But others say that having to meet the criteria is slowing them down.

Mr. Coleman, who grew up in regional Victoria, found that he was not eligible for government grants because he did not live in a remote area and had not been denied a loan from mainstream banks.

He was also excluded from some grants because his business is not directly aimed at Indigenous communities. So he has funded Vets on Call with his own assets instead. He has yet to make a profit, though the app is growing.

And many do not have assets or a financial safety net. “They haven’t got that intergenerational wealth like the Bill Gates or the Mark Zuckerbergs,” said Dean Foley, 30, a Kamilaroi who founded Barayamal, a start-up accelerator for Indigenous entrepreneurs.

Still, that has not stopped Indigenous Australians from pitching, designing and brainstorming, he said. “It’s called sweat equity. You just have to work hard.”

It is that type of ethic that drives Ms. Uppill, whose mother, a member of what came to be known as the Stolen Generations, was taken from her home in the South Australian Flinders Ranges when she was 7.

Ms. Uppill, who did not deeply understand her Adnyamathanha heritage until she revisited her home nation as a teenager, said she had not seen herself as an entrepreneur early on. But she was struck by the mind-set of her elders.