Congratulations to our 2021 Spark Tank Winners!

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Luka and Arjun form the Gaming Anonymous team with their idea to create a peer-to-peer help group and educational app to combat gaming addiction in young people.  The Sparks judges awarded them $3,000 seed funding, a $3,000 brand package, and 10 weeks of business coaching with IT expert, Paul. 

April, Cienna, Grace, and Skye form Next Step of Nature with their idea to educate young people about how the earth is being treated and how they can help. The Sparks judges awarded them $2,000 seed funding, a $3,000 brand package, and 10 weeks of business coaching with Bush to Bowl founder, Clarence. 

Melodie, Alice, Luke, and Rosie are forming a radio station for young people named Radio KBTO - Kids by the Ocean. The Sparks judges awarded them $2,300 seed funding, a $3,000 brand package, and 10 weeks of business coaching with start-up and media expert, Nigel. 

Beth and Joe form the team Wasted Potential, the name for their upcycled vintage clothing line that gives back. The Sparks judges awarded them $3,500 seed funding, a $3,000 brand package, and 10 weeks of business coaching with professional business expert, Anne.

Remee and Gabriella are forming a surf camp program focusing on resilience through tackling key issues facing adolescents. The Sparks judges awarded them $3,200 seed funding, a $3,000 brand package, and 10 weeks of business coaching with change expert, Barbara. 

Nathan and Tiarna are creating a blog, podcast, and social media community built with one purpose - to bridge the gap between high school and adulthood! The Sparks judges awarded them $5,000 seed funding, a $3,000 brand package, and 10 weeks of business coaching with funding expert, Nikolas. 

Nikolas is a Chartered Accountant and Entrepreneur with over a decade of experience working with family owned and venture backed businesses. He is the co-founder of FBZ Financial, an accounting firm specialising in business valuations who guide founders how to grow, fund and exit their business. 

Nikolas is also a co-founder of Fundsition, an equity funding platform built for socially conscious SMEs seeking growth capital to scale. A licensed AFSL platform and partnerships in Australia and the US (Southern California).  

Anne McKeown is a highly regarded Coach who empowers women to step up, speak up and show up with confidence in business and life. She incorporates NLP techniques when coaching or facilitating because she knows it’s not enough to tell people what to do – it’s essential to show them HOW to do it.

Anne attracts professional women of all ages who want to increase their inner confidence, develop clear communication skills, step into leadership roles, build a profitable business and balance family life alongside work commitments.  She walks alongside those who are ready to step into their power and make their professional and personal goals a reality. As a coach, Anne believes everyone has a unique strength to offer the world and she sees it as her job to help them find it, use it and soar on the wings of it.

Anne is a published author and the founder of Sydney Women’s Self- Empowerment Meetup.

Nigel is the Director of FUNDSITION and SEVENmile Venture Labs. He has been involved in startups and early-stage companies for most of his career and understands first-hand the frustration SMEs experience with accessing capital and the burden it places on growth. He brings a breadth and depth of experience in marketing, media, technology and product/service development across numerous industries in Australia, USA and Japan.

He has had some successful exits, the most recent was a video media channel for SMEs, with a simple mandate to build a global library of educational content that empowers SMEs.

Paul is a problem-solving web expert with over 20 years in the industry, architecting and developing software  in operational and management roles. Since 2002 he has founded and built 2 web development companies to help small and medium sized businesses use the web and web-based systems to their advantage. Through his business he enjoys developing and encouraging the gifts in his employees, working on startup products and partnering with experts in their field to see their vision come to life by creating online software using the latest technologies

As a family man and active community member Paul loves seeing the potential in kids activated and encouraged through sport and any initiative utilising their gifts and interests.

Paul proposed the idea for Spark Tank in 2019.

Barbara is a senior executive at PICA Group and a transformation and strategic change agent and Executive Coach at 4iLeadership. She has 20 years’ experience in leading interdisciplinary business strategies, managing profit- and growth-driven business investments, and delivering highly complex, customer facing Business, Commercial and IT transformation programs nationally and internationally across diverse.

Amongst all this, she fits in what she modestly refers to as ‘sport’, as a competitive crossfit athlete, a paraglider, a freediver and most impressively as a world-record holding formation skydiver.

She recognises the power of purpose and the responsibility that large corporations have to contribute and invest back in the community. 

Clarence of the Yaegl people is co-owner of Bush to Bowl, a 100% Aboriginal owned business on a mission! Their nursery and farm employs Aboriginal people to produce bushfoods and facilitate educational workshops for the greater community as they aim to bring greater awareness to traditional bushfoods, share the culture and its importance in moving forward to a brighter future for all.

 Briella launched the acclaimed designer dress rental business YOUR CLOSET in early 2014. Shortly after, she successfully pitched her business idea on Australia’s Shark Tank. Following the success of the show, YOUR CLOSET has been featured in publications such as Vogue, ELLE and Sydney Morning Herald. Briella was a guest speaker on the Business Chicks panel in 2017.

Briella is now giving back by being a Spark Tank judge at our event. She has the unique experience of being able to see things from both sides of the fence now!

Ashley is a Producer at Wargaming Sydney, an award-winning online game developer and publisher. One of the leaders in the free-to-play MMO market. The global company delivers authentic gaming experiences and services across PC, console and mobile platforms. Ashley works with distributed teams to build AAA live service games. She is driving teams to craft with a player focus on a co-dev IP for an exciting upcoming AAA title. 

She also shares her game developer skills as a mentor with Share the Spark.