We generally here stories about technology start-ups and innovative new ventures coming from the USA or Canada. Around the world people look for inspiration from companies such as Facebook, Amazon, Google, Twitter, Yahoo and Groupon. There is a notion that the western countries are the only breeding ground for successful start-ups, but wait till you look down south. According to recent research, Australia has a lot to offer when it comes to introducing innovative start-ups and funding technology ventures.
Here are the top 10 Aussie start-ups to watch for:
99design: Officially launched in the year 2007, 99design is a spin-off from the popular Melbourne based website SitePoint. It is an online marketplace for crowdsourced graphic design. In the year 2011, the founders managed to raise investment in the form of $35 million in venture capital funding from Accel Partners. By-far the most talked about start-up in Australia.
Bigcommerce: Founded in 2009, it is an e-commerce platform for growing businesses that helps them easily launch professional online stores. With USD $75m behind it, from former top AOL execs Steve Case and Ted Leonsis, and a client list of over 50,000 online stores in 65 countries, this Australian start-up is soon headed to be the next major tech IPO.
Atlassian: A Sydney-based enterprise software company that develop customized products for software developers and project managers. Atlassian currently serves over 25,000 customers globally, and its clients include Cisco, Twitter, Infor, Audi, and NASA. As of August 2013, the company has 600+ employees with Facebook vice-president Jay Parikh and former Symantec chief executive Enrique Salem on its board of directors.
Pepperstone: It is the second most famous Australian FinTech startup after OzForex. It is more like an online retail foreign exchange broker specializing in foreign exchange trading. With the company headquartered in Melbourne, it is ranked one of the top 10 forex brokers globally, based on notional volume traded per month. As per recent reports, Pepperstone is soon headed for an IPO.
Nimble: It offers consumer-friendly short-term borrowing options to small businesses in Australia. They offer online loans service which offers quick loans of up to $1,200 in a matter of few minutes. With a fast application process and the latest smart technology Nimble has already written 418,000 loans. The Nimble software not only checks traditional credit risk data sources for its risk assessments, it also scours the web to cross-check with other data sources before approving a loan.
Shoes of Prey: Started in 2009 by Michael Fox, Jodie Fox and Michael Knapp, Shoes of Prey is a global, multi-channel retail brand that enables shoppers to design their own shoes online. Their objective is to change the way women wear shoes. Using the Shoes of Prey 3D DESIGNER customers choose the shape, colour and height of their shoes. All the shoe designs are handmade within five weeks and delivered free worldwide via DHL.
OneShift: An online recruitment matchmaking service that directly matches job seekers with employers for one-off shifts, casual, part time and permanent work. Founded by Gen George on a simple wordpress platform in June 2012, OneShift recently secured a $5 million investment from recruitment company Programmed.
Pocketbook: Founded by Alvin Singh and Bosco Tan in 2012, Pocketbook is an online resource to help people manage their personal spending without any efforts. The application helps you aggregate all your bank accounts, credit cards, loans and bills. Pocketbook is available on the web, iOS and Android. The tool offers a single consolidated snapshot of your spending and automatically syncs all of your bank transactions into a single easy-to-read page.
Kinderloop: Founded by two busy parents, Dan Day and Dan Walker. They didn’t like the fact that that they were missing out parts of their children’s lives while they were at preschool. Kinderloop is more of online tool that connects preschools with parents. Their mission is to make it easy and fun for preschools and care providers to capture special moments in their care and have an informed and engaged community of parents, all centered around kids.
Vinomofo: Australia’s largest wine retailer, Vinomofo is ranked 13th in Deloitte’s Fast 500 Asia Pacific listing of companies in 2013. After selling the business to The Catch Group in 2012, the founders bought back the company in June and have since have seen a business growth 30% month-on-month.