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Contents


BUSINESS

READY, SET, GO FOR BUSINESS


South Australia offers a range of exciting and innovative ready-made investment opportunities for venture capitalists looking to expand their business portfolio 

 

Exciting new  investment opportunities are set to increase South Australia’s global business footprint and secure future prosperity for the state and its workers.

Through the Department for Trade and Investment’s Invest In South Australia campaign, the state is offering a number of investment-ready business projects covering key economic growth sectors such as tourism, food, wine and agribusiness, health and medical industries, space, energy and mining.  “South Australia is ideally placed for growth, where our future-focused industries have access to collaborative innovation hubs, a low cost of doing business and an enviable lifestyle,” Minister for Trade and Investment Stephen Patterson says. “Our government is focused on driving investment into our key growth sectors by creating an attractive, thriving business ecosystem.

 

“Having ready-made investment projects featured on the Invest in SA website makes partnerships easy, streamlined and accessible – particularly during a time when international travel and face-to-face business is restricted. It enables potential investors from all around the world, ease of access to all the things they need to know about navigating the South Australian business landscape.”

 

Current ready-made investment opportunities include:

 

Cellr: first press project

Cellr, a connected packaging solution company, has re-engineered the wine lid, using radio frequency identification (RFID) and near field communication (NFC) to create track and-trace, direct-to-consumer engagement and product authentication.

“As the product goes through the supply chain and gets scanned, the producer gets information back which then engages the marketing platform,” says Cellr director and co-founder Chris Braine. “It can be done anywhere in time and it’s all about geolocation: so if you’re in the US and scan the bottle of wine, you might be entering a competition to win a surfboard; in the UK it might be an umbrella.

“It’s about customising that journey. A bottle of wine traditionally is just a bottle of wine – the label does all the talking. We have the new message in a bottle effectively, so when you scan either the lid or the label, you start an engaged journey in which the producer can speak to the consumer effectively.”

With 50,000 labels ready for deployment, the focus is on pushing to have the lids manufactured at speed – and finding innovative companies keen to make an early investment. “We’re looking at investments of between $50,000 to $100,000 and have a cap of 150 investors at the moment,” Braine says. “The brand gets access to a wine marketing team based in SA, so it’s a bit of an ROI campaign: not only do we deploy the technology but also the campaign activity to go with it, so it’s this whole bundle with a bow on top.
“We’re now chasing those key investors to come along and get the party started.”

invest.sa.gov.au/projects/first-press-cellr

 

Carina Biotech: cellular immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer

A spin-out from the Co-operative Research Centre for Cellular Therapies and Manufacturing, Carina Biotech is using advanced technologies to empower the immune system to fight cancer. The technology works by generating a chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cell, a normal immune cell that is supercharged to locate and powerfully attack the cancer cells.

“It’s a very efficient cancer-killing machine,” says Dr Deborah Rathjen, CEO of Carina Biotech. “There’s no limit at this point in what kinds of cancers can potentially be developed for. There are already some CAR-T products marketed for the treatment of blood cancers; the treatment of solid cancer types like lung, breast or prostate cancer have had a few more challenges in terms of generating these supercharged CAR-T cells. But Carina has been able to overcome a number of the challenges by engineering the T cells in a pretty special way so they can track the tumour and activate once they have reached their target.”

The company is currently at pre-clinical testing, and is targeting going into clinical trials within the next 12 months. It is seeking direct investment and licencing/partnership opportunities. “As we move closer to clinical development, next year we will be launching our series A offering where we will be looking for investors for the clinical development of two of our CAR-T therapies,” Dr Rathjen says. “We’re focused on playing a big role in a future that sees cancer being defeated.”


invest.sa.gov.au/projects/carina-biotech

CH4 SA: zero methane agriculture

Part of the US-based CH4 Global, this project aims to use disruptive technology to revolutionise not just the farming industry but the world.

The technology involves developing a red seaweed (Asparagopsis armata and Asparagopsis taxiformis) aquaculture business to produce feed for ruminant animals (cows, sheep, goats and camels) that has been proven more than 85 per cent effective in reducing methane emissions from these animals. 

“The seaweed is a protein which replaces a range of other bioactive and effective compounds farmers feed to their animals, but in the process of interrupting that methane production activity in the stomach, it allows the cow to retain more energy, so a meat cow will make more meat and a dairy cow will produce more milk,” says Dr Adam Main, general manager, CH4 SA. “So it’s a healthier animal and it has a return on investment for the farmer.”

