In the 21st century, software has become an integral part of business. Revolutionising the way we do business, Software as a Service (SaaS) providers have emerged in just about every industry imaginable. SaaS is a software distribution model, where a cloud provider hosts applications and enables availability for these over the internet.
For the everyday person, SaaS might not mean much. For business owners however, SaaS can be the one thing that saves them dozens of hours per month, thousands of dollars per year, countless headaches, and the ability to do things they never thought possible.
Each with their own unique products and services, here we present 10 Australian SaaS companies to watch in 2021.
Linius Technologies
Specializing in what makes video powerful, Linius Technologies has cracked the code of hyper-personalized video experiences. They treat video as data, so they crack open the video file, expose the data inside, and enable it to be enriched by computing science so it becomes smarter and more intelligent..
Their globally patented video-virtualization technology then reassembles the data from any amount of disparate sources, to deliver an infinite amount of personalized video streams to viewers, on the spot. Linius’ world-first technology,is on a mission to make the world’s video accessible as data.
Recently, Linius launched a video conferencing solution called Whizzard, that makes it possible for users to search, edit, and share video recordings of meetings and lectures. The Linius tech cracks open the video conference recordings, exposing them into raw data to enable automatic enrichment of the content by world-leading AI tools.
Then, the enriched videos are automatically assembled and stitched together on the fly and can be saved and shared as personalized playlists (like Spotify for video). Linius recently won the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) VIC 2021 Technology Platform Solution of the Year.And it’s no surprise given they offer something that no one else in the world can do.
EarlyBirds
We are on the verge of becoming a machine-enabled society in the coming decades, and EarlyBirds is on a mission to engage society in actionable innovation to enable the future of society.
EarlyBirds has an Open Innovation Ecosystem that includes innovators from startups, scaleups, and mature organizations; early adopters from private and public organizations; and subject matter experts (SMEs) such as domain and industry experts to enable their vision.
Through the EarlyBirds platform organizations can source disruptive innovators quickly. SMEs deliver specialized programs to solve specific business or technical challenges and provide ongoing innovation as a service. EarlyBirds’ Open Innovation Ecosystem includes over a million innovators and over a hundred SMEs, and it continues to grow.
This Australian-based innovation platform is seeking early adopters mid to large sized organizations so they can benefit from the massive pool of knowledge capital EarlyBirds has to offer. There are so many platforms out there that are designed to assist investors and promote or market products and EarlyBirds doesn’t complete with them.
EarlyBirds innovation platform is different as it provides unique, innovative, and disruptive solutions. This way, their clients can solve business and technical challenges in a way that accelerates innovation and promotes growth. Overall, the EarlyBirds is an extremely valuable platform that provides many great advantages for organisations looking for agility and the capability edge.
RosterElf
RosterElf provides a magically simple approach to Rostering and Payroll Management for SME’s.
The platform provides rostering, staff availability, shift swaps, and everything in between. They also have payroll integration features that make it simple to import pay data into your preferred accounting solution including Sage, Xero, MYOB, or manual exports.
It is an excellent online staff scheduling tool, built by business owners for business owners. It allows you to handle all your employee scheduling needs in one place in an easy-to-use way which is critical for any fast-moving business. You can also forget the complicated setup requirements of other SaaS rostering options when you choose RosterElf as it really is Magically Simple. As a bonus you only get charged for rostered staff instead of every employee on the books which really adds up over a year.
The RosterElf system enables you to set business targets, reduce time theft, eliminate human payroll errors, and save up to 4% on labour. Most importantly you will no longer be spending hours manually doing rosters or chasing staff for their availability.
RosterElf offers a mobile app available for both iOS and Android, that allows staff to manage their availability, request leave, swap shifts, and check in for work using GPS based clock in/out. A perfect system for all staff including remote or specific location-based employees. A tablet version is also available on iOS for Staff Clock In/Out which makes things that much easier for managers and staff working from a regular location or in locations where staff cannot use their own devices.
All up RosterElf is a great solution for any SME managing a flexible workforce.
BugHerd
Founded in 2011, BugHerd offers top-notch bug tracking and website feedback. This was one of the first Australian companies to go through the highly successful Startmate program and it has earned the nickname “the startup that won’t die” because it has survived many more highs and low than any other startup.
