Regional NSW start-up, Look Who’s Charging, crowned PitchFest winner at CeBIT Australia

Look
Who’s Charging was named winner of CeBIT PitchFest on the final day of
CeBIT Australia. Ten of Australia’s leading start-up companies went
head-to-head to pitch their company idea to a panel of esteemed judges at one
of Australia’s leading top entrepreneurial competitions.

The
winner, Look Who’s Charging, is a Lake Macquarie based FinTech start-up that
has set out to simplify the process of recognising unknown bank statement
transactions and reconciliations.

Stuart
Grover, Founder of Look Who’s Charging, commented on the PitchFest win,
and the opportunities CeBIT Australia and TiE Sydney, a global entrepreneurial
community, have created for Look Who’s Charging.

“Winning
the prestigious CeBIT PitchFest competition provides validation that our
mission, to eradicate the 10 million plus hours Australians waste trying
to figure out who has charged their card, is a core issue that every Australian
can relate to.

“This
is our first PitchFest competition, and already doors have opened with
meaningful business and investor conversations. Thank you to CeBIT Australia
and TiE Sydney for continuing to foster an ecosystem for start-up organisations
and innovation to thrive across NSW and Australia,” said Mr Grover.

Australian
and international leaders in the start-up sector judged each of the ten
entrepreneurs in a ‘Shark Tank’ style competition. Judges included: Maureen
Murphy, Commercialisation Adviser, Accelerating Commercialisation; Raj Dalal,
Principal BigInsights and President of TiE Sydney; and James Cameron, Partner
at AirTree VC.

Look
Who’s Charging has won a package valued at over $20,000 including an exhibition
stand at CeBIT Australia 2018, a 12-month hosted cloud services package from
OrionVM valued at $1,000 per month, and a 1-year membership to TiE Sydney.

Second
place and third places went to Sydney-based start-ups Rivuu, a social
media content approval and scheduling tool, and Sound Scouts, an app that is
revolutionising hearing tests for school-aged Australians through gamification.
Both start-ups will enjoy a 1-year membership to TiE Sydney.

NSW
Minister for Trade and Industry, Niall Blair, commented on the PitchFest
winner announcement:

“The
NSW Government is investing in our state’s start-up sector because we recognise
the potential to create jobs and economic growth. It was fantastic to see eight
out of the ten PitchFest finalists were from NSW – it shows our state truly is
the start-up state, home to 40% of Australia’s start-up founders.

“Congratulations
to Look Who’s Charging for taking out the 2017 PitchFest title and I look
forward to hearing more about their progress into the future,” said Mr Blair.

Earlier
in the day, the StartUp conference opened with Nick Kaye, Chief
Executive Officer, Sydney School of Entrepreneurship, who reiterated the importance
of ‘Fostering a Culture of Innovation’ through collaboration, active
encouragement of students and businesses to be entrepreneurial thinkers within
the dedicated start-up stream. Start-ups will contribute $1.09 billion to the
Australian economy by 2033.

CeBIT
Australia will return to ICC Sydney to showcase the best business technology
from across the Asia Pacific region on 15-17 May 2018.