LaunchVic has selected nine of Victoria’s top emerging businesses to participate in its new 30X30 program, which hopes to see 30 Garden State-based startups reach unicorn status by 2030.
The program helps early-stage businesses scale by assisting with the building out of back-office operations as they contend with massive growth, with support from mentors from the HR, operations and finance departments of top startups like Atlassian, Canva, Bumble and SafetyCulture.
Victoria is currently home to more than 2,650 startups, defined as companies that use innovative business models and technology to grow fast and service global markets. As of June 2022, startups, scaleups and unicorns have created 58,572 jobs in the State.
“30X30 enables scaleup founders to focus on their strategic growth while the leadership team gets coaching and mentoring from experienced peers who have previously scaled tech companies,” LaunchVic chair Leigh Jasper said.
During 2022, Melbourne's startup space has overtaken peer ecosystems from Hong Kong, Dublin, Barcelona, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and New Zealand, more than doubling in value from $10.5 billion to $23.6 billion.
Having commenced its first 30X30 program in May, two further cohorts will run in 2023 and 2024.
LaunchVic CEO Dr Kate Cornick said supporting scaleups to become Victoria’s next unicorns represented a significant economic opportunity for the State.
“To date, just 20 Victorian unicorns have created more than $100 billion of value between them – so we have a vested interest in supporting this growth,” she said.
“The first cohort of LaunchVic’s 30X30 program is a really exciting list of scaleups with strong ‘unicorn’ potential.”
Established in 2016, the program partners with the Victorian Government’s trade agency, Global Victoria, to help support new export opportunities by fueling growth in the State's startup ecosystem.
The full cohort includes:
Bare
A high-quality and affordable cremation service that recently raised $10 million in a Series A round led by Perennial Partners and Ord Minnett Private Capital.
Buildkite
A platform for running fast, secure and scalation continuous integration pipelines on infrastructure.
Carbar
Australia’s number one car subscription website completed a $28.9 million funding round in February to ramp up its fleet of electric vehicles (EVs) and marketing efforts to change the face of Australian automotive usage.
HammerTech
A leading safety software platform for the construction sector.
InternMatch
Founded in 2016, InternMatch partners with leading companies, start-ups and education providers across the globe to provide university students and career changers with professional internships, training and mentorship.
It raised $10 million in a Series A round led by residential property developer Doma Group in July.
Mr Yum
Australia’s leading mobile food ordering, payments and marketing platform. It recently acquired fellow Melbournian business MyGuestlist for an undisclosed sum in May.
Nutromics
Revolutionising precision medicine through continuous molecular monitoring.
Seer Medical
Reimagining how people undergo long-term monitoring of epilepsy, sleep and cardiac conditions.
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