Australian hospitals, aged care facilities, and GP clinics are haemorrhaging staff. Staffing agencies take 15-25% margins and still can't fill shifts. AHPRA registration and visa sponsorship workflows are a nightmare of manual paperwork. The US solved this with AI matching platforms. Australia has nothing. I did the research. Now I need a co-founder who knows healthcare staffing.
Hospitals, aged care homes, and GP clinics across Australia cannot fill shifts. Wards run short-staffed. Elective surgeries get cancelled. Patients wait longer.
Traditional staffing agencies take 15-25% of every placement fee. Hospitals pay more. Nurses earn less. The middleman adds cost but no technology.
Burnout, unsafe patient ratios, and mandatory overtime are driving nurses out. Nearly half are considering quitting entirely. Australia's nursing pipeline cannot keep up.
AHPRA registration, visa processing, credential verification, and reference checks create a 6-12 week bottleneck for every international nurse hire. Most of it is manual paperwork.
Every nurse, doctor, and allied health professional must be registered with AHPRA. International nurses face a multi-step process: skills assessment, English language tests (IELTS/OET), bridging programs, and supervised practice. No US platform handles this. Whoever automates the AHPRA workflow owns the moat.
TSS (Subclass 482), Employer Sponsored (186), and Working Holiday (417) visas each have different sponsor obligations, labour market testing, and processing times. Hospitals manage this in spreadsheets and email chains. There's no integrated platform connecting visa status to shift eligibility.
Australia has recruitment agencies (Hays, Chandler Macleod, Medacs), job boards (Seek, Indeed), and manual credential verifiers — but no platform that combines AI matching, AHPRA verification, visa tracking, and shift booking in one place. The US has Incredible Health and Nomad Health. Australia has phone calls.
The Royal Commission into Aged Care exposed catastrophic staffing shortfalls. New mandatory care minutes (200 min/resident/day from Oct 2024) require thousands more workers. Aged care facilities are desperate and have zero technology to recruit efficiently. This is a second massive beachhead market.
Revenue model: Per-placement fee (8-12% vs agency 15-25%) + monthly SaaS subscription to hospitals for shift management. 50 hospital clients × $2K/month + placement fees = $1.2M+ ARR. Expansion into visa processing automation and credential verification as paid add-ons.
The AI engineering, product, and infrastructure.
The domain expertise, industry trust, and first clients.
This is a co-founder search, not a job ad. I'm looking for a hospital HR director or nursing agency operator who wants to own half of this company and build it together from day one.
Healthcare staffing domain expertise. Hospital and aged care network. First 10 pilot facilities. Ongoing product direction for AHPRA compliance, visa workflows, and clinical credentialing.
AI/full-stack engineering. Matching algorithms, document AI, product design, infrastructure. Market research already done.
We'll figure out the right structure together. What matters first is whether we're the right fit.
R&D Tax Incentive (43.5%), NSW MVP Ventures ($50K), Antler Australia ($260K), then Blackbird / Airtree / TEN13 seed round.
"AHPRA registration + visa sponsorship complexity IS the moat. No US company will build for Australian nursing registration pathways, visa subclasses, and award rates. Whoever gets there first, wins."
Talk to workforce managers at Sydney metro hospitals and aged care groups. Ask: "How do you fill a night shift gap? How long does an international nurse take from offer to floor? What does an unfilled shift cost you?" Lock in 3-5 pilot partners.
Nurse profiles with AHPRA status, visa type, specialisations, and availability. AI matches nurses to open shifts based on credentials, proximity, preferences, and compliance. Automated AHPRA verification check. Hospitals post shifts, nurses accept — no phone calls.
Real-world validation across hospital wards and aged care homes. Iterate on edge cases: last-minute cancellations, credential expiry alerts, shift swaps, overtime compliance. Apply for R&D Tax Incentive and NSW MVP Ventures.
Add permanent placement matching (not just shifts). Build visa sponsorship workflow tracker for international nurses: TSS 482, ENS 186, skills assessment, IELTS/OET tracking. Target 50 facilities. Approach Antler or Airtree for seed.
Expand beyond NSW into VIC and QLD. Add aged care mandatory care minutes compliance tracking. GP clinic locum matching. Target Blackbird for Series A path. $1.2M+ ARR target.
If you know healthcare staffing, have connections in the hospital or aged care industry, and want to co-found something massive, I'd like to hear from you.
Thanks for reaching out. I'll get back to you within 24 hours. Looking forward to the conversation.