Axiom Holographics has been selected to pitch to a delegation of investors at CapTech2023

The Brisbane-based company behind the world’s first hologram zoo will be seeking investors to back its global expansion plans at a global tech, innovation and capital summit in Sydney.

One of Australia’s most advanced hologram developers is preparing to take the next step in exporting its technology around the globe and will make a pitch to some of the world’s biggest investors.

Axiom Holographics, the Brisbane-based company behind the world’s first hologram zoo, has been selected to pitch to a delegation of investors at the global tech, innovation and capital summit CapTech2023 in Sydney from Tuesday to Friday.

The $125m company, which is also behind Bill Gates’ hologram aquarium in the Maldives and a hologram table for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has doubled its revenue in 2022-23 and expects to triple it in the next 12 months.

However, founder and chief executive Bruce Dell said it needed funding for a major global ­expansion, of which a large part would be focusing on hologram zoos similar to its Brisbane attraction where patrons can see and walk among attractions, such as a 25m flying whale made of laser light, a life-size hologram brontosaurus, giraffes and elephants.

“Part of the reason why we are going CapTech2023 is to raise about $7m so we can expand our manufacturing facility and have showrooms around the world,” Mr Dell said.

“Everyone is saying this is going to go big and what I have found different to other pitching sessions is that with CapTech there’s money in the room and investors ready to partner up.”

Axiom Holographics chief executive Bruce Dell.

Axiom Holographics and portable measurement devise company Pokit Innovations, along with two international firms, have been selected to meet investors in a Shark Tank-style pitching session at the Sydney International Convention & Exhibition Centre.

Last year’s event resulted in four companies successfully raising major business deals and over $180m of memorandums of understanding signed.

Originally from Wollongong, Mr Dell has a swag of inventions and patents under his belt with his Unlimited Detail Graphics System algorithm that now powers groups such as laser scanner and camera giant Leica, the French railway system, and the Tokyo traffic authority.

He moved north to Brisbane after being lured by David Merson, former chief executive of Mincom, and in 2010 they set up Euclideon, which focused on 3D geospatial graphics.

He later left Euclideon and set up Axiom. The company is based in Murrarie, with a production centre in Yatala between the Gold Coast and Brisbane, where it designs and manufactures microchips and hardware.

Backed by investors like Leica, the Omani royal family and ­associates of the Japanese investment holding company SoftBank, the company has commercial, ­defence and education divisions and also manufactures entertainment and hologram arcade equipment.

It supplies its holograph technology to private companies and military organisations across the world including the Australian Army, UK defence research, the US Marines and Air Force, Bentley, Lockheed Martin, Honeywell and Airbus.

“We’re building these things in Yatala with Australian workers sitting down welding them putting them the laser calibrations etc,” Mr Dell said.

“We currently have 50 staff and are looking at close to 100 next year around the world.”

Axiom Holographics is a Brisbane-based company behind the world’s first hologram zoo.

Mr Dell said with the cinema industry in decline because of streaming services and other competition, the interest in holograms as entertainment has increased.

Axiom has just signed a deal with Universal Exhibition Group to provide holographic equipment for dozens of shows across North America and is working with multiple zoos around the world, looking to enhance their exhibits by adding a holographic element.

The company recently completed Sydney Hologram dinosaur show and there is strong interest in hologram zoos around the world.

“At least five hologram zoos will be launched around the world early next year and maybe one ­before Christmas,” he said.

CapTech2023 will host a group of 30 top Indian investors, along with another dozen investors from the Middle East, Hong Kong and China.

Rama Bhalla, president, Sydney Investors and Professionals Business Network – who is hosting the biggest delegation of India investors ever seen in Australia – said India’s market was so large and fast-growing that there were new opportunities for Australian businesses in growth and start-up phase.

“Despite it historically being a relatively closed and protectionist economy, India is liberalising, and there is a strong desire to invest in Australian businesses,” he said.

“There’s a huge appetite for investment in Australia from Indian businesses right now. The key areas of interest include education, healthcare, clean energy, financial services, AI, real estate, agriculture, food processing and critical minerals.

“Investors also have their eye on western Sydney which is still under-represented and requires much needed infrastructure.”