KPMG Australia and Stone & Chalk have joined forces to launch the Future Technology Program, a commitment to help Australian startups succeed, not just at the beginning of their journey, but into the future.
Five startup founders and their teams will receive complimentary residency for 12 months at one of Stone & Chalk’s startup hubs located nationally in the heart of Sydney, Melbourne or Adelaide. They will also receive a personalised support program to help them rapidly grow their startups, covering areas such as investor readiness, industry insights, connections to potential clients, and mentoring on how to work with large, global companies.
This unique partnership combines the largest innovation community in Australia at Stone & Chalk with KPMG’s deep industry expertise and knowledge.
In this environment, innovation and advancement will be propelled forward through the collision of ideas and people. By bringing together both of their unique skillsets, KPMG and Stone & Chalk will enable Australia’s leading startups to introduce better technology, better innovation and better thinking into the economy.
We were amazed at the high quality of candidates that came through the application process. Australia’s startup ecosystem has exponentially grown over the past few years, it’s been exciting to see the innovative ways some of these companies are tackling the most complex business challenges through technology.
Intelligent performance
January 2025 – December 2025
Australia’s fourth cohort of the Future Technology Program brings together five innovative startups tackling critical challenges faced by businesses today. These startups have developed emerging technology solutions that address pressing issues like boosting productivity, optimising business performance, streamlining overheads, and accelerating revenue growth.
Out of an impressive pool of 60 applicants, the five successful startups (Bluesheets, Heatseeker, Insightech, Klaro, Swyvl) will receive complimentary residency for 12 months at one of Stone & Chalk’s hubs located in the heart of Sydney, Melbourne or Adelaide. They will receive guidance and support from KPMG’s diverse array of mentors and industry leads.
Sarah Vega, National Managing Partner, KPMG Futures commented: “Australia’s productivity has fallen 2% since 1995, posing significant economic challenges. In this climate, businesses are under pressure to boost efficiency. The startups we’ve identified offer innovative solutions to help Australian companies reimagine their approach to business performance, driving productivity and positioning themselves for long-term success in an increasingly competitive global marketplace.”
Stone & Chalk Group CEO, Chris Kirk said: “We’re thrilled to champion innovative startups revolutionising business performance in Australia with new. technologies and business model innovation offering unprecedented efficiency gains. These startups provide solutions to boost productivity across operations. Our collaboration with KPMG will accelerate each startup’s growth. The key is helping businesses understand how to leverage these innovations effectively, driving real value and maintaining Australia’s competitive edge globally.”
bluesheets eliminates manual processes with AI-enabled workflows, incorporating its proprietary fileAI engine to clean, digitise, enrich and structure data, automating workflows processing from end to end.
Enables businesses to test value propositions and market insights to understand what their customers want. Heatseeker’s AI-powered solution allows businesses to experiment in-market and is aimed at providing early validation for key product growth assumptions and questions.
Empowers user experience teams to achieve exceptional digital interactions through practical insights and real-time data. Insightech allows businesses to achieve an effective market presence by providing full transparency over how visitors are interacting with their website, identifying traffic trends and user behaviour.
Creates intuitive workspaces that allow teams to collaborate using applications focused on analysis and calculations. Klaro helps organisations earn, sell, and evaluate business scenarios better through a platform designed for collaboration, enabling the testing of ideas in a shared space.
An AI-powered, web-based platform that captures comprehensive site information without the need for installation. Swyvl captures, visualises, and shares 360-degree views of a site, geolocates the captured data, and facilitates seamless sharing with teams to enhance collaboration.
Workforce technology
January 2024 - December 2024
The Future Technology Program’s third cohort focuses on workforce technologies. Each selected startup is developing advanced solutions to address the challenges facing both employees and employers in the new era of work - ranging from outdated and impersonal processes, inefficient workforce management, credential and skills tracking, business transformation impacts, workplace psychosocial care, and talent development and retention.
Sarah Vega, National Managing Partner, KPMG Futures commented on the cohort’s selection: “The pandemic fundamentally changed the nature of the workforce, leaving employees and employers to navigate a complex array of new challenges from mental and emotional wellbeing to technological exhaustion. We’re excited to be supporting companies delivering solutions changing the way employers engage with their teams to create a more resilient, supportive and sustainable work environment well into the future.”
