Having an idea is one thing but turning that idea into a reality can be very challenging, particularly when you want to create a physical device. That’s where ‘The Melt’ comes in.
The Melt is a unique startup investor, accelerator and incubator helping turn people’s ideas into successful, innovative companies.
Brett Thomas, Director and Chief Operations Officer said The Melt exists to help entrepreneurs and innovators navigate the challenges and risks involved in bringing physical projects to life.
“A lot of the difficulties are to do with complex compliance, regulation, governance and adoption – risks that are far harder to navigate. The other challenge for those founders is they need affordable access to machinery and to technical specialists with skills that can help them to get their ideas through a series of prototypes ready for final manufacture and market distribution.
“Our technical specialists including industrial designers and engineers help with sensible, practical, important iterations to the design so the design for manufacture is appropriate and cost effective to produce,” Brett explained.
“Our timing couldn’t have been better; we opened our initial hub in 2019 and then a couple of months later, the pandemic hit and we started to see what happens when we don’t have manufacturing capability here in Australia – we couldn’t even make our own medical PPE.
“The pandemic taught us that we need to make more on Australian soil.”
One of the successful ventures to have its early-stage beginnings in The Melt is Safe-Gauge. Their products are designed to remove technicians from the ‘line of fire’ when live testing heavy mobile plant machinery in heavy industries such as mining.
“A lot of founders come up with a good idea based on their exposure to a problem. With Safe-Gauge for instance, the founder was a fitter in the mines, and he was exposed to a safety risk while he was working and decided to do something about it.
“Initially, he didn’t know how to do a lot of the things he needed to create his idea and get the product into the hands of customers, so we helped him get there by providing investment, access to our team and a location for his first micro-factory.”
Safe-Gauge was funded through The Melt and its VC fund, Melt Ventures, which invests up to $1.5 million into early stage, impact driven, cleantech and advanced manufacturing businesses.
“The founders use our investment to do things like patent protect their ideas and go ahead and build their physical prototypes and learn all of the things they need to along the way,” said Brett.
You might have heard of some of the other companies supported by The Melt including MGA Thermal, Allegro Energy, Endura, Refilled, PlasmaLeap and Newera.bio.
While The Melt is looking to expand its footprint throughout NSW and nationally, they have a permanent home in Muswellbrook’s Donald Horne Building which is a key part of the Hunter Innovation Precinct.
There’s about a million dollars’ worth of equipment and the building also contains Muswellbrook’s STEM Innovation Lab.
“It gives us the chance not only to help startups but help students in the Upper Hunter think about entrepreneurship and innovation as a viable career path and potentially think about other alternatives after school that aren’t mining,” Brett said.
“We’re not saying we should stop coal mining, we’re saying we should take on any opportunity that comes with diversification, if that means we can attract the latest generation of renewable companies to come and base themselves in the Hunter we would be delighted because it means jobs and prosperity.
“We’re not anti-coal mining, in fact we’re saying while ever there is a market for coal why shouldn’t we be exporting it because that money is pivotal for us to be able to fund these emerging industries.
“The Melt is about economic diversification and development. We’re trying to create the next generation of startups irrespective of the industry they’re in that can help Australia move forward and prosper.”
