startup-ecosystem-mapping-report

South East Queensland 2014
STARTUP ECOSYSTEM REPORT
1

A simplified network map of the
ECOSYSTEM
AMMA
RMSS
Blue Sky
Retail Express
Guvera
Techspace
Tappr
Silicon
Lakes
Budding
Entrepreneurs
Grant
iLab
CA
Transition Level
Investments
Halfbrick
Liquid State
Griffith
Enterprise
SwipeAds
River
City
Labs
Ollo
Mobile
Brisbane Angels
Innovation
Centre
QUT Creative
Enterprise
Australia
Right
Pedal
QUT
bluebox
Nimble
RedEye
UniQuest
Fitgenes
ZOVA
Euclideon

CONTENTS
Foreword 4
Dashboard 5
About 6
Context 7
Breeding Unicorns & Building Ecosystems 10
Formation 12
Organisations 14
Funding 16
Groups 20
Incubation 21
Key Nodes 22
Location 24
Regional Data 26
Markets 28
People 34
Community Ideas 38
References 40
3

FOREWORD
I am pleased to present the South East
Queensland Startup Ecosystem Report which
the Queensland Government commissioned
in partnership with Brisbane Marketing, the
City of Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast
Regional Council.
The report estimates South East Queensland
currently has more than 220 startups,
employing 1,900 people and since 2009, has
raised $126 million in funds.
This report provides valuable data about the
contribution startups make to Queensland’s
economy. It quantifies the ecosystem around
early stage digital technology companies –
identifying key people, organisations, events
and hubs which drive innovation.
I thank all those who supported and
contributed to this project. It highlights the
value of collaboration as we work together
towards the startup community’s goal
for Queensland: By 2033, Queensland is
recognised for its entrepreneurial culture,
with the startup sector contributing four
per cent to Gross State Product, injecting
$20 billion and 100,000 new jobs into our
economy, through the global impact of home
grown startups.
The report’s findings indicate Queensland’s
startup ecosystem has a solid foundation
to build a strong, vibrant sector that will
exploit new technologies to build a stronger
economy by creating new industries and
generating more jobs for Queenslanders.
The Honourable Ian Walker MP
Minister for Science, Information Technology,
Innovation and the Arts
It’s an in-depth insight into the diversity and
unique aspects of the South East Queensland
startup environment and associated
infrastructure which contributes to a robust
ecosystem.
4

Summary statistics as at July 2014
DASHBOARD
No. STARTUPS
226+
Estimated number of startups within SEQ.*
No. FOUNDERS
500+
Estimated number of startup founders within SEQ.
PEOPLE: COMMON SKILLS
Strategy
Marketing
Leadership
Business Development
Start-ups
Entrepreneurship
Management
Project Management
Social Media
Management Consulting
18%
13%
8%
7%
7%
7%
7%
6%
6%
6%
No. CO. TEAM SIZE
40%
1%
1 2-10
31%
11-50
2%
51-200
No. PEOPLE
~1,900
Estimated number of SEQ startup employees.
No. MEETUP GROUPS
107
Associated with startups, tech and entrepreneurship.
#STARTUPS BY MARKET FOCUS (TOP 10 ONLY)* PEOPLE: AGE %
****
Arts & Recreation Services**
19% 41.0
41
Information Media & Telecommunications 19%
36
Other & Unknown Services***
15% 32.8
Health Care & Social Assistance
8%
Professional, Scientific & Technical Services 5% 24.6
Finance & Insurance Services
5%
Retail Trade
5% 16.4
Advertising Services
4%
11
8.2 9
Administrative & Support Services
3%
5
Education & Training
3%
0.0
18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55+
.
No. SUPPORTING COMPANIES
~550
Estimated number of companies involved in the startup
ecosystem.
No. STARTUPS & GROUPS BY YEAR FOUNDED
60
Startups
55
Groups
50
40
****Number of Startup Companies founded by calendar
year in the “No. Startups & Groups by Year Founded”
graph does not equal the total “No. Startups” as the
founding dates of some startups within SEQ were not
identified.
.
No. ASSOCIATED PEOPLE
10,000+
Based on the number of members of technology Meetup
groups and employees of startups & supporting entities.
30
20
10
0
23
13
8 8
2009 2010
26
10
2011
29
23
2012
28
2013
25
2014
TOTAL FUNDING RAISED BY STARTUPS
$
37M
Estimated total amount of funding raised by Queensland
Startups between January 2009 and July 2014.
TOTAL FUNDING RAISED
$
126M
Total funding raised from January 2009 to July 2014
by Queensland Startups and Established Digital
Technology companies.