The company has been granted the first global licence to sell the two species of Asparagopsis with the purpose of reducing methane in ruminant animals, and is now running land-based aquaculture systems with full life cycles of the seaweed species, as well as planning offshore 1ha trials within the Port Lincoln and York Peninsula regions this summer.  

Currently at stage two, it is seeking capital expenditure, joint venture partners and off-take customers. “We’ve been working with the DTI to get word out, as well as seeking investments globally, and we’re just about to launch our second strategic round for $US10 million,” Dr Main says. “We’re looking for parcels of $US1 million to close out that round before Christmas. In addition, we’re also in the process of looking for innovative ways of getting debt financing going forward.”

 

invest.sa.gov.au/projects/zero-methane-agriculture

 

Dr Adam Main
Supplied

 

 

 

 

 

 


HI-TECH

ADELAIDE A PERFECT PLATFORM FOR HI-TECH GROWTH


With start-up accelerators like Stone & Chalk providing fertile platforms for growth, there’s never been a better time to establish a tech-centric business in SA

 

Switched-on Adelaide teenager Will Bishop is loving life on the ground floor of South Australia’s hi-tech future at Lot Fourteen. The 18-year-old app developer took up a residency in the Stone & Chalk start-up hub at Lot Fourteen last October, before securing a position with independent Canadian-based tech firm User Camp several months later. Stone & Chalk is powered by FIXE, the Futures Industries eXchange for Entrepreneurship, which aims to make South Australia a national leader in this field.

The former Glenunga International High School student – who admits fine-tuning his skills as a result of boredom during assemblies – has already produced a number of apps which between them have been downloaded almost 775,000 times. Among them are Nano, released for Reddit in April 2018, and Twitter app Chirp, for the Apple Watch, which followed shortly after. “Chirp and Nano have been more successful than I could have ever dreamed, Chirp especially,” Bishop says.

 

After considering studying computer science at Flinders University – a lack of the correct maths prerequisites ruling out The University of Adelaide as an immediate option – the Glen Osmond teen decided work was a better choice.

 

“I was on Twitter one night – bored, again – and saw a job listing for a company in Canada wanting someone with experience in something that had come out about six months earlier, which I had,” he says. “So I applied and interviewed for them. They were already familiar with Chirp and seemed to like me ... and I’ve been working for them since January – and loving it.”

 

With the option of working remotely, Bishop says being based in Adelaide is no impediment to wider success in the technological sphere.

 

“SA is unique in that, unlike the Silicon Valley, we’re rather humble and quiet,” he says. “Instead of shouting from the roof tops about how great we are, we’d rather succeed quietly – potentially to our global detriment. “However with Lot Fourteen, a lot of this is changing and SA is being positioned to be taken seriously on a global stage. As our entrepreneurial industry grows, the government is helping a lot of small businesses succeed.”

 

Bishop says with start-up accelerators like Stone and Chalk providing fertile platforms for growth, there’s never been a better time to establish a tech-centric business in SA. “While my business is all online, and can theoretically be done from anywhere, if in future I wish to expand, the talent pool is ever-growing.

 

“I always felt like the real opportunities were only in California and anything in SA – or Australia for that matter – would pale in comparison. While SA still has a way to go in catching up to Silicon Valley, we’re well on our way – and it’s certainly very exciting to be on the ground floor.”

 

 

 

Bringing the past into the future

Associate Professor Diego Garcia-Bellido, a senior researcher of palaeontology at the South Australian Museum, is leading a project using cutting-edge technology to scan 555 million-year-old Ediacaran fossil beds at several world-renowned sites in the Flinders Ranges

 

South Australia’s ancient past is being brought into the future in the Flinders Ranges, with Associate Professor Diego Garcia-Bellido playing a key role in the process.

 

The senior researcher of palaeontology at the South Australian Museum is involved in a groundbreaking project using cutting-edge technology to scan 555 million-year-old Ediacaran fossil beds at several world-renowned sites throughout the region.

 

The work is backed by a team of palaeontologists, ecologists and 3D computer graphics experts from a range of institutions, including the museum and The University of Adelaide, where Garcia-Bellido also works. It uses a combination of precision laser scanning and high-resolution photogrammetry to create a permanent digital record of the sites – the first resource of its kind in the world.

 

The Spanish-born, internationally-educated academic says establishing such an archive of the oldest-known complex marine communities on earth – which provides an insight into early animal life – will prove enormously beneficial.

