Today we are delighted to share news about Splash’s (formerly Popgun) $20M USD Series A round. The round was co-led by Amazon’s Alexa Fund and BITKRAFT Ventures with ongoing support from our current investors Khosla Ventures and King River Capital. Splash is using AI-powered tools and video games to develop new ways for users to create, perform and interact with fans through live performances. You can read more on Splash’s Series A raise here.

We are also pleased to share that Replica have been awarded an Epic Megagrant to accelerate their growing library of AI voice actors for creators to tell stories through games, film, and metaverse experiences using platforms like Unreal Engine. Read more here.

In the middle of this year, we had to make some tough decisions. With a heavy heart we pulled the plug on Delta AI and Vaux. Along with our co-founders and co-investors we did our absolute best to turn these ships around but sadly the time came to bring a close to their journeys. Our biggest lesson has been how timing and composition play a vital role when we build highly technical and product focussed teams. We sincerely thank Daniel, Tiffany, Jackson, Gina, Steph, Lindsay, Meg and Chris for their dedication and relentless energy.

We are lucky to keep working with some of the talented members from Delta AI and Vaux who have now joined Splash and Replica.

What has been important to us as a venture studio is that we take the approach of quality of quantity in our portfolio. We’ve always been true to our role as co-founders — rolling up our sleeves on a daily basis and being hands on through thick and thin. All our efforts as a group have now been committed to accelerating these two companies and bringing them the success they deserve.

At this important and exciting time the team at Mawson, including myself, have joined Splash to help them as they scale rapidly. (The team is hiring talented ML engineers, developers, designers and creatives and you can view Splash job opportunities here). It’s not goodbye from us, but we’ve hit the pause button on forming new companies.

Thank you to all our supporters.. we’ll let you know when we’ll be back online!

Until next time,

Michelle Dintner

Portfolio Director — Mawson

Doubling down was originally published in Mawson on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We are at the cusp of the third evolution of Media.

Coined Synthetic Media, it promises to democratise media creation and creativity through the use of AI-generated or AI-modified content.

When Mawson began in 2016 we decided to focus our AI Lab and venture studio on building portfolio companies in Synthetic Media and Entertainment. We are excited to see the move towards a more virtual existence grow the synthetic landscape globally.

Neal Stephenson used the term ‘the metaverse’ to define a virtual parallel universe (‘Snow Crash’ 1992). Today, the metaverse represents an extension of our lives in the physical world and provides a place where we can live, learn, socialise, work and play, virtually.

The metaverse has been quietly building itself in the background but the events of 2020 have been the catalyst for a surge in its development as we shift more of our social and professional lives online.

Gaming platforms like Roblox and new synthetic media tools are rapidly changing the traditional top-down business relationship between publishers and users. The definition of “users” has expanded to include developers and creators. They will be the ones imagining and shaping the metaverse and its immersive experiences within.

By the end of this year, the gaming industry will be worth $159b. This is more than the film and music industries combined. Rather than these industries being displaced, we are seeing a convergence.

At Mawson we are busy building this new realm of entertainment. The next-generation of entertainment will not simply be a translation from the physical to the virtual world but something more. We will see the emergence of a completely new type of social, immersive and interactive experience that people can enjoy as a community of friends and fans.

As we move deeper into the metaverse, our portfolio companies continue to open up new possibilities for millions around the world to creatively express themselves online.

Popgun is shaping the virtual world of music. It is a world where emerging human and synthetic artists are discovered, where artists and fans play in a new immersive dimension that never sleeps. Their AI music engine unleashes creative possibilities that powers this new extended reality.

Replica is empowering creatives to apply natural and expressive voices in gaming, film, advertising and voice apps with their AI text-to-speech engine. They are using their web-app and API to build a community where artists can license their voice at scale to creatives who want to bring their projects to life with dynamic content.

Delta AI is a product analytics company letting brands discover how products are used in context around the world using computer vision. Delta provides new insights and trends that brands could not previously capture across social media in a fast, automated and scalable way.

Vaux is transforming voice data to be as small, clear and private as text messaging. Using AI, they are developing the infrastructure to power the explosion of VoIP applications on the web, in mobile and software.