The startups selected for the program will benefit from KPMG’s deep relationships locally and internationally across industries to support their progress and provide market access.
“It's not often that startups gain access to the calibre of talent and extended networks available at KPMG, so we are pretty thrilled at the advantage this gives us” said Helena Turpin, CEO and co-founder of cohort company GoFIGR.
"I'm excited that MyPass has been selected for KPMG's Future Technology Program. We are planning to grow our business into new markets and verticals and KPMG has the track record and relationships to help us achieve this" said Matt Smith, CEO and founder of MyPassGlobal.
The five startups will receive complimentary residency for 12 months at one of Stone & Chalk’s startup hubs located in Sydney, Melbourne, or Adelaide. Each startup will receive guidance and support from KPMG mentors and industry leads to support the teams to accelerate market readiness, establish industry connections, and explore genuine growth opportunities both locally and globally.
Transforms key HR processes like performance development, onboarding and skill building, into engaging and meaningful experiences. Integrated with the existing payroll systems customers already use, Crewmojo leverages data to craft automated yet personalised experiences for employees at scale.
Blending expertise in HR, technology, behavioural science and user behaviour to truly understand what makes people tick, GoFIGR matches internal talent with suitable opportunities within the organisation based on skills, experience, and career aspirations.
A systemised method to engage and activate leaders (managers and supervisors) of employees impacted by organisational changes associated with business transformation programs. Matae is used to align, engage and activate people leaders to champion change and effectively support their teams to adopt new ways of working.
Empowering the workforce to own and control their competency information using digital Skills Passports which operate as a single source of truth capturing validated training, credentials and licences. Organisations across multiple industries can utilise this information to reduce their risk and cost of workforce onboarding and compliance.
A new reporting and case management system to specifically address psychosocial harm including sexual harassment, bullying and discrimination in the workplace. The technology roadmap and AI-powered assistant better support employees and case managers by providing recommendations that are compliant, compassionate and common sense.
Space
July 2023 - June 2024
KPMG Australia and Stone & Chalk are thrilled to unveil the second cohort of the Future Technology Program – five game-changing startups working in space technology.
Each team will also benefit from a complimentary 12-month residency at one of Stone & Chalk’s hubs in Sydney, Melbourne, or Adelaide. Key benefits of the Stone & Chalk environment for startups include participation in Australia’s largest innovation community and access to a thriving ecosystem of like-minded founders. Future Technology Program beneficiaries will also have access to Stone & Chalk’s expansive network of industry experts, partners, associations and more. Within Stone & Chalk’s national hubs, each of the five selected startups will be supported in their efforts to raise capital, enter new markets, and engage new customer segments that facilitate long-term success.
The Future Technology Program is a collaborative initiative aimed at supporting the growth of Australia’s most innovative startups. The five participating startups will receive a tailored mentoring program from KPMG, designed to support their growth and success as they tackle the frontiers of space technology, validate, test, learn, and explore genuine opportunities for growth.
‘We started the Future Technology Program in the belief that there were many unsung Australian startups with world-changing ideas who deserved more support, and this space cohort selection process has proven that we were correct. From Earth observation solutions to dynamic, wireless energy distribution, the potential of these companies is limitless. We’re thrilled to be supporting five hugely exciting ventures with the second iteration of this program and look forward to seeing what we can help them achieve,’ said Sarah Vega, National Managing Partner, KPMG Futures.
William Jeremijenko, co-founder and CEO of Aquila, said, ‘We’re ecstatic to be part of the Future Technology Program. As a future-focused startup whose technology has the potential to electrify both the space sector and the world, KPMG’s networks, resources and support will help supercharge us in our mission of powering the future.’
KPMG Space Industry Lead Jacob Hacker said he’s looking forward to his team helping the startups in their efforts to validate, test, learn, and explore genuine opportunities for growth.
He said: “The value of space applications is rapidly increasing across so many companies and sectors. We’re excited to be working with companies in Australia at the leading edge of technology and capability development in Space.”
Arlula is an Earth Observation (EO) data management platform, enabling users across various industries to seamlessly access, procure and manage EO data.
