The company is the only Australian startup selected for the initiative at this stage.

GreaseBoss said it recently signed its first major contract, with Glencore, for "intelligent grease application hardware" along with cloud tracking technology. It will perform the work at Glencore's Oaky Creek North coal mine in Queensland.

GreaseBoss has also been awarded a A$100,000 grant from the Queensland state government under the Advance Queensland Ignite Ideas Fund umbrella. The funding will aid in launching the GreaseBoss product across Australia.

"Six months ago a group of us came together with the idea of finding a way to better track and trace the greasing that can hold up production at major industrial operations," GreaseBoss co-founder and CEO Steve Barnett said.

"To be selected for Y Combinator's prestigious programme gives us an entry point to the US market and allows us to accelerate our seed funding round."

GreaseBoss has already received seed funding commitments from investor groups The Melt and 77 Partners.

"One day, technology will allow industrial sites globally to be 100% productive, environmentally friendly and safe for all workers, and GreaseBoss is the key to unlocking that potential at the equipment level," 77 Partners managing partner Brent Watts said.

"Enabling maintenance teams to keep heavy machinery lubricated and moving at all times helps a myriad of operations, from mining and material processing to property and construction to utilities and agriculture."

GreaseBoss estimates the cost of unplanned downtime at A$50 billion per year.

"Surprisingly, despite the high costs involved with machine failure, the industry still contends with the challenge of unscheduled downtime regularly," GreaseBoss co-founder Steve Barnett added.

He noted that, while heavy machinery is built to last, often there isn't a way to verify if grease has been injected in proper locations. Also, maintenance procedures like regular grease applications are prone to human error.

GreaseBoss' technology, a lubrication management system to prevent failures and reduce costs, makes operations safer, smarter and more productive.

Y Combinator, a startup fund and programme, first launched in 2005. It has helped almost 3,000 global companies including Airbnb, Stripe and Dropbox.