I’d love to hear about your observations and thoughts on the metaverse, synthetic media or the future direction of entertainment.

Get in touch with me michelle@mawson.io.

Crafting the Metaverse at Mawson was originally published in Mawson on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

At Mawson, we partner with exceptionally talented founders to build AI startups that redefine industries. We are always on the lookout for outstanding technical talent and entrepreneurs, who like us at Mawson, believe building companies is not a job, but a way of life.

If you’re curious about what the journey of a Machine Learning Engineer at Mawson is like, we invite you to step into the shoes of one as you continue to read on…

Day 1.

Congratulations, welcome to the Mawson family, where you’ve joined the team along with several other new Machine Learning Engineers. The fact that you’ve made it this far already is an achievement, as we’ve specifically selected individuals who are exceptional in Math and Programming.

Our journey starts by advancing your Deep Learning skills. You’ll be immersed in ML courseware that has been carefully curated and personally completed by several generations of our ML experts at Mawson. This is self-paced, with the goal for you to be able to implement a complex AI research paper from weeks, to days. This first phase is critical, as we will expect you to keep up with the courseware and your peers. It is technically challenging, but in our supportive learning environment you’re encouraged to ask questions along the way. You are surrounded by the country’s largest community of ML founders who have all built AI systems from the ground up, that you can always get help from.

Day 120.

If there’s a new AI paper that gets us excited, i.e. one that has the potential to radically change industry — you’ll work on implementing it with initial ideas for its use. This marks the conception of your company and its first product idea. By now, you would’ve naturally found yourself working closely with your peers, and some of them you get along really well with. Eventually, these people may become your co-founders.

In parallel, we work with you on ideating on product — the tangible part of your technology that customers use and interact with. We’ll be working closely on product ideation, where our industry insights and international networks are useful to guide you in building a product that people actually need and want.

Day 180.

A great idea is worth nothing but an idea. The next steps are validation and execution. We fly you and your team to the USA to join a world-class startup accelerator program, like TechStars Music Accelerator in Los Angeles. At this point you’ll incorporate your company and Mawson invests pre-seed along with the accelerator. The purpose of the accelerator is to build your own industry connections and for you to validate your idea in-market. Twelve weeks later, you’ll be pitching at Demo Day in the USA to an auditorium full of investors which kicks off your Seed capital raise.

Your adrenaline is pumping, you haven’t had much sleep in the last 2,016 hours but you return home to Mawson, where you’re on-ground running to close your Seed round. At Mawson we are alongside you, guiding you through the process.

By this time you would feel like you’ve been on a rollercoaster. Experiencing a lot of highs, like your first technical breakthrough or acquiring your first customer, but also many challenges along the way. Being a founder is tough. On some days you might question whether you’ve made the right decision or you’ll have to manage tricky situations between humans. It’s something that all founders have experienced at some stage, have worked through, grown and learned from. The great thing is knowing that you’re in a building full of other founders you can seek wisdom and shared experiences from.

Day 270.

Not long after Demo Day, you would’ve successfully closed your seed round with new investors you trust and can seek valuable advice from. These investors have invested in your company because of your bold vision that addresses a global problem in a multi-billion dollar market. Following your capital raise, you’ll continue to build out your team, the technology, forge industry partnerships and ship product over the next 18 months before you go out and raise your next round. All while we help take care of the mundane stuff like accounting, legals and space.

Amongst the hustle of daily business building, you’ll notice the new Machine Learning Engineers that join Mawson, You reminisce about the time that used to be you, starting on your first day. You’ve come a long way and have since banked your own unique experience and knowledge, that you are now willing to impart to the next cohort of founders.

..to be continued.

Where to from here

If we’ve managed to pique your interest and you think you’re up for the journey, we want to hear from you. You’ll have:

• strong skills in Math and Programming (Python, PyTorch, AWS preferred)
• willing to be based at Mawson in Brisbane
• eligibility to work in Australia
• eligibility to travel to the US
• be up for living in the US for 12 weeks during the accelerator program.

We don’t discriminate by qualification, condition, age, or gender. What’s important to us is your attitude, your ambition to build a company, and your love of solving complex problems.

We accept applications all year round. Send us an email with your CV to info@mawson.io.