BugHerd came back in 2018 stronger than ever and it is seeing record growth with more customers in over 170 countries. They work will businesses of all sized, from small digital agencies to Fortune 500 companies, and they help their clients successfully build or manage their websites.
They provide an effective solution to web development that saves teams at least 4 hours a week by reducing the back and forth around website feedback. BugHerd also removes the need for spreadsheets and email chains because they centralize feedback and make it as easy as possible to manage.
BugHerd services are highly effective and they have earned the company a great reputation. They capture the context of website feedback, which reduces follow-up questions. They also simplify communication between agencies, web teams, clients, and stakeholders. They provide great value to developers and project managers, which is why they love BugHerd so much and swear by it.
Powered By Change
Powered By Change (PBC) is the most advanced, comprehensive, and powerful business growth platform on the market. The platform is based on the Windmill Theory in the Sunday Times Bestselling book, Powered By Change, and the methodologies have been successfully incorporated into hundreds of companies around the world. Offering PBC as a platform, at a low monthly cost, enables everyday business owners access to the thinking that is normally only available to large companies with deep pockets. Thereby providing the opportunity for even the smallest of businesses to design their business for ongoing success using perpetual change as an accelerant.
The team behind PBC have worked with startups and multi-billion dollar organizations alike. The Powered By Change methodology was built for 2021 and onwards. It merges cutting-edge mindset systems with human authenticity and the alignment with purpose, so there are no standard business spreadsheets involved.
Powered By Change is also agnostic, so it can complement other programs or be used as a stand-alone platform. Another great benefit PBC has to offer is that it is individualized. This means every user will have a tailored interaction rather than a generic one.
The PBC platform is a perpetual operation and it has proven to be effective in some of the largest companies in the world. For example, it has helped IKEA grow from $30B to $40B. Unlike platforms that focus purely on financials, Powered By Change provides a much more holistic perspective of the Purpose, People, Product and Process elements of a business. PBC enables business people to elevate their purpose to identify new opportunities for innovation. The platform also helps identify things that can be disruptors and assists in leveraging disruptive forces as an advantage. PBC is also about to launch a PBC Community, that is free to join, to engage with others who want to view their business in a different way to get different results.
Wooboard Technologies
Specializing in helping employees be happier, more mindful, and engaged in the workplace, Wooboard Technologies provides a mental health, rewards and recognition platform that makes a huge difference. This ASX listed (WOO) cloud-based platform helps companies build a culture that understands the important of wellness, support and peer recognition within the workplace.
By placing individual mental health and wellbeing at the core of its mission with a strong emphasis on the practice of mindfulness, Their goal is simple, to help employees feel more valued, appreciated, and cared for, which is simultaneously beneficial for businesses. Wooboard understands that a happy and healthy employee is an engaged and productive employee, willing to go above and beyond for the goals of the company.
Wooboard is like a mind gym for the teams that drive a company forward. As such, it helps them become stronger and more capable. By enhancing employee wellbeing, companies will enjoy better performance and greater productivity. Additionally, the risk of staff turnover, compensation claims, and reputational damage will be reduced. Especially in times of uncertainty!
The Wooboard platform is purposefully simple to use and engage with, something that is regularly remarked upon by its customers. It’s on the web, Android and iOS and integrates with existing productivity tools including teams and slack. It features a wellness dashboard with automated employee wellness check-ins and daily mindfulness activities that improve an individual’s wellbeing in the moment. The rewards dashboard facilitates a simple way for managers and colleagues to show appreciation for the work of a team member by sending a Woo; sharing progress and wins; earning points and delivering rewards for ongoing performance. This in turn increases productivity and boosts team morale and assists in unifying workforces in today’s evolving workplace landscape.
FlexRule
Specialists in automating business decisions, FlexRule is on a mission to improve the speed and quality of key business decisions that are influenced by infinite changes in regulated environments. They have created a platform that’s unified, powerful, and low-code, designed specifically to help businesses make optimized, customer-centric, and situation-aware decisions.
Their Advanced Decision Management Suite allows organizations to automate end-to-end operational and tactical business decisions across business rules, processes, data, analytics, and robotics. FlexRule has worked with startups to large enterprises to government agencies and they have delivered game-changing results across a wide array of industries.
Next month, they will release a new version of their solution, the FlexRule X, a next-generation end-to-end Decision Automation Platform. It’s the most advanced and comprehensive platform to automate business decisions, and it delivers the perfect combination of rule-based decisions, human workflow, machine learning, and decision robotics.