Nominal Systems has developed a unique digital twinning architecture that blends state-of-the-art simulation with the latest in Internet-of-Things, Cloud and Gaming technologies to redefine the way complex systems are designed, tested and operated.
Aquila is creating the internet of energy. The company’s goal is to build and operate an infinitely scalable energy network by using photovoltaics and directed light beams to transmit energy safely and effectively at scale.
Ozius Biome brings deep knowledge of the natural environment to commercially accessible earth observation analytics. The company uses data from space, fused with on-ground intelligence to provide a comprehensive three dimensional overview of the environment to unlock opportunity and knowledge about natural assets.
Spiral Blue’s Space Edge computing technology uses cutting edge machine learning technology and hardware to improve affordability, lead times, and accessibility for Earth Observation (EO) data.
Supply chain
December 2022 – November 2023
The first cohort of the Future Technology Program was centred on game-changing startups tackling a supply chain-related problem. Supply chain was chosen as the key challenge this year because of increasing inflationary pressures in the global economy where companies need to work to improve resilience, boost efficiency and continue to deliver for customers through their supply chain. The pandemic also accelerated the need to update and upgrade supply chains in an increasingly digital world and KPMG Australia wants to partner with companies at the forefront of supply chain innovation. KPMG Australia and Stone & Chalk were interested in startups across all areas of supply chain including (but not limited to) operational resilience, circular economies, sustainability-related challenges and performance optimisation.
Over 70 applicants went through the vetting process and were assessed against areas such as problem size, differentiation, solution quality and strategic fit. It ran through an application process facilitated between KPMG Australia and Stone & Chalk which allowed for a holistic view of the startups business models and technology platforms through interviews and product demonstrations. One of the startups selected, Versed AI have developed a state-of-the-art and award-winning Natural Language Processing technology, helping organisations of all sizes identify the true scale of their supply chain. “There’s so much happening in the procurement space at the moment”, says Co-founder and CEO Fenalla Boyle. “Procurement organisations are becoming much higher profile within companies… and they are also looking for new technologies to do things more effectively”.
Businesses will receive guidance and support from KPMG’s diverse array of mentors and industry leads who can facilitate client introductions and industry conversations. Additionally, each Future Technology Program recipient will gain a KPMG mentor tailored to their business, assisting startups in their efforts to validate, test, learn, and explore genuine opportunities for growth.
Key benefits of the Stone & Chalk environment for startups include participation in Australia’s largest innovation community and access to a thriving ecosystem of like-minded founders. Future Technology Program beneficiaries will also have access to Stone & Chalk’s expansive network of industry experts, partners, associations and more. Within Stone & Chalk’s national hubs, each of the five selected startups will be supported in their efforts to raise capital, enter new markets, and engage new customer segments that facilitate long-term success.
Award winning AI-driven route planning and optimisation engine powering last-mile delivery, and driving net-zero outcomes
A cloud-based technology platform that helps measure, build share and show cyber risks across organisations utilising tracking and benchmarking capabilities to ensure security.
A sustainability tracking solution which creates a single source for businesses to monitor their supply chain’s sustainability and ESG actions.
A state-of-the-art and award-winning Natural Language Processing technology, helping organisations of all sizes identify the true scale of their supply chain.
World first smart phone technology for food and fibre verification. Transforming supply chain traceability and product validation.
Magic happens when you pair the unconstrained thinking of a startup with the deep customer relationships and industry expertise of an established business. This program aims to help Australia’s best and brightest startups to open doors and gain traction. It will bring the expertise and connections of the firm to the table, from the startup expertise of our specialist High Growth Ventures team to the invaluable insight and networks of our specialist industry leads. We are delighted to be joining forces with Stone & Chalk to accelerate the development of innovative Australian startups.
About Stone & Chalk
Stone & Chalk Group is Australia’s home for emerging technology innovation. Our world-class expertise and networks provide unrivalled knowledge, access to capital, infrastructure, and guidance that's driving emerging tech innovation for positive impact.
For more information, visit Stone & Chalk
For game-changing startups looking for more details on the Future Technology Program, visit: KPMG: Future Technology Program | Stone & Chalk
