Australia gets its own Y Combinator-type fund

I'm incredibly excited about this as a uni student in Sydney. I'm hopeful that by the time I graduate that the concept of the Silicon Beach will take off.<p>The University of Sydney have recently introduced a course focusing on Tech Venture Creation[1] and most of the people on that page are involved somehow (including Ryan from Omnisio, Bart from Tjoos and our lecturer Bill Bartee), so this isn't the only new action on the Sydney startup front.<p>[1] - Tech Venture Creation course - <a href="http://techventurecreation.wordpress.com/" rel="nofollow">http://techventurecreation.wordpress.com/</a>

Direct link to the Startmate website - <a href="http://www.startmate.com.au/" rel="nofollow">http://www.startmate.com.au/</a><p>I love this (and have heard it before, around HN a lot actually): "The biggest risk in a startup is not whether someone will steal your idea or if you can build a product but rather that no one will care."

One thing that would be really good to see come out of this IMHO is a better profile for tech startups in Aus. The more open this can be around tech scene, gotchas and contacts focussed on Australia the better. Most information and discussion I've seen tends to be US based not surprisingly; This doesn't always translate well, particularly around company structure, equity, tax etc. You know, all the small stuff that can kill you.<p>Looking forward to see what develops.

"The biggest risk in a startup is not whether someone will steal your idea or if you can build a product but rather that no one will care"<p>a lot of people will obsess over NDA's and the like, thinking that people will care SO much as to steal their idea. when in reality what's quoted above is so true, the greatest risk being that people won't actually care enough about the product.

The critical success factor for YCombinator is, without a doubt, Paul Graham.<p>Do they have a Paul Graham?

This is great to see. There are some pretty good people involved with the program too, which gives me hope that companies going though this will actually get something useful from it.

Kudos to the aussies for having something similar to YC. The mentorship from TWENTY (woah!) successful founders, the $25.000 (aus?) sound amazing.<p>What I find it really sad that even in this decade the best way for a web startup to get attention is to go to the Valley. If the web is global shouldn't the support networks be global too?<p>In the case of my country (Chile) it is very difficult to make your own web startup. Seed investment is centralized in a goverment organization that only cares about patents and how many millions of dollars you are going to make in the first years. Another problem with seed investment around here is that you must spend the money in very specific things like getting incorporated (which is expensive) and build a business plan $$, not getting the work done. It you aren't sure how you are going to monetize your app in a way that is going to give you massive profits, don't bother trying to get an investor (unless you have rich relatives).<p>Is Australia similar to my country in that innovating on the web is very difficult from a support ecosystem perspective?

Demo day in SF will be helpful, and as for experience, the Atlassian founders are involved. I've seen other attempts to do this, usually by cities/states, that capture only the superficial form of YC.<p>I'm going to be in Sydney on 6 &#38; 7 Sept.--any startup folks in Sydney available &#38; willing to meet up and tell me about starting a company in Australia?

I went to a Startup Camp run by Bart Jellema a couple of years ago and was quite impressed by his skills especially on the networking/organisational side of things. This is promising as much of what makes ycombinator great is the exposure and contacts being involved creates.<p>Looking forward to seeing the first batch come through!

There is also <a href="http://www.pollenizer.com/pollenizer-investing-in-web-startups/" rel="nofollow">http://www.pollenizer.com/pollenizer-investing-in-web-startu...</a> (Sydney based, AFAIK) - they are nice folk too.<p>Great to see !

Wow, Ryan Junee used to tutor me in first year computer science back at Sydney University... he's come quite a way since then it seems! :)<p>I hope it works out well for them, Australia needs something like that -- I have more a few friends who have left Australia to pursue cutting edge jobs in tech.

Great initiative and a fantastic list of mentors. Well done for putting this together.<p>Also like the idea of the Tech Venture Creation course at Syd Uni. I'd like to see every uni in Australia have something similar running, then we'd be sure to get some real hits emerging.

This is wonderful stuff, great work guys.<p>Whether it works perfectly from the get-go is immaterial, StartMate, like their fundees, can launch and then iterate.<p>Excited to see the first round come through.

Wow, this is awesome. Anyone know any startup mentors based in Brisbane? I run (very) small consulting company and I'd like to move into software.

This is fantastic! I can't wait to apply with my Sydney-based startup.

This is awesome, look forward to seeing the first batch.