Recap of the Down South adVentures Weekend & Upcoming Meet the Entrepreneur Events!

What an incredible BioInnovation Festival Down South adVentures Weekend!

The Down South adVentures Weekend offered attendees a unique opportunity to explore the innovative landscape of Western Australia’s biotech, agtech, and oceantech sectors.

The event provided a platform for founders, investors, and industry leaders to come together, share insights, and build valuable connections in a relaxed yet inspiring environment. With a focus on fostering collaboration, the weekend also showcased some of the region’s most groundbreaking companies and initiatives.

Incredible tours and facilitation from Tom Puddy at SeaStock, Busselton Jetty Team, Brad Adams at Rare Foods Australia, Glenarty Road team, the Koomal Dreaming team, Shelter Brewing Co, Greg Riebe at INVESTinWA, Rob Davis and Stephanie Kirchhofer at South West Angels, and Jordan Parker and Scott Bell at Capel Marron Farm.

Thank you to the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry for supporting this initiative as part of its Support Regional Trade Events Program.

We’re thrilled to welcome back Mo Jaimangal, a standout entrepreneur who captivated our audience last year with his inspiring journey and insights. Whether you attended his session in 2024 or are meeting him for the first time, this is a fantastic opportunity to gain firsthand knowledge from someone who has successfully navigated the entrepreneurial landscape.

Join Mohinder, founder of Curve Tomorrow and a robotics engineer with 20+ years in tech, as he explores how design thinking can transform your product into something customers love. With experience scaling a company to seven figures and mentoring entrepreneurs, Mohinder shares insights on developing user-friendly health technologies. This talk will provide practical strategies for applying design thinking to create impactful healthcare innovations and drive business success.

The Meet the Entrepreneur series continues with an exciting session featuring Claire Deeks, a dynamic marketing strategist, entrepreneur, and business growth expert!

As the co-founder of Ilo Wellness and Halo Tag, Claire has built and scaled purpose-driven brands that focus on sustainability, community engagement, and innovative digital marketing.

Currently, Claire is the Marketing Manager & Growth Strategist at The Small Business Lounge, where she helps small and medium-sized businesses refine their marketing strategies, enhance brand visibility, and implement data-driven approaches for sustainable growth. Balancing multiple businesses and clients, she is a master of time management and strategic planning.

At just 26, Claire is deeply immersed in evolving digital trends, using her expertise to craft creative, high-impact marketing solutions. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, business owner, or marketing enthusiast, this session is packed with valuable insights into brand building, business growth, and staying ahead in a fast-moving industry.

Simona Hughes is a seasoned financial expert dedicated to helping businesses thrive and families build lasting wealth. After nearly two decades working with some of the world's largest corporations, as well as small start-ups, she left the UK’s corporate scene to start a family in Perth. She now channels her expertise as a consulting CFO, providing invaluable business advisory services that simplify operations, drive profitability, and empower business owners to achieve both financial success and a better quality of life.

Simona believes that money should work for you—not the other way around. She’s passionate about making financial freedom accessible, whether through budgeting basics, financial resilience, or strategic business growth. Her mission is to bring clarity, sanity, and freedom to business owners, helping them transform their businesses while maintaining a fulfilling work-life balance.

HARVEST is WA’s leading agtech business program for businesses looking to innovate in the Agtech industry. Now in its ninth year, HARVEST has supported over 80 businesses. The program is valued at over $10,000 and is FREE for successful applicants.

HARVEST is designed to accelerate the growth of your innovative startup by giving you expert guidance, deep industry insights, critical tools, and strategic connections.

The HARVEST Accelerator is proudly sponsored by the Grains Research and Development Corporation, The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development and Wrays.

Applications close 5th May 2025

Founded in May last year, ResonAg spun out from a previous successful startup in a different sector. We joined the HARVEST Accelerator to expand beyond our oil, gas, and mining networks, as we had little limited agricultural industry connections. HARVEST provided the network and support we needed to enter the agtech ecosystem.

ResonAg has miniaturized the same MRI technology used in hospitals to measure water in the human body and adapted it to measure moisture in the soil. We do it in real-time while seeding, ensuring each seed is placed at the optimal depth. Why is that important? Every seed has a specific moisture requirement. For example, with canola, a 2% deviation in moisture can cause a 30% drop in emergence. This innovation improves planting accuracy, optimising crop establishment and boosting overall yield.

As a company, we completed our pre-seed raise last June and are now finalising our seed round. Since then, we've grown to a team of six.

Through HARVEST, we were one of the companies funded by Department of to attend EvokeAG, where we introduced ourselves to the global agtech community.

The response was incredible, and since then, we've been approached by VCs and private investors.

HARVEST proved to be an excellent launchpad, helping us refine our pitch and strategy before taking it to a broader stage like EvokeAG.

Importantly, HARVEST helped us connect directly with growers. Those early conversations have now turned into real partnerships, with growers being the first to adopt our technology.

Overall, our experience with HARVEST has been very positive, both during and after the program. It has opened several doors for us, and we highly recommend it.

In recent news, we are pleased to announce that our application with University of WA for a government AEA grant (Low-cost sensing for liquid food supply chain authentication) was successful! We look forward to working with UWA using our cutting edge ASIC based NMR spectrometer.

The HARVEST Agtech Pre-Accelerator Workshop will be led by Natasha Teakle, Managing Director of AgriStart and will focus on key aspects of the Agtech sector, including understanding industry challenges, identifying target customers, refining value propositions, and validating ideas.

📅 Wednesday 9th April
⏰ 8.30am - 12:00pm
📍 Wrays | Intellectual Property, Level 7, 863 Hay Street, Perth
Morning Tea & Lunch provided

Topics Covered:
➡️ Agtech sector challenges and opportunities
➡️ Target customers and ag industry stakeholders
➡️ Value propositions for agriculture
➡️ Validating with customers/users/beneficiaries
➡️ Support to commercialise agtech
➡️ Intellectual property

This is an invaluable session suitable for researchers looking to commercialise their innovations, businesses looking to apply their technology in the agricultural sector, and farmers who have developed new technology.

And will highlight the benefits of the HARVEST Agtech Accelerator program which is currently open for applications.

Register your FREE ticket below.

Agribusiness SME’s looking to engage with researchers?

Innovate to Grow is a free online program that helps innovative start-ups and SMEs take their novel ideas and turn them into an R&D opportunity. Throughout the 8-week program SME participants are supported with researcher connections, a self-paced learning platform, networking opportunities, guest speakers and expert feedback. Participants can address business challenges, explore collaborations, and create R&D plans within a supportive environment.

Applications are open until 20 April 2025.