Industrial Prototyping Lab and Innovation Accelerator, The Melt, announces its first investments and the raising of a dedicated Angel Fund.
The Melt backed by the Federal government and recently launched by former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, has lofty goals of reimagining Australia’s manufacturing sector and becoming a significant addition to the Australian technology landscape.
The Melt provides the funding, tools and services to help growth companies build great hardware products, launch successful businesses and importantly reduce the risk associated with building complex engineering products.
The Melt’s first investments include:
Safe-Gauge
IoT safety startup Safe-Gauge is focused on reducing injuries when testing mobile plant machinery. Safe-Gauge’s products allow technicians to complete regular maintenance duties clear from crush zones and dangerous high-pressure environments. Launched in February, Safe-Gauge has already achieved global sales including in the US and Brazil, across mining, equipment manufacturers and agriculture.
Zedelef
University of NSW spin out Zedelef has built a new generation of optical sensor networks for hazardous environments and the defence industry. Zedelef has already attracted significant grants and angel investment and has had strong commercial interest from defence, mining, oil and gas and the water and waste water markets.
Greaseboss
GreaseBoss is a simple yet smart lubrication management system. Focused on building confidence and peace-of-mind through tracking and tracing of equipment greasing and lubrication. Costly equipment damage and outages are a consequence of failed lubrication. This system employs location tracking and a secure dashboard to provide management with visibility to ensure fleet wide lubrication program compliance. The right lubrication in the right place, at the right time. The system launched in June has already been deployed in agriculture, process and mining applications.
HONE
Ag-tech startup Hone enables farmers to bypass traditional, and time consuming ag testing via a revolutionary hand-held device that provides an instant chemical analysis of crops. Hone puts the power of real-time decision making in the hands of the farmers, allowing them to maximise production efficiency.
ORATA
Sustainable building material startup Orata, builds revolutionary thermal heating and cooling systems for residential and commercial buildings, allowing owners to slash energy bills and reduce carbon emissions.
Sustainable building material startup Orata, builds revolutionary thermal heating and cooling systems for residential and commercial buildings, allowing owners to slash energy bills and reduce carbon emissions.
We not only help these startups build great products we help them sell
Steve Barnett, Co-Founder of GreaseBoss said, “The Melt has greatly assisted GreaseBoss to maximise our engineering skills, market experience and industry relationships into a potentially global IoT lubrication management system. The Melt have helped GreaseBoss to find customers who will benefit from having full visibility over their daily lubrication activities.”
“Experience in lean commercialisation of hardware products is hard to find in Australia, so it’s great to have The Melt’s unique perspective on all aspects of hardware product delivery, from manufacturing to pricing and sales so we can get it right for our customers”, said Antony Martin, Hone CEO
The Melt also offers its process to larger companies to fast track their internal R&D. We currently have a number of large projects running concurrently in The Melt that allow our larger corporate clients to focus on their business-as-usual activities, whilst we assist them by delivering their strategic innovation agenda. Progressive, leading companies including Qube Logistics, Bradken and Orica are all benefitting from The Melt.
Perhaps The Melt’s most impressive achievement has been the raising of an Angel Fund to invest in Melt Startups during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Investors are genuinely excited by the notion of what The Melt has to offer, not just for themselves as investors, but for the Australian economy. The Melt team’s experience having investing in 100+ Australian startups has provided investors with confidence that there is expertise and a process around the way they select and work with companies to produce successful outcomes for all parties.
The Melt investors will play a significant part in helping our portfolio companies succeed with deep domain experience in the verticals in which we invest.
The Melt is continuously looking for new startup investment opportunities in the areas of IoT, cleantech, ag-tech, robotics, process automation and advanced manufacturing.
The Melt does not take fixed cohorts of startups into our programs and can invest at any stage of a company’s lifecycle, from pre-product all the way through prototyping to large scale production.
The Melt has been so well received that we are exploring expansion into other locations around Australia. We are seeking expressions of interest from local and state governments, corporate partners and stakeholders who wish to be a part of that expansion. If you an interested partner please get in contact.