It sounds like the climax of HBO television series Silicon Valley but this is the real deal - right here in Brisbane.
Technology venture Clipchamp wowed a panel of experienced startup founders at qutbluebox's $100,000+ Innovation Challenge, taking first prize with its file compression platform that is already attracting 100,000 users every month.
Co-founded by two QUT staff and their friends, Clipchamp is a website that allows users to compress large video files without compromising quality, and share them easily to their social media accounts.
Watch Clipchamp's 30-second speed pitch.
"Humanity is now uploading more than four billion videos a year - and waiting two billion hours to do so," said Associate Professor Alexander Dreiling, Clipchamp CEO and IT expert with QUT's Science and Engineering Faculty and Institute for Future Environments.
"We built a service that can save users more than a billion hours of waiting each year while at the same time creating more than $1 billion in value for video hosting platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, which rely on high-quality content.
"When we rolled out the website in August 2014 we had no idea we would attract half a million users within a year with virtually no marketing.
"We're growing strongly and many users give us excellent feedback. Solving a real problem for many users is our biggest success so far.
"Quite a few people have referred to us as the real Pied Piper from Silicon Valley, although the only real similarity is that we and the fictional company have both tackled compression issues."
qutbluebox, QUT's innovation transfer company, holds an annual challenge to uncover and support outstanding ideas from the university's staff, students and more than 210,000 alumni across the globe.
Clipchamp's winning pitch earned the company $50,000 in prizemoney.
Associate Professor Dreiling said the prize would help the company accelerate growth, refine its product and create positive cash-flow.
"We're operating in a rapidly growing industry, and growing fast is our only currency. Different growth trajectories might be the difference between us failing and succeeding," he said.
"We're thankful to qutbluebox for running this challenge and continuing to push the boundaries for local technology transfer.
"Queensland needs startups. Australia needs startups. And entrepreneurs need challenges like these!"
Second place in the competition went to the creators of Fantasy Insider, a platform for analysing sporting data for AFL and NRL fantasy contests.
The crowd favourite prize went to makers of Machinam, an app-based resource that makes high school maths engaging and relevant to real life.
qutbluebox Director of Innovation and Engagement Brent Watts said his organisation scaled up the 2015 competition to deliver over $150,000 of prizes to promising new ventures created with QUT know-how.
"The energy, drive and passion that was displayed by all six finalists was great to see, and there is real potential for them to disrupt the market sectors that they are entering," he said.
"In particular, crowd favourite Machinam was an inspiration for female-led startups attending from the tech community, sharing their bold vision of positively influencing one billion maths students globally."
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Media contacts
Kate Haggman, QUT Media, 07 3138 0358 or kate.haggman@qut.edu.au
After hours Rose Trapnell, QUT Media team leader, 0407 585 901 or media@qut.edu.au
