Startups start here

Victoria’s startup agency LaunchVic has kicked of the ‘Startups Start Here’ campaign, championing the state’s most successful startups and scaleups, and encouraging more Victorians to commercialise their ideas.

The first-of-its-kind Victorian Government advertising campaign – distributed across the State for 12 weeks beginning earlier this month – will promote entrepreneurship and celebrate the achievements of the diverse $91 billion startup ecosystem that now employs more than 52,000 Victorians.

Startups Start Here tells the story of some of Victoria’s best startups, and how the people and place backed them to be where they are today.

Featuring some of the State’s best founders including Zac Leigh of Tixel, Hannon Comazzetto of AirRobe, Ben Pfisterer of Zeller, Dr Ben Hurst of HotDoc, Kim Teo of Mr Yum, Jordy and Julia Kay of Great Wrap and Jeanette Cheah of Hex their stories aim to inspire the next wave of budding entrepreneurs to start their startups here.

Victoria’s forward-thinking and resilient startup ecosystem supports approximately 2,950 scaling and successful businesses, according LaunchVic data (from Dealroom) released as part of a new interactive map showing the location of the state’s startup.

“The Startups Start Here campaign is about putting the State’s most exciting companies on a pedestal and showing how the people and the place have backed them to be where they are today. Victoria is doing an amazing job producing globally competitive companies, but not enough people know,” LaunchVic CEO Dr Kate Cornick said.

“Startup founders shaping the future of Victoria should be revered – much like our sports stars – so they can inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs from all across our State.”

LaunchVic remains the only state government startup agency with a mandate to proactively grow the startup ecosystem since its inception in 2016. Since then, the value of the ecosystem has grown 16-fold to $91B – the same size that Tel Aviv was in 2016 – and has become the home of 19 unicorns (80% reaching that status after 2017).

View the campaign at: https://launchvic.org/startups-start-here.