We can’t wait to hear from you.

Stay in touch with Mawson news and events by following us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Life at Mawson as a Machine Learning Engineer was originally published in Mawson on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

2019 was both an exciting and intriguing year for Mawson, as we saw the first results of an experiment we started three years ago. Our theory was whether we could transform Australia’s most elite emerging software engineers into founders of global AI startups and we rolled out a plan to do so.*

Now it’s about time we share what’s been happening at Mawson and our results to date.

Why we started all of this..

Australia has a history of producing some of the worlds brightest, talented and creative inventors of groundbreaking technologies. Though many of our best and brightest scientists and engineers end up working in academia or large corporations. These options are limited and challenging for new technologies with long and complex paths to market, and job uncertainty with $328.5m cuts to grant funding from Australian universities happening between 2018 and 2022.

At a time when Australia is looking for future industry to produce the next wave of productivity and economic growth, we believe more of our scientists and engineers should be problem solving by starting new tech companies. It is technology, particularly artificial intelligence, that will be the primary driver of innovation in all industries as we move into a new decade.

Globally, we see an opportunity to drive more translation of AI research into commercially useful products, faster. And we’re not the only ones that think this — AI research giants also acknowledge this including Facebook’s VP of Artificial Intelligence, Jerome Pesenti, and Google’s AI Chief, Jeff Dean.

How it began..

In 2016 our founders Graeme Wood and Stephen Phillips committed to hand-selecting, training and investing in Australia’s elite emerging software engineers in order to offer them a pathway to entrepreneurship. As tech entrepreneurs fortunate enough to have founded, built and exited successful software companies to Twitter and Expedia, they are no strangers to the existential challenges all early stage tech founders face.

Ever since, we’ve continued to shape the optimal conditions for technical founders to thrive at our AI venture studio. We invest in top software engineering talent to solve the latest AI challenges and surround them with experienced technical, design and product talent to come up with new products in industries we and our network of investors think will have a huge impact in.

So far, here are the results:

• Built and invested in 3 artificial intelligence companies — Popgun, Replica and VAUX
• Portfolio companies have raised US$8.45m in external private funding
• Portfolio companies employ 33 people
• Trained 34 machine learning engineers — Half are employed by our portfolio companies, and we’ve helped others find roles at machine learning companies

This year’s look inside our portfolio

Validation of our model came when our second portfolio company, Replica, raised a US$2.5m seed round in mid-2019 from Silicon Valley based Virtual Reality Fund and Australian venture capital firm Carthona Capital among others. Having a shared belief in our portfolio companies with local and international venture capitalists, proved our model was repeatable after our first funding success with our first spin out, Popgun.

Meanwhile our other portfolio companies have also taken great strides forward this year.

Popgun shipped three new music AI products for consumers (Splash, SplashPro and Gloss) and raised an additional US$1.5m from their existing seed investor Khosla Ventures to scale their products to the next level.

Our latest spinout VAUX, achieved technical breakthroughs with their new voice infrastructure technology. They’ve also raised additional pre-seed funding of US$150k before their seed round opening in early 2020.

There’s still a lot to do, and our portfolio companies are just getting started. Nonetheless we are excited and proud to see our portfolio companies hit their goals and release new products people love, powered by the latest AI our teams have developed.

With a strong finish to 2019, we’ve never been more energised and ready for a promising 2020. Keep an eye out for our new teams, more portfolio companies and lots of opportunities to engage and be part of the Mawson family.

Stay in touch with Mawson news and events by following us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Introducing, Mawson. Turning AI research into products people love.* was originally published in Mawson on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This is the first week I didn’t need to go through my daily ritual before work. What’s been 2 years and 8 months since I moved from Brisbane to begin my role at Cicada Innovations, feels more like 10 years. Not in a bad way, but in a way I could never have imagined having the smorgasbord of opportunities I got to grab and run with.

The organisation went through a complete transformation since I started in September 2017, with the leadership of our CEO Petra Andren — she was the reason I joined the company after meeting her through my technology scouting days at Cook Medical. We went through a complete re-brand from the former ATP Innovations to Cicada Innovations, establishing ourselves as Australia’s home of deep tech (when deep tech never used to be a term) and reshaping how we would create, accelerate and incubate deep tech startups.

