A while ago we posted details of a Pitch event called Carnegie’s Den, which is a quarterly event created by M.H. Carnegie & Co. for leading Australian entrepreneurs to gain media exposure and direct funding.
Well it seems that local entrepreneur Matter Edwards and his startup APE Mobile applied and are now finalists in tonight’s final pitch at the Den in Darlinghurst, NSW.
Well done Matt!
Here’s some more about Matt and his startup story.
“I was living in Switzerland and enjoying a career flying around the world in business class, but gave it all up when I met my wife (whilst working an a project in Australia). I started APE (Applied Project Experience) as project management consultancy when I left Siemens and moved here.
A couple of years ago I was consulting to a local contractor and noticed some of the supervisors had iPads but were only using them for email. They still had to fill in the paper forms. I had a look around for apps that would let them do their paperwork but all I could find was safety apps, annotation apps or forms apps. None of these would let them carry on using their forms (which the’ve spent years building up). So one morning, at about 4 am I woke up and thought f**k it! I can fix that.
Site paperwork is a massive pain, most sites still use triplicate paper pads. Or try to use laptops in a wholly unsuitable environment, with non tech-savvy personnel. The nightmare for the business is that it’s such a pain to do paperwork that a lot of the time it isn’t done at all, which has huge financial & legal consequences (No evidence for variations hurts profit, no evidence of safety lands the CEO in jail).
Forms apps aren’t new, but to get a forms app that is suitable for use on construction sites, we’ve had to create it as part of a whole site information system for each contractor. That means being able to create new records using their existing forms, being able to access site drawings and even mark them up, and at the same time capturing that data for the office teams.
So we created a new category of software for construction and engineering projects we call a ‘Site Information Management System’. Its practical site paperwork.
We released the system late last year and already have paying clients such as Rio Tinto & Calibre Global using it on a large mine project. As well as contractors including Tasman Civil, RJV and Colas. Each month the number of enquiries are growing, with the system now being trialed by a range of businesses from one of the biggest construction companies in Australia down to small companies with just a few users.”
So well done Matt, for representing Perth and our startup community.
Everyone else, back to working on your startup, get some customers, and apply for the next Carnegie’s Den pitch event!
More info on APE Mobile can be found at www.apemobile.com – “Easy site paperwork & data capture”.
Apply for the next Carnegie’s Den now!
