Founder Stories: From Startup to Scale-Up — Funding, Failures & Growth

​Founder Stories: From Startup to Scale-Up

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Friday, 31st October 2025, 12pm

​Every founder has a journey the breakthroughs, the breakdowns, and the big bets that got them from idea to scale. In this candid fireside chat, Pat Stewart (Head of Growth, Advanced) sits down with founders from the Advanced portfolio to unpack the real startup story: how they navigated funding, kept innovation alive, and learned along the way. Expect a raw, authentic conversation that doesn’t just celebrate success, but shines a light on the challenges, mistakes, and hacks that made growth possible.

​Speakers:

• ​Pat Stewart — Advanced R&D (Host)

• ​Mac Thompson – Co-founder, also linked to Sun Cable, with operations and high-tech venture experience.
  

​Advanced provide R&D finance to Aussie startups and innovators fast. So you can focus on building and scaling, not faffing about with funding. No pitching, pleading or praying and no dilution – just smart, strategic finance when you need it.

​Fugu is an Australian climate-tech startup developing solid direct air capture (S-DAC) systems that extract CO₂ from the atmosphere using solid sorbent filters. Their units are designed to be modular, scalable, and mass-manufacturable, enabling cost-effective deployment. Fugu integrates capture with production of green methanol from air and sunlight for fuels and industrial use via their AirRefinery vision.

​Spark Festival is Australia’s flagship grassroots tech-startup festival — a week-long celebration of innovation, connection and entrepreneurial muscle that brings together founders, corporates, investors and ecosystem builders from across NSW and beyond.