2 years and 8 months later..

One thing I am grateful for working at Cicada, is that it prepares you to be able to take on anything. It almost was like being a founder, having full responsibility and autonomy to imagine, create, execute great ideas with purpose. It did have its challenges, especially as I transitioned from the corporate world- tight budgets and drop dead delivery times, like a startup, but the freedom of creativity and control was liberating and exhilarating.

Since my time at Cicada my role has evolved, where I never saw a dull moment. From starting off as a business mentor, I’ve been an industry engagement liaison, manager of a state-wide commercialisation program, to co-founder and manager of a national medtech accelerator program, set up a makerspace, been a lecturer and facilitator of Lean LaunchPad methodologies, working with hundreds of present and emerging founders and entrepreneurs. Oh and also the community meditation guide.

These roles usually had me wearing multiple hats, nothing like what my chemistry and finance degrees set me up for initially. I mentioned lean budgets and resources earlier, which meant in my roles I had to be everything from marketer, comms person, sales, graphic designer, analyst, program designer, stakeholder manager, investor, event coordinator, and mentor.

When I joined I didn’t even truly know what it meant to be a mentor (which I think a lot of people still don’t quite understand) and lots of experience of Microsoft Paint from primary school (though I did dabble in Photoshop). I’ve come a long way in terms of the way I know think and approach problems, learned the art of being a hacker, new tools and databases to get sh*t done efficiently and also appreciate what good company culture really is. What was just a job, for me was an accelerator journey for my career and for my personal development that really comes down to the mission we were on and my amazing colleagues.

I’ve observed and learned something from every person I’ve worked with at Cicada. Though I have to make a special thanks and mention to these particular people who through my journey have challenged, supported, and encouraged me every step of the way — Alfred Lo, Ben Wright, Petra Andren, George Peppou, Warren Bingham, Tarika Wickremeratne, Britt Hartnett and Marin Peplinski.

What I’ve learned is that you have every opportunity to create something massive, from just one idea, and that the people you surround yourself with is just as important as the idea. And having fun along the way is a requirements — I used to think that having fun equalled not working. This is not the case!

To whoever will be replacing me as MedLab Program Manager, you have an amazing opportunities in the role ahead of you, have fun with it, grow with it along with the amazing medtech founders you’ll work with along the way.

I’m now off for a few months to get married, learn a new language and to indulge in long summer days over in Europe. I’ll be back in August, but this time in Brisbane, my hometown where it all started. Where it also looks like the startup scene is beginning to flourish…

Alles Gute für Euch und bis bald!

What I learned from working at the world’s best deep tech incubator was originally published in Cicada Innovations on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Our Origin Story

In spite of — or perhaps because of — Cicada Innovations’ long and deep history with medtech in Australia, we at Cicada MedLab believe that we have only just scratched the surface of our potential to bring out the best in early-stage medtech founders in this country.

Australia has a proven track record of leading by innovation in the field of medicine: giants like ResMed and Cochlear attest to this. But it is common knowledge that getting to this stage — for medtech companies in particular — is a long, complicated and expensive journey pockmarked with pitfalls along the way. Getting the right support and expertise from the very start can make all the difference.

So we gave ourselves a challenge and a mission: how do we best support the next generation of early-stage medtech business builders to be more successful? From here, the concept for a medtech accelerator was born.

MedLab bridges the gap between our long running Medical Device Commercialisation Training Program (MDCTP) which we run in partnership with NSW Health and our Incubator which over 70 deep tech startups call home. It’s aimed at early stage medtech companies whose founders have made the commitment to work on their startup full-time, and come along armed with intellectual property and a prototype.

The timing was ideal: in early 2018, one of our portfolio companies Elastagen was acquired by medical giant Allergan for nine figures. As one of the earliest investors, the proceeds from our share allowed us to fund MedLab.