*Note, while the report uses the Australia New Zealand
Industrial Classification (ANZIC) to classify the
“Market Focus” of companies, this does not represent
their industry classification, but rather the target market
of a startup company - the market they are addressing.
**Arts & Recreation Services includes Digital
Game studios and developers. Further detail on this
classification can be found in the footnote on page 31.
***Other & Unknown Services is predominately made
up of unclassified companies.
5

How and why.
ABOUT
PROJECT AIMS
This project aims to quantify the ecosystem around
early-stage high growth digital technology companies
(startups for short) from South East Queensland (SEQ)
- identifying key people, organisations, events and
innovation hubs within the community around which
innovative activity is centralised. The report aims to
measure its comparative strength, identify critical issues
within the ecosystem, and identify potential areas for
government intervention and collaboration.
SCOPE
In terms of scope, the report maps the primary people
(founders, angels and other participants), organisations
(startups, venture capital firms, co-working spaces,
incubators and government agencies), groups (angel and
community groups) and events (awards, conferences,
programs) involved in or supporting early-stage
technology startups within South East Queensland.
The report only includes those companies and people
that have made a direct tangible contribution to the
development of high growth startups – whether that be
through mentoring, sponsorship, investment, grants or
space, etc.
The report attempts to quantify in detail the fund flows
to startups based in SEQ. However it does not quantify
the amount of investment flowing out of the state into
external startups.
A seperate report mapping the regional Queensland
startup ecosystem will be available in November 2014.
METHODOLOGY
The report was compiled in partnership with several
community organisations and government agencies.
Information was gathered through workshops in
Brisbane, on the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast,
and from interviews with over 35 people within
the community. Information on people, events and
companies was also gathered using data from online
platforms including Linkedin, AngelList, ASSOB,
CrunchBase, Gust, Twitter, Eventbrite, Kickstarter,
Pozible and Meetup, and complemented with internet
research.
Combining several data sources gives a more
comprehensive view than one in which information is
taken from any one individual source. For example,
looking at funding events during the previous 5 years
Crunchbase gives only 20 or so events out of the 100+
events identified using additional sources.
However while all attempts have been made to be
comprehensive, some critical people and organisations
in this rapidly growing sector may have been missed.
DEFINITIONS
Startups
There are varied definitions of high growth early stage
digital technology startups. Whilst any type of earlystage
business can be called a startup, for the purposes
of this project the definition used by StartupAus,
Google Australia and PwC Australia was adopted: a
‘startup’ is a company primarily focused on developing
innovative digital technology, with a high leverage on
labour, an innovative scalable business model, capable of
rapid growth, and under five and half years in age.
Digital
The project focused on companies that create value
primarily around digital technologies such as developing
software products or services, scalable hardware
based products and services such as drones, sensors,
autonomous vehicle technology, Internet of Things
(IoT) technology, and wearables.
Exclusions
Digital technologies are being deployed across all
industries and permeate all aspects of our society. The
borders between industries are being eroded making
it increasingly difficult to say whether a new company
like Uber is a transport company, software company, or
a labour hire company. The reality is that an increasing
(majority) proportion of Australian businesses have
digital technology as a core component of their
business.
Consulting: The project excluded non-scalable
companies engaged with digital technology, such as
those with a high reliance on manual labour such as
digital design studios, digital marketing, software
development houses and computer consulting
companies. Technology support, networking, and
computer repair businesses were also excluded.
Similarly excluded were design and development
companies providing IP development as a service purely
for other firms such as advertising agencies that build
mobile and web apps for clients or gaming studios that
purely work for clients. However, many companies
build potentially scalable digital products (e.g. iPhone
apps) alongside their consulting services, in which case
they have been included.
Established Technology: the report excludes digital
technology companies established prior to 2009 from
the definition of a ‘startup’. However in some cases the
report mentions companies, investment figures or entity
numbers for more mature digital technology companies.
In these cases the report refers to these as Established,
Mature or Later stage digital technology companies, or
Tech companies for short. Data that encapsulates both
Startups and established Digital Technology companies
is always referenced as such.
Support Entities
Key organisations that support the development of
startups such as incubators, accelerators, meetup groups
and venture capital firms were included.
Incubator: an organisation that offers mentoring, office
space, and other resources to help startups grow. Whilst
incubators assist startups in raising funding they do not
provide investment in return for equity. Their programs
are generally open, longer in duration and relatively
unstructured.
Accelerator: accelerators or seed accelerators are
similar to incubators, but differ in that they take an
equity portion of their participating startups in return
for investing seed capital - where incubators do not.
Accelerators generally have a structured program that
runs over a discrete period of time (often 3 to 6 months)
after which the startup ‘graduates’.
