Computerworld

Flux accelerator names 2018 startup cohort

Five startups selected for 2018 cohort

Flux, an accelerator backed by Callaghan Innovation and Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (ATEED) has named he five startups selected for its 2018 cohort.

Flux invests directly in early stage startups, which then work with the Flux team and mentor community for six months. The programme culminates with a demo day in late June, which Flux expects will be attended by 400+ investors: an event, it says, that teams historically have used as a platform to raise further capital.

Flux managing partner Barnaby Marshall says Flux and The Icehouse are on a mission to back high potential Kiwi startups. “Our approach is empowering, we give a small amount of seed funding, helping find experienced people that are relevant to their industry to share experiences and knowledge and help raise more capital to fund further growth.

The five startups for 2018 are:

Rocos, founded by David Inggs and Richard Stinear, the ex CTO and head of engineering for software platform provider of Plexure.  Rocos is building a command and control platform for autonomous robots and vehicles, with an initial focus on the management and operation of autonomous mobile robotics in agriculture, mining and emergency response.

Thieve, founded by Tim Scullin, is a community curated shopping site that claims to offer the best direct to factory products. The team also develops tools for a growing community of dropshippers, people who buy direct from the factory for resale.

ThinkLadder, co-founded by Katie and Mark Gatt, is a mental health application based on cognitive behavioural therapy that claims to already have thousands of users around the world. “Customers use ThinkLadder for self-awareness, to trace unhelpful beliefs and replace those beliefs with more empowering alternatives,” it says.

Chipi, was founded by Carlos Seguin Lozano and Jing Li, who claim to bring senior product management and development experience from Xero. The company is building a global search tool for cloud based apps and files, described as  “your own Google search or Mac Spotlight for all your personal cloud data.”

Cohired, founded by Andrew Nicol (founder of Agoge) and Vivek Sharma (ex-Fonterra operations manager), claims to take hundreds of CVs and shortlist the five most relevant candidates for any nominated role and company. The Cohired mantra is “matching people to jobs they love”, because, it says “people who love their job are more productive and stay longer.”