The FlexRule X will help improve the quality and speed of key business decisions. It democratizes AI and enables leaders to use the right AI technology for the right problem, thus ensuring success, maximizing ROI of automation initiatives, and delivering real business value. FlexRule is effectively closing the gap between the belief that new technologies can drive better decision-making and the idea of what those decisions really are.
SmartOysters
Launched by expert oyster farmer Ewan McAsh, SmartOysters is a platform that allows other oyster farmers to streamline their own unique aquaculture practice to scale production, lower their prices, and maximize their export capabilities. The oyster industry has been stagnant for nearly forty years for many different factors, such as tides, barnacles, weather, and disease.
The fact is that oyster farming has become extremely difficult to teach and even more difficult to scale upwards. SmartOysters is on a mission to combat the record high prices of the industry caused by oyster shortages across Australia and to ensure that this delicacy is affordable for Australians in years to come.
Farming is not an easy business, and underwater farming is not the exception. Ewan McAsh understands exactly how challenging it is to be an oyster farmer and grow a business. Up until now, there was no available solution, but the SmartOysters technology is here to bridge that gap and help farmers capture and share years of knowledge, employ more staff, and scale their businesses.
SmartOysters uses GPS maps and customisable reports to capture the farmer’s ‘unique farm practice’. It also notifies farmers when their next grade is due and it helps them keep track of the exact location of their gear and oysters. Additionally, it helps them schedule and assign tasks for the stock management and maintenance of the oyster lease. Overall, it provides all the features oyster farmers need to succeed!
MeerkatWatch
MeerkatWatch is an online SaaS platform that offers cloud based solutions to monitor the uptime availability and response time of applications, such as websites and APIs. In layman’s terms, it detects whether the website or the API is fully functional. If the system detects a problem, it sends an alert to the user in real time allowing the person to fix the issue and have the website up and running again.
For businesses that rely on web technologies, this is very useful as nowadays, online presence is very important and if the user sees a website crashing, they’re less likely to trust it. Providing users with a clean navigation experience will generate a good reputation, increase sales, and in the long term, reduce maintenance costs.
MeerkatWatch’s tool sends continuous checks 24/7 from different geographical locations, to ensure the website is accessible not only from Australia, but also from any other parts of the globe. When the system discovers a problem or an unwanted change, it will send the user an alert via SMS, phone call, email, or any other communication technology such as PagerDuty, Slack, Telegram, or any other integration the user normally works with.
The company, founded by Pamelia Tungkasiri and Ruben Rubio, each bringing 20+ years of experience within management and cloud technologies, are driven to help businesses in Australia and worldwide, understand how quality monitoring of websites increases revenue, by achieving higher reliability at all times. MeerKatWatch is an exciting project powered by ManageaCloud Services, and is simple, reliable, fast and fine tuned – meaning that you will always be fully aware of how stable your website is. They offer a free plan, and 14 days free trial on any paid plan with no commitment or credit card required. Alternatively, they will happily accommodate a quote to suit your needs.
The Spatial Distillery Company
Specializing in cutting-edge Geo-Spatial and Location Intelligence SAAS Solutions, The Spatial Distillery Company has established itself as a leader in the industry and they are disrupting the traditional approach to Geographic Information Systems (GIS). They make things simple and provide the tools businesses need to make effective decisions a lot faster and in a cost-effective way.
The company was born from a simple idea—to provide the highest quality spatial data and location intelligence solutions and combine them with expert advice and outstanding customer service. The Spatial Distillery Company helps organizations focus on their core business while distilling the complex world of location intelligence.
The Spatial Distillery Company was founded in Melbourne, Australia, and they have over 25 years of experience in location intelligence specialising in retail, telecommunications and the public sector. From Telecommunication companies in planning their fibre & wireless network build out and streamlining customer acquisition to retailers looking to optimise their network of stores, The Spatial Distillery Co. are the experts at creating, sourcing, building, and maintaining boutique spatial data and location intelligence solutions to give businesses a boost.
They provide a Saas platform that helps businesses make better, faster, and more accurate decisions where location is critical to their success. The combination of Spatial Analytics Platforms and Location Data provides clients with a competitive advantage that’s difficult to match.
Make sure to go and check out all of these amazing Australian SaaS companies, as they continue to grow and make their mark on the world and their respective industries,