Groups: community groups or meetup.com groups
that meet together in fairly informal circumstances to
discuss digital technology, startups or entrepreneurship.
This data is almost entirely based on meetup.com
groups which is a worldwide platform for organising
community groups and widely adopted within startup
communities worldwide.
Funding & Investment
The report captures information on the money raised
by technology companies and startups to fund company
and product development. Startups secure funding in
multiple ways: private investment, government grants,
crowdfunding, public investment, prizes and loans. The
report excludes money flowing out of the state into
startups from other states or countries.
When the report refers to Funding, Investment or
Matched Funding it means:
Funding: the report means all types of funding
including private investment, government grants,
matched funding, crowdfunding, public investment,
prizes and loans. While crowdfunding is technically a
way for customers to pre-order a product or service the
report includes it within the analysis of startup funding
as it serves a similar role to other funding methods. This
definition excludes the Tax office’s R&D Tax Incentive.
Investment: the report means private or public equity
investment in a company in exchange for shares in the
company, including convertible notes, options and other
financial tools for purchasing shares.
Matched-Funding: a large portion of startup funding
in Queensland came from the Australian Government’s
Commercialisation Australia (CA) grant program,
established in 2009. The grant offered to match private
funding for successful applicant companies on a
80:20 to 50:50 basis - depending on the grant type.
By matched funding the report refers to the portion
provided by the applicant, and excluding the portion
provided by the government - the government grant.
All currencies used within this report are in $AUD
unless otherwise stated.
6

Why is digital technology important?
CONTEXT
SOCIAL IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY
Information and communications technology is pervasive
and soon to be ubiquitous. New technologies that evolved
from the cumulative innovations of the past 80 years have
dramatically changed the way people create, consume
and communicate - transforming societies and economies
at unprecedented rates.
While the process of innovation is never ending, the
development of the first transistor, microprocessor and
computer in the late 40s initiated a wave of computing
innovation. It brought the first satellite in 1957, the
linking of computers into large-scale networks in 1969,
the first Japanese smartphones to achieve mass adoption
in 1999, and the first touch screen in 2007.
Of the 7b+ people on the planet, 5.5b watch TV, 2.7b use
the internet, 1 1.8b use smartphones, 2 and 1.7b use those
smartphones at least monthly. 3
In 1986 less than 1% of the world’s capacity to store
information was digital. In 2002 humanity was able to
store more information in digital than analog format –
launching the “digital age”. And by 2007 over 94% of
humanity’s knowledge was stored digitally. 4
Networked digital technology is being rapidly adopted
and will soon be ubiquitous. Somewhere during 2008
the number of connected electronic sensors on the planet
exceeded the number of people; this will have grown to
26b+ devices by 2020. 5
ECONOMIC IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY
These innovations have facilitated an enormous new
capacity to create, capture, analyse, disseminate
information and release a flood of startups, many of
which are revolutionising production and distribution
systems on a global scale.
Outsourcing white-collar tasks to more efficient or
productive economies is now the norm, enabling
developing economies to provide services to developed
nations at scale and on demand.
When historians look back at the last 80 years they
will conclude we are living through a pivotal period
in humanity’s history. The question for Australia and
Queensland is whether they want to be creators of
technological innovation, or just simply consumers.
The largest companies of the last century were industrial
corporations, born of the industrial revolution in the
1800s: mass-production companies such as Ford,
Volkswagen, Toyota, GE, Bayer; and the suppliers of raw
materials such as Exxon, Shell, BP and BHP.
But over the recent decades computer, software and
now internet companies such as Apple, Google, IBM,
Microsoft and Facebook have been vying with more
traditional corporations to lead the pack. PwC’s 2014
report on the Global Top 100 Companies by Market
Capitalisation showed that Technology and Financials
are the leading sectors to have grown market cap in the
Top 100 (+149% and +136% respectively) - driven by
innovation and recovery from the financial crisis. 6
Apple – the largest by market cap – having almost
quadrupled in value during the past five years.
And this is just the beginning. In the coming decades
virtually every industry can expect to face disruptions
rivalling those of the industrial revolution. Some
industries will face extinction; new sectors will be
created; and others are being transformed beyond
recognition.
In 2013, in reference to the long-term economic
potential of technology, US Federal Reserve chairman
Ben Bernanke stated:
“Some would say that we are still in the early days of the
IT revolution... even as the basic technologies improve,
the commercial applications of these technologies have
arguably thus far only scratched the surface.” 7
CREATIVE DESTRUCTION
During the early 20th century economist Joseph
Schumpeter observed that the most significant advances
in economies are often accompanied by a process
of “creative destruction” which shifts profit pools,
rearranges industry structures, and replaces incumbent
businesses. This process is often driven by technological
innovation at the hands of entrepreneurs.