 

“South Australia, by sheer luck, has the best fossil record of this important period in Australia and one of the best in the world,” he says. “Through this project we will gain unprecedented data on community formation in the early stages of animal evolution.”

 

Garcia-Bellido says the scanned archive will serve a vital role in conserving the “priceless and irreplaceable” fossil information for posterity in case of damage or loss.

 

“And because you’re making a permanent digital record, you can actually share it around the world easily as files and visit it virtually with VR goggles – something that’s become increasingly important as COVID restricts our ability to bring colleagues and tourism from overseas,” he says.

 

Archiving will also allow schools a rare glimpse into the past, with the possibility of leveraging findings into STEM studies nationwide. “We can make 3D printouts for students – and can allow schools to print them out with their own 3D printers – so they can learn about extinction, evolution, past biodiversity and how important it is to preserve our fossil heritage,” Garcia-Bellido says. “We are teaching palaeontology in the three state universities now and we should soon be able to bring SA fossils to our primary and secondary school curriculums.”

 

Preserving and promoting South Australia’s “world-class palaeontological heritage” has far-reaching benefits.

 

“Fortunately there are several generations’ worth of outstanding fossils to study in our state,” he says. “And when state and federal governments support such research – which puts SA in news all over the planet – this can attract more tourism and business to our regions. “It will allow more South Australians to work on our amazing fossils if they’d like, while producing a local economic benefit.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


TECHNOLOGY

THINK GLOBAL, ACT LOCAL


Adelaide is the new home for a multi-billion dollar technology giant

 

With 500,000 employees serving clients in more than 120 countries, technology and services giant Accenture knows what it takes to maintain a successful business in a competitive market – think globally but act locally. This is why the US-listed Fortune Global 500 company, which last year reported revenues of $US43.2 billion, has turned its focus on Adelaide for the next phase in its business strategy, looking to create 2000 jobs over the next five years estimated to add $1 billion to the South Australian economy.

It’s a huge coup and one that reflects South Australia’s growing international reputation as the place for technology, innovation and entrepreneurship. “There’s a tremendous match to South Australia and that’s why we were so excited about the move,” says Scott Hahn, Accenture’s senior managing director, ANZ technology. “The best value we bring for our clients is when we have the scale of a global company but can be very relevant with skills locally across Australia and New Zealand. For a long time we have been looking at how we get more talent locally, how we are more available to our clients in all the major cities across Australia and New Zealand: we started looking at Adelaide with that in mind.

 

“We wanted to add Accenture’s name to the list of local companies that are providing IT capability in SA. We have already started moving several of our ANZ individuals with backgrounds in capability in aerospace and defence, and are going to load up on industry skills and make Adelaide our aerospace and defence hub. But also we want to use Adelaide as a hub to service our other customers across Australia with the talent we’re building there.”

Having recruited more than 100 staff, the company already has its feet firmly under the table and is on track for future jobs growth. “We’re looking at entry-level to executive-level jobs across multiple areas,” Hahn says. “In terms of advanced technologies, it’s primarily around our platforms business: we have all kinds of clients we serve through SAP and Oracle, AWS, Azure, Google or Splunk – you name the platform, we have tens of ecosystem partners we deal with.

 

“But there are also opportunities for people with basic technical skills such as Java, Oracle or SAP platforms – those types of skillsets are people we can use right away.

 

“We see Adelaide as an extension of our cyber fusion centre in Sydney. We have market-leading cyber security capability at Accenture that we have home grown, as well as through a couple of acquisitions, and we’re going to be putting some of that cyber capability with the local aerospace and defence sectors, as well as some financial services customers. We want to have Adelaide be a hub for application security, threat intelligence, compliance and cyber-related capabilities.”

 

The past few months have created a greater demand for Accenture’s services – good news for South Australian jobseekers. “You pick any company of ours or any client within Australia and, especially where digital information is concerned, everyone is looking at their three-to-five-year plans and trying to compress that into three months,” Hahn says. “That’s where Accenture comes in – we help our clients with large-scale change initiatives and capability uplift.

 

We anticipate that, over the next three-to-five years, a lot of our clients and the global market in general that might have a 20 per cent footprint in cloud today will have an 80 per cent footprint – and that can be risky. So we want to make sure we’re combining technical know-how with experience, whether locally or globally.

 

“We’re terribly excited about this. We’re deeply appreciative of the partnership with the South Australian Government, we’re excited about access to local talent and we’re off to a great start already.”