Three founders receive boost thanks to Stone & Chalk scholarship

Three female, early-stage founders were awarded the Stone & Chalk 2025 International Women’s Day Scholarship this month. Founders of SoMe AI, Topicks and OminiWell were the lucky recipients at Lot Fourteen for this year’s intake.

The State of Australian Startup Funding 2024 reported that women in startups secured only 15% of total funding, and the median deal size for female teams was just $1 million, compared to $3.2 million for all-male teams. Only 13% of female founders feel very confident about raising their next round, and 70% of female founders believe their gender has greatly impacted their ability to raise capital.

The scholarship represents Stone & Chalk’s commitment to fostering positive change by providing female founders with the tools, support, and connections they need to take their startups further, faster.

For the past three years, the six-month scholarship has equipped female founders with access to the startup community, desk spaces, tailored and expert guidance, startup growth programs and the right connections.

From over 70 applications, three South Australians were selected by the panel based upon their exceptional vision, traction, and potential for growth they exhibited.

The South Australian Stone & Chalk IWD Scholarship recipients are as follows:

Sylvia Chien, Founder and CEO, OminiWell Pty Ltd

OminiWell’s patented technology can grow patient tumour-tissues outside of the human body, analyse the killing effect of tumour tissues and predict the treatment efficacy within two weeks. It aims to translate patient’s microtissues and biopsies for the predictive power of cancer treatments.

https://www.ominiwell.com/

Sofia Kette, Founder, SoMe AI

SoMe AI automates the editing, posting and analysis of Reels and TikToks for small business. Businesses upload raw footage and their Social Media strategy (or create it if they do not have it) and SoMe AI pushes out fully edited, post ready videos which can be swiped to all socials.

https://some-ai.com

Cheree Bonnici, Founder and CEO, Topicks 

Topicks is an educational social media mobile app connecting people through topics of interest. It offers a streamlined online experience by curating content centrally based on specific interests. Topicks transforms how users discover and interact with content by offering organised information. Topicks allows individuals to explore, engage, and stay updated on topics, all in one place.

www.topicks.global

Congratulations to recipients. We look forward to seeing you at Lot Fourteen!