From what began as a passion project in 2016 to build software that secures the Ethereum blockchain, the founders of Sydney tech company Sigma Prime have won the prestigious Sydney Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award with their thriving business that mixes research clout and expert security services for critical web3 projects globally.
Founders Adrian Manning, Paul Hauner and Mehdi Zerouali were recognised for their achievements at a gala event at Ivy Ballroom last night, following in the footsteps of last year's winners Argylica and William Conditsis of BABYBOO - who this year won the Fashion & Design category - and Xavier Orr and Chris Shaw of Advanced Navigation who received the top prize in 2022.
Game-changing entrepreneurs from all over the city converged on the event that celebrated bold, risk-taking ventures that bring value to society and the broader economy, with founders competing in a wide array of sectors from property to marketing to finance.
A total of 17 awards were up for grabs, including the coveted Trailblazer accolade that went to Dr Benjamin Coorey of Archistar, a software platform that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline property assessments. This was Coorey's fourth time participating in the initiative, having won the Property & Construction category in 2023.
The gala presentation also marked the official launch of the Young Entrepreneur Award - Deep Tech for the first time, recognising entrepreneurs who tread the longest paths to commercialisation, with a need to overcome significant scientific or engineering challenges, not to mention rigorous regulations in their respective fields.
This new category was won by Steven Vassiloudis, co-founder of Novalith Technologies which specialises in sustainable lithium extraction, with ambitions to significantly reduce the environmental impact and cost of procuring a mineral that has proven so vital to powering the green economy.
The deep tech entrepreneur was up against the founders of satellite-to-satellite imaging company HEO, stroke detection tech developer Nuroflux, and Smart MCs, a biotech aiming to reinvent the landscape of bioproduction with technologies that scale up cell cultivation.
Like other winners on the night, he will be competing for the Australian Young Entrepreneur Awards with founders from all over the country on 22 November on the Gold Coast.
Vassiloudis also contested other categories including Sustainability & Social Responsibility, which was won by Angus Crowther of Tanck, a company on a mission to uplift social sector organisations by connecting them with government in meaningful ways, securing $2 billion in funding to date for initiatives in healthcare, education, migrant services and more.
But the highest honour of the evening went to Manning, Hauner and Zerouali of Sigma Prime, whose platform is of gargantuan prominence in the world of blockchain.
"We run around 30 per cent of the Ethereum blockchain, which is like $600 billion...our software secures that," says Manning.
Whilst this sounds like an impressive number, Sigma Prime does not charge any fee to users of its Lighthouse offering that is known as a consensus client for Ethereum.
In a layman's description of this complex system provided by Hauner, he notes that Ethereum comes with specifications about how it should work, indicating "how computers should talk to each other".
With coding and software developed by Sigma Prime, backed by the ongoing help of grants since 2018 from the Ethereum Foundation and other organisations, Lighthouse implements those specifications.
"Basically, without Lighthouse or equivalent implementations, the Ethereum blockchain just doesn't exist," Hauner explains.
The three founders - Hauner a software engineer, Manning having completed a PhD in theoretical particle physics, and Zerouali having worked as a cybersecurity practitioner at a Big Four consulting firm - met at a local Ethereum Sydney meet-up.
"As interest from the community grew, we realised our cybersecurity expertise was uniquely suited to the emerging challenges in blockchain. This led us to transition our web2 security skills into web3, establishing Sigma Prime as a leading provider of security assessment services for blockchain projects," Zerouali explains.
But as their research and development into Lighthouse to service the Ethereum ecosystem didn't and generate an income, in its early days Sigma Prime's commercial side came in the form of consulting.
"In terms of the business structure, people wanted us to come and help give them advice and design systems," says Manning.
He admits this consulting often resulted in the experts telling clients their blockchain uses cases wouldn't work, but seeing the clients go ahead with their ideas anyway - a pattern that was frustrating, but one the business has since overcome with its revenue now mostly coming from auditing or blockchain cyber security work .
"Every week people are stealing tens of millions of dollars from people that write bad code, so in the beginning clients were coming to us for advice on whether the thing that they’re writing was good or not," Manning explains.
"We review entire blockchains from scratch, people that build new code on top of it, people that build just consensus mechanisms. And because we've built our own blockchain from scratch, which is Lighthouse, we have a unique set of skills to be able to review, and tell people how to do it."
In the past year Sigma Prime has successfully renewed and expanded its security engagements with some of the largest and most critical blockchain projects, safeguarding billions of dollars in value.
"Our continued collaboration with these high-profile projects underscores our reputation for delivering exceptional security services in a rapidly evolving industry," adds Zerouali.
The 2024 Sydney Young Entrepreneur Awards were supported by corporate partners Coraggio, RSM, EO Sydney,Fishburners, Sydney Events Studio and iVvy.
See below for all winners from the night, and we thank all participants for sharing their stories with Business News Australia.
All winners at the 2024 Sydney Young Entrepreneur Awards
- Young Entrepreneur of the Year - Paul Hauner, Adrian Manning & Mehdi Zerouali (Sigma Prime)
- Trailblazer of the Year - Dr Benjamin Coorey (Archistar, Snaploader)
- Deep Tech - Steven Vassiloudis (Novalith Technologies)
- Digital Disruptor - Ho Jun Tang, Vanessa Zhao, Ben Delaney & Adrian Brossard (Yellowbox)
- Fashion & Design - Argylica Conditsis & William Conditsis (BABYBOO)
- Finance - Gaby Rosenberg & Ali Rosenberg (Blossom App)
- Fitness - Daniel Bova & Tiarne Bova (The Yard Gym)
- Food & Beverage - Sanjay Sundarjee (Damican)
- Health & Medicine - Tim Atkins & Dr Raghav Murali-Ganesh (Osara Health)
- Marketing - James O'Neill (WildJar)
- PR, Media & Events - Aidan Anderson (The Local Project, The Local Production)
- Professional Services - Sam Jamsheedi (Trademark Group of Companies)
- Property & Construction - Ravi Sharma (Search Property)
- Specialist Services - Tahlia Kittos (Empowered Living Care)
- Startup - Dr Benjamin Hamer (ThinkerTank)
- Sustainability & Social Responsibility - Angus Crowther (Tanck)
- Technology - Paul Hauner, Adrian Manning & Mehdi Zerouali (Sigma Prime)
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