Startup Daily Best in Tech Awards 2026 winners announced

The sold out awards dinner with 220 guests heard from entrepreneur turned federal MP Allegra Spender who discussed risk and purpose in building startups in Australia.

“Startups are about two things – it’s taking a big risk, and that’s a big cost for people, when they give up a job or to say, ‘I want to create something different’,” she said.

“But if you want to take that risk, it’s about a purpose, and that’s what’s been so inspiring about so many of the awards finalists and winners – the positive change they want to create in the world is amazing.”

Heidi took home Scaleup of the Year and the AI Gamechanger awards. AI also featured prominently with Annie Liao, founder of Build Club, the global AI community, named Future Leader, and 1000 Women in AI, founded by Emma Earley, winning the GSD Award.

Having launched 1000 Women in AI, a free program, while heavily pregnant with her second child, Earley reached her goal in just two weeks and is now has a target of 1 million women.

She said the GSD Award “means a lot for all of those women that are at home on parental leave thinking, how do I get back in the workplace? How do I build a startup? It’s totally possible, but more importantly, it recognises that we want to see the gender gap in AI closed and not a thing.”

Once again, women featured prominently in the fourth annual Best in Tech awards, with 2025 winner Paz Pisarski, founder of the The Community Collective named Industry Champion, while Ovum AI founder Dr Ariella Heffernan-Marks was named Best New Founder.

Heidi Health’s Dr Simon Kos said the Scaleup of the Year award was recognition for the three years of hard work towards their ambition to double the world’s healthcare capacity by 2030.

“This is a Melbourne startup gone global. Right now we’re in 190 countries, we’re in 110 languages, and we’re doing 2.8 million notes a week, which makes us the world’s biggest scribe by volume,” he said.

“There’s a quiet revolution going on in healthcare, and it means better care for people all around the globe.”

AWS Startups were once again the major sponsor, having supported the Best in Tech Awards since they began in 2023.

Christian Hernandez, senior startup partner, AWS Startups, said it was important to celebrate the achievements of the local ecosystem, and the Best in Tech awards created an incredible buzz.

“No one really sees the hard work that goes into being in a startup, and building your own business and struggling and fighting every single day,” he said

“You forget where you have come from and what type of achievement that you’re able to come with. And to be celebrated by all your peers, that’s amazing. I think that we bat above our weight as Australians. We’re the true underdog story, but we do achieve so many things because we just keep going and we always have that instinct to keep pushing on. And that’s, that’s great.”

The Startup Daily Best in Tech Awards were also supported by award sponsors Tank Stream Labs, The Nudge Group, The Founders Union and The Pillars.

Here is the full list of the 15 winners from the Startup Daily Best in Tech Awards 2026:

From Melbourne to 190 countries, Heidi now supports 2.5 million patient interactions every week, technology the best of Australian tech at a global scale.

Construction sites don’t have to be terrible neighbours. SiteHive monitors noise, dust and vibration in real time, helping teams tackle problems before they escalate.

Aquila is a transforming changing into a cordless world, and kept a robot moving for 24 hours using laser light, opening new possibilities for drones and satellites.

Startups need community, not just capital. Paz Pisarski, founder of the The Community Collective, and the 2025 Future Leader winner, has funded over 100 scholarships and helped hundreds of companies build stronger communities.

Doctors should be treating patients, not drowning in paperwork. Heidi uses AI to handle clinical notes, giving clinicians more time for the people who need them.

Dr Ariella Heffernan-Marks turned her own healthcare frustrations into Ovum AI, helping women track symptoms and be heard by doctors.

Structural safety shouldn’t depend on waiting for cracks to show. Artemis, founded by Darren Foster, Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, with a base in the USA, uses sensors and AI to detect hidden damage in bridges and aircraft.

From helping Astra become the fastest privately funded company to reach orbit, to building Fleet Space’s technology for finding critical minerals faster, our winner thinks very big and builds accordingly, Dr Hemant Chaurasia is the 2026 Best technical leader.

The inaugural winner, Stephanie Larson has been a senior operations analyst at Victorian diagnostic monitoring manufacturer Nutromics for the past four years. She collaborates with the teams on business strategy development, financial modelling, company goal-setting frameworks, data management, and increasing technical process efficiency.

Since 2017, UNSW Founders has backed more than 1,000 startups, with its 10x companies now worth more than $1 billion combined and is regarded as Australia’s best university startup program.

DiaperRecycle, founded by Cynthia Barnicoat, finds new uses for the fibre and plastic from one of landfills biggest challenge, disposable nappies.

The chips powering AI, EVs and space depend on two obscure metals Australia barely refines. Gega Elements is building a cleaner way to recover gallium and germanium from mining waste.

A pile of washing became a tech-powered business spanning four countries and more than 600 Laundry Partners. Our winner, founded by Queensland entrepreneur Susan Toft turned one of life’s dullest chores into a scalable marketplace.

What began as a community for people curious about AI has grown into a global network helping tens of thousands learn, build and launch as Annie Liao built Build Cub and took it global.

Emma Earley set out to help 1,000 women get confident with AI. She did it while in the last trimester of her pregnancy, hit that target in just two weeks and kept going. 1000 Women in AI is free, practical and deliberately anti-hype, and now getting more women into the rooms where AI’s future is being shaped.

Thank you to our Startup Daily Best in Tech Awards 2026 partners: