By Simon Thomsen
Publication Date: 2026-04-29 07:42:00
After eight years of running startup accelerator Startmate, which unveiled its newest cohort to a sold-out crowd in Sydney on Thursday night, Michael Batko decided to solve a problem hundreds of founders were asking him about: AI.
Each founder asked him the same question about artificial intelligence: “How do we actually use AI – in our company, right now?” Batko said. Nobody had an answer. So he decided to make it happen.
“I looked around to see who answered that question correctly, but I couldn’t find anyone,” he said.
“Consulting firms gave them strategy packages. Agencies gave them discovery phases. Nobody just built the thing. So I went to deliver what was missing.”
Batko, together with Finlay Ekins (22), founded Hourglass AI – an AI implementation company that builds working systems in Australian companies on a fixed-price basis.