MedLab 1.0: The sprint

After running info sessions in many of the capital cities across Australia, we invited six startups to join MedLab’s inaugural cohort in October 2018:

• Beyond 700 is developing an infrared camera technology to visualise the tear film of the eye for the first time, helping clinicians to diagnose and monitor eye conditions affecting over 580M people globally.
• Loop+ is bringing to market a sensor mat to assist wheelchair users and their care teams to proactively manage and prevent debilitating health conditions such as pressure injuries that cost the Australian healthcare system over $1B annually.
• Renature Labs’ is transforming insulin into an indigestible tablet, using their technology aimed at protecting fragile and therefore injectable-only medicines in the stomach.
• SDIP Innovations is the only bioresorbable implant that degrades harmlessly into water and carbon dioxide in the body, reducing the need for unnecessary implant-removal surgeries, and aiding post-surgery patient recovery.
• Doclink’s proprietary AI algorithms detects and diagnoses lung cancer with a single scan, helping clinicians to diagnose the disease earlier than before and be proactive in their treatment plans.
• Neuromersiv is providing brain injury patients with faster and more effective rehabilitation outcomes using their VR and haptic glove combination which simulates real life and adventure scenarios instead of the mundane and repetitive movements currently used.

Over the next 16 weeks, our mission was to accelerate these six companies; articulating and setting goals, encouraging experimentation and curiosity, and challenging the norms that each founder brought. An unashamed focus on team, leadership and culture was a huge part; regardless of the validity and promise of a technology, success is integrally set by this.

A distinguishing attribute of the accelerators run at Cicada is that they are Mentor-driven. Through our personal networks, we brought together what we think are the best mentors and industry experts for medtech startups in this country handsdown. If our founders are our superheroes, our mentors are the superpowers that help in so many ways:

• Holding court with regular office hours for advice and mentoring
• Giving talks and Ask-Me-Anything sessions on topics ranging from regulatory pathways and health economics, to how to raise capital and business fundamentals like financial modelling
• Opening up their rolodexes and created some crucial connections between their contacts and the companies
• Mock VC sessions were particularly valuable in giving founders real world experience in understanding what investors looked for

The 16 weeks were never easy. Getting out to talk to customers, figuring out the complex pathways to market, solving for team roles and responsibilities, and preparing to speak to investors were just a few hurdles to leap. A huge shout out to the six companies for pushing through and growing so much; from scientists and technologists became storytellers with solid and exciting plans to reach ambitious goals.

MedLab culminated in its Demo Day on February 28 and being the largest event in Cicada’s 20 year history. Over 400 from the medtech industry and startup ecosystem saw six amazing founders pitch their version of the future. Each startup is currently in conversations with investors, and one has already sold their first product to a major clinic in Europe. We are also gearing up the cohort for a US medtech visit to San Francisco and Medical Alley in Minneapolis to meet business partners, healthcare players and investors.

For the cohort, the MedLab journey still isn’t over. Staying on at Cicada until October this year, we’ll keep supporting them as they raise capital and build out their teams. It’s going to be exciting to see their stories unfold in the months and years to come.

MedLab 2.0: the journey begins…

When one chapter ends, another one begins. That is certainly true of MedLab 2.0 which we have already started planning.

We launched an initiative called Founder Matching which is aimed at bringing together great technological and commercial minds passionate about solving the world’s biggest problems in healthcare. Who knows: that shared passion and the opportunity to meet a like-minded entrepreneur with complementary skills may just lead to the creation of the next future medtech startup unicorn! On the heels of the success of our first Founder Matching event, we will be keeping our inboxes free for further expressions of interest and hope to continue this as a rolling exercise over the course of the year.

We’ve got many exciting ideas in the works for MedLab 2.0 and look forward to sharing them with you in the weeks and months to come.

If you’re interested in finding out more about MedLab 2, or becoming a Mentor or Domain Expert, please reach out to us at medlab@cicadainnovations.com. Here are some other ways to keep up to date with what we’re up to: sign up to our newsletter, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

***

The Cicada and MedLab community received unexpected and very sad news just over a fortnight ago: Dr. Alistair Laos, founder of our cohort company, Renature Labs, passed away on Tuesday April 2 2019 due to complications related to a long-standing illness.

Alistair was not only an outstanding scientist and committed founder, but a true friend and uplifting spirit to our MedLab family and the Cicada Innovations community. Our thoughts are with his family and friends and we will never forget his spirit and the brilliance of his vision and work.

Vale Alistair.