According to IBIS World’s white-paper A Snapshot
of Australia’s Digital Future to 2050, 15 different
industry sub-sectors face extinction due to factors such
as size, international competitiveness, the potential for
displacement, and technology.
“Casualties may include: newspaper, magazine,
book and directory publishing – substituted by their
online versions; radio, free-to-air TV and cable TV
broadcasting – absorbed into internet distribution; and
video rental.” 8
Entrepreneurs, policymakers and societies need to be
at the forefront exploiting these new technologies to
maintain national competitive advantage and global
relevance.
Entrepreneurs need to understand how markets might be
eroded or enhanced by emerging technologies a decade
from now; how technologies might bring new customers
or force them to fight for existing ones. Policymakers
and regulators need to decide how to invest in new
forms of education and infrastructure; protect the rights
and privacy of citizens; and create an environment in
which citizens can continue to prosper even as emerging
technologies disrupt their lives.
McKinsey’s 2013 report Disruptive Technologies:
Advances That Will Transform Life, Business, And
The Global Economy identified the top 12 disruptive
technologies that have the greatest potential for economic
impact and disruption by 2025. They estimated the
potential economic impact that each technology would
have by 2025 and concluded that these 12 technologies
alone had “the potential to drive direct economic impact
in the order of $US 14 trillion to $US 33 trillion per year
in 2025.” 9
TOP 12 DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES
GLOBAL ECONOMIC IMPACT IN 2025 ($T)
Mobile Internet
Automation of knowledge work
The Internet of Things
Cloud technology
Advanced robotics
Autonomous and near- autonomous vehicles
Next-generation genomics
Energy storage
3D printing
Advanced materials
Advanced oil and gas exploration and recovery
Renewable energy
DIGITAL DISRUPTION IN AUSTRALIA
3.7-10.8
5.2-6.7
2.7-6.2
1.7-6.2
1.7-4.5
0.2-1.9
0.7-1.6
0.1-0.6
0.2-0.6
0.2-0.5
0.1-0.5
0.2-0.3
Seven of the twelve disruptive technologies fall within
the purview of the digital startup companies outlined
within this report: Mobile Internet, Automation of
Knowledge Work, The Internet of Things, Cloud
Technology, Advanced Robotics, Autonomous Vehicles
and 3D Printing.
It should be noted that when McKinsey refers to
economic disruption, this economic potential should
not be equated with market sizes for these technologies;
it could be captured as consumer surplus as well as in
new revenue and GDP growth. McKinsey also mentions
that in the case of Internet-based technologies, value has
tended to shift to consumers; as much as two-thirds of the
value created by new Internet offerings has been captured
as consumer surplus. However, they conclude that:
“It is impossible to predict all the ways in which
technologies will be applied; the value created in 2025
could be far larger than what we estimate here.” 9
Assuming an Australian GDP growth is 3% and
McKinsey’s estimates of the potential economic
impact of these 7 digital technologies along with their
distribution of the impact on Developed economies is
applied, it results in an annual economic impact on the
Australian economy in 2025 of $497b - from these 7
digital technologies alone.
To put that into perspective: 22% of Australia’s GDP in
2025 will be disrupted from the application of these 7
digital technologies alone.
GLOBAL ECONOMIC IMPACT IN 2025 ($US TRILLION) 14 7

Why is digital technology important?
CONTEXT
DIGITAL DISRUPTION IN QUEENSLAND
What does this mean for Queensland’s economy in 2025?
Boundlss’ analysis, using McKinsey’s data, suggests
the impact of these 7 disruptive digital technologies
on Queensland’s economy will be ~$96b per annum
in 2025, or roughly 24% of the state’s projected $396b
economy.
DISRUPTIVE DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES -
ECONOMIC IMPACT ON QUEENSLAND ($B) ($M)
Automation of knowledge work
Mobile Internet
The Internet of Things
Advanced robotics
Cloud technology
Autonomous and near- autonomous vehicles
3D printing
While these projections may seem high, they are less
than those in Deloitte’s 2012 report Digital disruption
Short fuse, big bang? which foresees 33% of the
economy facing disruption from all digital technologies
within the next five years.
“One-third of the Australian economy faces imminent
and substantial disruption by digital technologies and
business models – what we call a ‘short fuse, big bang’
scenario. This presents significant threats, as well as
opportunities, for both business and government.” 10
Applied to Queensland, 33% represents $132b of
economic disruption from 2017 to 2025. That’s $46b
higher than projections based on McKinsey’s report on
the most disruptive digital technologies.
