How Validate 2025 Broke Records by Prioritising Execution

Entrepreneurship isn’t about having the perfect pitch deck. It’s about the messy, exhilarating, and undeniable truth of solving a problem people care about.

This Semester, we saw Validate teams knocking on hundreds of doors, creating revenue, and building functional hardware without any prior knowledge. The results speak for themselves: Validate 2025 has produced our highest number of accelerator founders to-date.

We are thrilled to announce that 12 teams from Validate advanced to the next level in 2025:

• 5 teams were accepted into Empower
• 7 teams secured a coveted spot in the ilab Accelerator

But the numbers only tell half the story. The real success lies in the journeys of resilience, the pivots, and the "unlearning" of traditional student habits.

Here are the highlights from a year of hustle.

1. Validate First, Build Later

One of the core principles of Validate is "don't build until you know they care." No one embodied this better than Vicky Jacques, founder of Vero Meets, a social venture for outdoor enthusiasts.

Initially planning to build an expensive app, Vicky hit the brakes and focused on building a community first. Starting by organising events on a pre-existing platform, her community growth was explosive going from 90 to 208 members in weeks—without spending a dollar on marketing. Demand was so high for her group meetup events that she had to cap RSVPs immediately.

"I’d rather be in the experience rather than build an app... I can mitigate issues by having had the experience first." — Vicky Jacques, Vero Meets

Similarly, Team MOVO, founded by Jonathan Smith and Lanxin Jiang, proved that you don’t need an engineering degree to build hardware. Starting by interviewing 47 parents in grocery stores, they targeted the problem parents actually cared about: motivating children to get outside.

They developed a smart treasure chest where parents could place a small reward for kids to unlock once they exercised enough. Through Validate, they maintained their relationship with the parents and eventually pivoted to a minimalist smartwatch that allows parents to send positive reinforcement while tracking their child's exercise.

2. Generating Revenue and Solving Hard Problems

Student startups often get stuck in "theory mode." Team Krepko, founded by Agajan Babayev and Rahil Mehta, broke that mould.

Starting the semester "scrambling in the Law Library to put together random pieces of code," the team developed an AI automation tool for 2 distinct markets: construction estimation and pharmacy administration.

Their pilot with a local pharmacy produced stunning results. Before Krepko, the pharmacy was missing 70% of calls. After deploying the AI agent, they now capture 100% of calls (approx. 112/day), with each call generating an average of $9 in revenue.

Meanwhile, Sporticuz, founded by Gurmack (Mackie) Singh, is a platform for basketball pickup games with skill-based matchmaking designed to avoid injury and improve the quality of the game. Mackie proved that commercial viability is possible even before a full launch; he successfully generated $300 in ticket sales purely through word-of-mouth, validating that the market is ready and waiting.

Aleksandar Miric from Horáō tackled the complex world of Internet of Things (IoT) smart parking. Identifying a gap in UQ's existing parking apps (which handle payment but not real-time spot availability), he built a prototype using magnetic sensors. His hustle caught the attention of UQ Property & Facilities and multiple city councils for a pilot program, including Redlands, Logan, and the Sunshine Coast.

"I'll never give up. I've come too far." — Aleks, Horáō

3. Cultural Impact and Global Ambition

This cohort wasn't just about local problems; our founders tackled global challenges.

Team SANGWA, founded by Kunga Moenlam, is on a mission to preserve the Tibetan language. Kunga prioritised community first, building a Douyin channel around SANGWA’s mission that garnered 8,400 followers. With a WeChat community of 60+ early adopters, she built a mobile app that helps Tibetans in China learn English while reinforcing their native vocabulary. By testing three prototype iterations with real users, the team proved that cultural preservation is a viable, scalable business model. Watch this space!

On the HealthTech front, OurMates, founded by Swietenia Puspa Lestari, Fajar Munichputranto, Ahmad Rofai, and Tomas Huggins, took on one of the hardest markets in Australia: Aged Care. Navigating complex healthcare regulations and a foreign business culture, they developed a dementia care monitoring solution and quickly secured an 83-person waitlist.

"If we are talking about ideas, we could talk about thousands of ideas without any obstacles... [when] we come through to life... we have to deliver to a specific person." — Fajar, Cofounder of OurMates

Highlighting the transition from classroom theory to market reality, the team is truly going the distance: Swietenia is currently in Shenzhen, China, sourcing the specialised camera hardware needed for their pilot, proving their commitment spans borders.

What’s next?

As we close out the year, we are incredibly proud of the culture of action this cohort has built. They prove that whether you are an international student, a non-technical founder, or balancing exams, entrepreneurship is about starting. Here are the teams that accessed funding from Semester 2.

Interested in joining the next cohort?

Apply for Validate now to be a part of our 2026 program and have an opportunity to access $15k of funding in Semester 1 to help your project with the earliest expenses.

Express Your Interest for Validate Semester 1 2026