered more than $46 million to 85 projects.

The successful projects in the program's latest round include:

• Advanced Agricultural Systems Pty Ltd ($999,712) - the company, which is trading as SwarmFarm and chaired by former Queensland Premier Campbell Newman, is developing small, lightweight robots for farming and weed control.
• Agersens Pty Ltd ($250,000) - the company develops a fenceless farming system called eShepherd, through which farmers will be able to control their livestock's health and location, including using a smartphone or tablet.
• Blamey and Saunders Hearing Pty Ltd ($985,330) - the company is commercialising the world's first modular hearing aid.
• Euclideon Pty Ltd ($1 million) - the company is commercialising Holographic Entertainment Centres. Euclideon has created hardware and designed software that allows people to experience real world environments in hologram rooms. The objects in the hologram room are not just projections on walls, they appear to be solid and float in front of the user.
• GRD-Franmarine Holdings Pty Ltd ($1 million) - the Western Australian diving company has developed an inwater, no contact hull cleaning system called Envirocart, which is capable of cleaning and encapsulating marine biofouling from vessels over 40 metres.
• Osler Technology Pty Ltd ($1 million) - the company's Osler Technology Clinical Performance Platform provides a performance enhancing clinical and procedural report card for students, doctors, nurses and paramedics.
• StraxCorp Pty Ltd ($1 million) - the Melbourne-based start-up is commercialising a web-based CT Image Analysis for diagnosis and monitoring of bone health, used for the early detection of osteoporosis.
• Yield Technology Solutions Pty Ltd ($957,000) - the Yield is an Internet of Things (IoT) AgTech product company. The grant will support its technology for the Oyster Industry, which reduces unnecessary harvest closures, improves labour scheduling and tracks food safety.
• Wilson Pastoral International Pty Ltd ($949,954) - the South Australian company is producing pellets from drought resistant saltbush as a low cost source of nutrients for livestock.
• xLabs Pty Ltd ($357,403) - the start-up's EyesDecide Realtime eye gaze tracking web platform can work out what users are looking at on the screen using only a webcam with no additional hardware required.