Techstars Sydney Build Challenge: Find the Hidden Founders

🔍 Techstars Sydney Build Challenge: Find the Hidden Founders

Sign up by: May 26 (midnight AEST)
Submit by: June 7

Some of the best founders are hidden in plain sight. They’re not posting on LinkedIn — they’re heads down building. They’re scale-up veterans whose options are vesting. Migrants building quiet empires. PhD researchers with IP ready to spin out.

We want you to help us find and map them.

🧠 The Challenge

Build a searchable database of under-the-radar founder talent. Your product should help surface high-potential current and future founders across Australia.

Must include fields for:

• Name

• LinkedIn

• City

• Startup name (if applicable)

• Tags (e.g. “scale-up alum,” “side project builder,” “PhD researcher,” “migrant founder”)

• Diversity measures:

  • Required: Gender, Ethnicity

  • Optional: LGBTQI+, Neurodivergent, Age, Migrant status

🔎 Suggested Data Sources

You're free to be creative, but here are a few to start:

• LinkedIn (roles, career trajectories, side project links)

• Community groups (Slack/Discords, meetup lists, university clubs)

• Crunchbase (stealth startups, early stage company staff)

• University and research websites

• Founder Twitter/X, Product Hunt, GitHub

You can scrape, research, or crowdsource — as long as the end product is insightful and usable.

🧑‍⚖️ Judging

Projects will be judged by the Techstars team based on:

• Data insight and quality

• Filterable, usable UX

• Creativity in uncovering non-obvious talent

🏆 What You Can Win

Major prize: $2K prize pool ($1.5K first, $500 second)

• 🚀 Fast-tracked interview to the Techstars Sydney Accelerator

  • US$120k investment + 13-week in-person program

• 💼 3 x warm intros to top VCs if you're looking to spin this into a startup

• 🧢 Bonus perks from our sponsor pool:

  • Cloud credits

  • Discounted co-working space memberships

  • Free subscriptions to AI tools

  • Strategy sessions

🧠 Prompt Inspiration

Think:

• 4-year scale-up engineer ready to jump

• PhD close to finishing, researching AI, bio, or deeptech

• SMB operator now launching SaaS tools

• Hackathon winners not yet “in the ecosystem”

• Migrant entrepreneurs running businesses under the radar

👉 How to Join

• Register your interest by May 26

• Submit your entry by June 5

• Solo or teams welcome

• Open to all Australia-based builders

Let’s uncover the next wave of builders — before they’re headlines.