Our Journey from MedLab 1.0 to MedLab 2.0 was originally published in Cicada Innovations on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Being a medtech founder is even harder.

Why? It’s the average 8 year timeline for a medical device startup to get a product to market, it’s the right clinical evidence that needs to be gathered from the right population in the right geography, it’s the regulatory approval process, insurance schemes, etc, etc…

We’ve seen the need and been asked by medtech founders, that they need long term, industry specific support. That’s why we launched MedLab.

MedLab is Cicada Innovation’s medtech accelerator for early stage and highly driven medtech founders who are looking to transform healthcare worldwide. Our focus on supporting founders is key, which is why we have brought in the best medtech entrepreneurs, business builders, domain experts and medtech investors in the country to challenge, encourage and push our founders to their best towards achieving their vision.

It’s a 4 month intensive +8 month incubation accelerator program running from mid-October 2018 based at Cicada Innovations, the home of deep tech, in Sydney. We’re investing our $300k of our cash into six companies, providing our network of amazing mentors, medtech content sessions, co-working space, access to shared labs and makerspace, and international immersion. Our aim is to help you build and scale your business and raise your first round of capital. We’re then inviting selected companies to then join Cicada Innovations’ incubator, home to over 60 deep tech companies, post-program for further 5 years of support and subsidised space.

We’re currently looking for ambitious early stage medtech founders to apply to MedLab. We’ve outlined more information on the program, perks, key dates and who we’re looking for here.

The bridge for crossing the medtech valley of death was originally published in Cicada Innovations on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

That’s how we at Cicada Innovations help our deep tech founders build and scale their companies. We know about the long and capital intensive journey riddled with valleys of death (yes, sometimes more than one) that deep tech founders face when taking their science and engineering based technologies to market.

It’s worthwhile taking you back to where Cicada’s story starts back in 2000, owned by four of Australia’s leading universities, and bestowed with one of the heritage locomotive workshops based in the Australian Technology Park in Sydney, Australia. The original purpose was to foster companies that spun out from our shareholder universities — Australian National University, University of Sydney, University of NSW and University of Technology Sydney. That’s still the case and we’ve had a number of successful stories to share on this, but as times changed our model has evolved to support and be the home for deep tech from all over Australia.

Cicada Innovations is a program driven incubator (let me explain). Australia is a pioneer in research, but it’s been an age old challenge on how this translates into the world where it benefits us everyday in society. Our country has some of the brightest inventors that have made significant impact in how our lives are shaped today— polymer bank notes, Wi-Fi, the black box flight recorder, cochlear implant, cervical cancer vaccine, I could go on…

Our mission at Cicada is to support the most promising deep tech founders that are solving global challenges with their technologies

Create: We run industry specific programs to up-skill researchers and inventors on how to meaningfully translate and commercialise their technology. Not all inventors or researchers are destined to be entrepreneurs, but the ones who are and who have realised that their technology can make a significant impact, take the plunge and go on to become a founder of their company.

Accelerate: Cicada currently runs two accelerator programs for early stage founders in medtech, MedLab, and agrifood tech, GrowLab. We pressure test these companies, help them build a robust roadmap to take their technology to market, challenge them to access as many customers as possible through a scalable model and help them raise their first round of capital. It’s not a cookie cutter approach to our accelerator programs, we’ve carefully tailored each of them to their industry verticals in investment, duration, topics, mentors and immersion experiences.

Incubate: Our incubator is the long term home for our deep tech startups and scaleups, with over 60 companies making up our ambitious deep tech community. Selected companies from our accelerator programs may be invited to join Cicada Innovations’ incubator for further long term support and subsidised space for up to 5 years. It’s more than just co-working space — it’s offices (for IP sensitive development), our hardware makerspace and labs.

Did I mention one of Cicada’s resident startups has the original founder of Wi-Fi advising their team?!

If you’re a researcher with a technology that solves a problem, a deep tech founder or a deep tech enthusiast, we’d love to invite you to our community. There’s beers and metres pizza and plenty and quality banter and connections made at our Monthly Buzz events. Stay in touch and don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter! www.cicadainnovations.com

What’s been lurking in the deep (tech) was originally published in Cicada Innovations on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.