International Opportunities Unearthed on Silicon Valley Trade Mission

On the twentieth of September, Unearthed set off on a trade mission to Silicon Valley with a delegation of resource industry representatives from Australia, looking to discover the strengths of one of the world’s great innovation ecosystems, whilst also exploring the key opportunities and benefits of the Australian resources sector.

Justin Strharsky and Zane Prickett of Unearthed Solutions were among those who attended three days’ worth of sessions with industry leaders, startups and venture capital firms, such as Caterpillar Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank, GE, ABB Technology Ventures, and Uptake to name just a few.

They also visited accelerators and experienced first-hand how corporates in other industries are interacting with startups to create a pipeline of development to positively impact on their bottom line, and increased understanding around how to build capacity for these programs in Australia.

After a welcome dinner on their first evening, delegates flew straight into meetings with corporate venture groups, who presented on topics including the US innovation landscape, the impact of technology on industry, and examples of the latest enterprise innovations were showcased by members of the startup community.

Among those presenting was Grant Allen, of ABB Technology Ventures, who delivered a fascinating presentation on the impact of technology on industry, which delegates found particularly interesting due to the potential application to their businesses.

One of the delegates, Miriam Stanborough, Innovation Manager at Iluka Resources said that the ABB visit was a standout as “it was a great opportunity to hear from someone part-way along the corporate venture capital journey. I appreciated Grant's frankness with respect to what works, the objectives of the ABB fund, and also opportunities that have been missed.” she said.

Michael T Young, Director of Caterpillar Ventures, enlightened attendees as to Caterpillar’s strategy, and important lessons learnt in tackling the hurdles to creating a digital mine site.

“It was fantastic to gain insights into funding models, and the willingness of ventures to take risks on technology is commendable. The energy of everyone working towards something collaboratively was a great feeling”, commented Kathy Bunce, General Manager People, Innovation and Information at Iluka Resources.

Multiple startups presented their products and shared valuable case studies relating to their implementation. Delegates heard from: Parsable, Uptake, Navisens, Scope AR, Treasure Data and Kelvin Inc.

Another session was with Alchemist Accelerator, where founder Ravi Belani explained how the venture-backed accelerator model is working for Alchemist and others. Equity stakes align the interests of the accelerator with the cohort companies, and provide a pathway to much needed early stage capital for growth.

Unearthed San Francisco mentors: Kieran McCluskey (BHP Billiton), Jimmy McCarty (Caterpillar), Roberto Ortega (Caterpillar) and Luke Gordon (BHP Billiton)

Following on from these visits, executives had the opportunity to participate in Unearthed San Francisco, a 54-hour hackathon event, which connected the global resources sector with the Silicon Valley startup community. With cornerstone support from global manufacturer of construction and mining equipment Caterpillar, and resources giant BHP Billiton, the event produced many innovative solutions and was a resounding success to all stakeholders involved.

Michael Young, Director of Caterpillar Ventures said that he was amazed by the participants’ dedication. “We had a great turnout and some really good solutions. Caterpillar Ventures is here in San Francisco, but innovation happens everywhere in the world. Having these events be more global is a great benefit to us and we certainly appreciate Unearthed for putting on these events.”

Roberto Ortega, Innovation & Digital Manager at Caterpillar echoed this sentiment. “It’s a huge impact; the solutions that have been developed as part of the hackathon can be extended to other platforms, not only in the mining sector, but also across our industry verticals.”

Justin Strharsky joins Roberto Ortega and Michael Young onstage at MINExpo

 Unearthed San Francisco then lead into MINExpo 2016, where Unearthed joined Caterpillar on stage to showcase the solutions developed at the hackathon.

So, what insights have the delegates gained from their time in Silicon Valley? Unearthed Director Zane Prickett shared his learnings from the renowned startup ecosystem at the launch of Core Resources Hub, comparing it to the Australian scene:

“There is no difference in capability. They have billions of dollars of funding and we are not going to match that, but you can always go over there and get funding. The key issue is how do we start to think global? How do we look at big, hard challenges and see the seed of it starting from here and growing globally?”

Research from Startup WA and others show that Australian entrepreneurs are not focusing on opportunities in the energy and natural resources sector, despite these being key to the Australian economy. We need to think about where these startups will come from. Unearthed, for one, predicts that they will give rise to 50 new startups in the next 10 years.

Justin Strharsky, Director at Unearthed, reiterated the importance of fostering innovation in the resources sector. He believes that “in order for Australia to truly become the resources innovation hub of the world, it must build a robust ecosystem, including Corporate Venture Capital, true early stage accelerator programs and deeper connections between innovation programs and sources of capital.”

Unearthed is passionate about accelerating innovation in the resources industry. In leading this trade mission, they have established international reach and networks to take advantage of the best that ecosystems such as Silicon Valley have to offer, whilst leveraging our competitive advantage in the Australian resources sector.

They are excited to announce the CORE Memorandum of Understanding with the Caterpillar Ventures space in San Francisco; another example of building international ecosystem connections.

Join Unearthed at CORE Resources Hub next Tuesday 25^th October from 4 – 5:30pm to hear from Silicon Valley startup C3IoT about their journey delivering advanced analytics and machine learning at scale. Justin and Zane will also share their insights from the trade mission, along with delegates Kathy Bunce and Miriam Stanborough of Iluka Resources.  Register here.