26 May, 2026
By Westpac Backing Business Magazine
Story: Jo McKinnon
Photography: Tomasz Machnik
Deep tech incubator Cicada Innovations helps scientists and engineers hatch their cutting-edge ideas and commercialise world-changing innovations.
Every business is effectively future facing, but when you’re an engineer or scientist working at the cutting edge of deep tech, the future you’re imagining is bigger than most. Cicada Innovations, the nation’s longest-running deep tech incubator, is headquartered in Sydney’s historic Eveleigh railway workshops. It has been supporting innovators to commercialise bold ideas for more than a quarter of a century. Successes include new-generation cancer diagnostics and safer batteries for sustainable energy storage.
“Our purpose is to support Australian science and engineering companies solving really big problems,” says Sian Priest, Cicada’s Group Executive, Impact & Ecosystems. “We’re helping them through what’s known as the multiple valleys of death – the period between proving
the technology works to becoming commercially ready and actually selling your product to the world.” Cicada delivers training and innovation programs for deep tech startups nationally and has supported close to 400 startups over 25 years.
Currently, more than 100 startups are in residence across Eveleigh, the Westmead HealthTech Hub and Jumar Bioincubator in Melbourne’s Parkville. Over the past year, Westpac has sponsored various Cicada events and hosted a seminar on funding with the community. Support also comes from a mentor network that spans scientists, engineers, accountants and IP lawyers. But convincing investors to back something genuinely new demands more than good science – it takes great storytelling. “You have to get really clear on the real-world use case for your technology, because if no-one’s going to pay for it, then you don’t have a business,” says Sian. “You need to be able to speak to investors, customers, even the general public.”
Smarter satellites
Westpac customer Dr Anne Bettens, CEO and co-founder of satellite navigation company Deneb Space, has been honing her investor pitch with Sian ahead of a first round of private investment. She asked to be grilled with the hardest possible questions. “It’s almost like training!” she says.
Deneb Space builds hardware and software that stabilises satellites in orbit and makes them more autonomous. “In simple terms, we stop satellites spinning after they’re launched. We use the Earth’s magnetic field and smart software to get the satellite to face Earth, and enable
them to move and navigate on their own – a step toward fully autonomous space missions,” Anne explains. About 15,000 satellites currently orbit Earth, with 1,500 more planned in 2026 alone – increasing collision risk and driving demand for smarter satellite technology.
The Deneb Space team completed an intensive Cicada Elevate workshop in early 2023 to sharpen their commercial strategy, then joined its National Space Industry Hub accelerator at Eveleigh, funded by the NSW government. One attraction was that Cicada takes no equity or intellectual property (IP). Another was its space-specific community. “Having a space startup is tough, so sharing what we’ve found works and what doesn’t is really good. The community and the ecosystem is really, really valuable,” Anne says.
Deneb Space has followed a deliberate path: prove the technology, build the commercial case, then seek investment. Anne kept the team lean – just the founders (herself and fellow aerospace engineer Xueliang Bai) and two other engineers – bootstrapping through grants and smaller contracts. Their proof point came in August 2024, when Deneb’s technology was used on two satellites – CUAVA-2 and Waratah Seed. “It performed even better than anticipated,” Anne says. Building investor connections is also important. Each year, the Cicada x Tech23 event, co-sponsored by Westpac in 2025, showcases 23 exceptional deep tech startups to investors. Deneb Space took part in the 2024 event. “It was good exposure and allowed for really good networking,” says Anne. “We were chatting to investors who we can now approach for our seed round.”
Robots with a human touch
Dr Heba Khamis, CEO and co-founder of robotics startup Contactile, is also a Westpac customer and an engineer. Heba uses Westpac’s Business One account for day-to-day operations, and is growing Contactile’s reserves through interest-earning Cash Reserve and Term Deposit accounts.
Contactile has developed tactile sensors that give robotic hands a human-like sense of touch, and algorithms that allow grippers to apply exactly the right force regardless of an object’s shape or slipperiness. “In robotics, the holy grail has always been to emulate human dexterity,” she says. “If we could have robots do the physical work people do, there’d be no more need for people to do dull, dirty and dangerous jobs.”
Interest in robotics has exploded in recent years. ABI Research estimates the market was worth nearly US$50 billion in 2025, and predicts it could reach US$111 billion by 2030, with 13 million robots in circulation. Contactile was founded in 2019 at UNSW and won the Cicada Innovations Deep Technology Award at Tech23 in 2020, leading to a six-month, one-on-one incubation with Cicada. After closing US$2.5 million in seed funding from Silicon Valley’s True Ventures in 2022, the initial team of three moved to Cicada. It now has up to six engineering students at a time on 60-day internships.
For Heba, the advantage of being at Cicada was obvious. “We’re surrounded by very smart people also building technically difficult businesses. There are companies that are one step, two steps, 10 steps ahead of us. Being able to see what that looks like, and what sort of team is needed, is really valuable.” Contactile’s technology could be used in manufacturing, automotive, mining or even the care sector, but it’s not yet foolproof. Heba’s challenge is finding early adopters willing to accept a technology that will need further improvements, but could be transformative in a couple of years. Like Anne, she values “those random conversations in the kitchen” where people suggest who could help with a problem. It creates opportunities money couldn’t buy, she insists. “While the first person you talk to may not be the person you need to connect with, they’ll probably know someone who is… and you never know where those connections will lead.”
This article was first published on Westpac Backing Business Magazine