Lisa Ring and Family Scholarships

Lisa Ring and Family Scholarships

The scholarships are the result of a generous donation from Lisa Ring and Family, who are passionate about enabling support for ambitious new founders with the commitment and drive necessary for their businesses to grow.

The Lisa Ring and Family Scholarships, which are the first of its kind for StartSpace, starting in 2022, are designed to offer seed funding, coaching and support to new business founders in the very early stages of their business journey.

Announcing the Lisa Ring and Family Scholarships for 2025

The StartSpace team are very excited to announce the 2025 Lisa Ring and Family Scholarships are now open to applications. Find out more here.

The Scholarships program

There have been three years of Lisa Ring and Family Scholarships awarded for 2022, 2023 and 2024 and are set to continue for a further 2 years. The Scholarships include a 12-month tailored mentoring and coaching program, 12-months of StartSpace Loft membership and $10,000 of equity free seed funding.

Applications and eligibility criteria

Applications for are applicable to all Victorian based early-stage founders who are working on their new venture and able to commit to a scholarships program from January – December.

Applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people from culturally diverse backgrounds, LGBTIQ+ people, and people of all ages 18 and above and all abilities were welcomed.

About the Scholarships

Lisa Ring and Family generously donated to enable the provision of scholarships to help develop and give confidence to new and early stage founders.

The scholarships aim to help your business advance to the next stage in your journey and give you confidence for future success.

StartSpace does not take any stake in the business in exchange for the seed funding; equity remains with the founder.

The 2024 Lisa Ring and Family Scholarhip Recipients

The StartSpace team are very excited to announce the 2024 Lisa Ring and Family Scholars are:

Dr Anushi Rajapaksa co-founder of MISTI – ​who are developing a consumer-grade next generation nebuliser that will enable better home management of viral infections like influenza, COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus.​

Edward Barraclough co-founder of Drone-Hand – an AI-driven, automated flight-app designed to work with drones that allows easier monitoring of livestock across all terrains.​

Dr Anushi Rajapaksa pictured with Lisa Ring at StartSpace

Pictured above: Dr Anushi Rajapaksa and Lisa Ring at StartSpace, Wednesday 13 December 2023

Lisa Ring pictured with Edward Barraclough at StartSpace

Pictured above: Lisa Ring and Edward Barraclough at StartSpace, Wednesday 13 December 2023

The 2023 Lisa Ring and Family Scholars

Daniel Delaway, Founder of The Archive – a platform for the preservation and sharing of human stories captured in cinematic video.

Aiden Rayner, Founder of Don’t Move Until You See It – an online chess training platform which allows players to actively practice chess visualisation.

Daniel Delaway, Founder of The Archive
Daniel Delaway, Founder of The Archive
Aiden Rayner, Founder of Don't Move Until You See It
Aiden Rayner, Founder of Don’t Move Until You See It

The Lisa Ring and Family Scholars 2022

The first ever Lisa Ring and Family Scholarship recipients in 2022 were Anna Taylor for her business idea, Podcard which creates and sends personalised podcasts, and David Hartley for his business idea, SoundSmith which connects musicians with viral creators.

Anna Frey Taylor from Podcard
Anna Frey Taylor, Founder of Podcard and Lisa Ring and Family Scholar 2022. <br/ >Photo by Gavin Green
David Hartley from SoundSmith
David Hartley, Founder of SoundSmith and Lisa Ring and Family Scholar 2022.