🔍 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.