In summary, this report estimates the economic impact
of digital technology on Queensland’s economy in 2025
will be in the order of $96b per year, and this impact will
be created largely by Mobile Internet, the Automation
of Knowledge work, The Internet of Things, Advanced
Robotics, Cloud technology, Autonomous Vehicles
technology, and 3D Printing.
While this economic disruption should not be equated
with market sizes for these technologies (some will be
captured as consumer surplus, and others as productivity
growth), it does represent an enormous innovation
goldrush.
Up to two-thirds of this value will be captured by
consumer surplus, with the remainder coming from
productivity gains and revenue streams from new
technologies.
34.9
25.9
22.2
17.7
8.4
5.9
1.7
Given the challenges involved with adopting disruptive
technologies it is often startup companies that are
best suited to seize new market opportunities. Makers
of horse-drawn carts didn’t catch on to the car, IBM
couldn’t see the opportunity in personal computers, and
the music industry has been pulled into digital streaming
music only reluctantly, worn down by years of music
piracy.
Assuming one third of the $96b in economic value
in 2025 is direct value created by these disruptive
technologies (the other two thirds being retained as
consumer savings as McKinsey has found is the norm
with Internet-based technologies), this report estimates
that in 2025 $32b annually will be addressed by either
foreign or local digital technology companies.
Enrico Moretti, Professor of Economics at the University
of California has found that technology companies have a
five-fold impact on the economy. He states:
“Innovative industries bring good jobs and high salaries
to communities where they cluster and their impact on
the local economy is much deeper than their direct effect.
Attracting a scientist or software engineer triggers a
multiplier effect, increasing employment and salaries for
those that provide local services. In essence, a high tech
job is more than a job... research shows for each high
tech job, five additional jobs are created outside the high
tech sector.” 11
Assuming this $32b represents this five-fold impact,
this report estimates the direct contribution from digital
technology employees on the Queensland economy to be
over $6b in 2025.
If this value isn’t captured by local digital technology
companies and startups it will certainly be extracted by
companies from interstate and overseas.
HOW MANY STARTUPS
There is a real and substantive opportunity for the startup
sector within Queensland to grow and play a much larger
role in the local, national and international economy. It
is also reasonable to conclude that the aims outlined by
the Queensland Startup Summit held in 2013 are entirely
achievable if the right infrastructure is put in place to
develop the sector. The Summit’s “Big Hairy Audacious
Goal” (BHAG) states:
‘By 2033, Queensland is recognised for its
entrepreneurial culture, with the startup sector
contributing four per cent to Gross State Product,
injecting $20b and 100,000 new jobs into our economy,
through the global impact of home grown startups.’ 12
These estimates also align with PwC’s 2013 report The
Startup economy: How to Support Tech Startups and
Accelerate Australian Innovation: “By accelerating
growth the sector could contribute 4% of GDP by 2033
and directly employ 540,000 people.” 13
The Summit’s BHAG equates to ~30,000 employees and
a contribution to Queensland’s Gross State Product of
roughly $5b in 2025.
Compared to the opportunity outlined by McKinsey &
Deloitte there is certainly enough need within the market
to achieve this BHAG given the right environment.
Thus the question: How many technology companies and
startups are needed for Queensland to meet this BHAG
and retain some of the potential economic disruption
within the state? What would Queensland’s startup
ecosystem have to look like in 2025 for this to happen?
One way to answer this is by modelling the distribution
of technology companies using the 80-20 Pareto
distribution – 80% of the value created by 20% of
companies and vice versa. a
Applying this methodology this report estimates there
would need to be 3,000 to 4,000 technology companies b
within Queensland by 2025. The vast bulk of these
would be pre-revenue seed stage startups, 300 to 500
with $1m-$10m in revenue, 50+ with $10m-$100m in
revenue, 10+ companies with $100m-$1b in revenue, and
a small number above $1b in revenue.
Assuming a linear increase in productivity for each
increasing tier of company size, from $200k per
employee to $500k per employee, gives an estimate
for the number of employees required across the 5
bands. Resulting in a total number of 25,000 to 30,000
employees working directly within the technology sector
and creating over $5b of value in 2025.
To achieve this target, participation in the sector would
have to grow at approximately 40% each year, with new
company / startup formation rates beginning at 10 to 20
new startups per year and reaching a rate of 1,000 per
year by 2025 - a yearly startup formation rate of 170 per
million people. c
While these sorts of formation rates may seem large,
they are quite reasonable when you take into account
two things. One, the current yearly startup formation
rates per million people within the USA range from an
average of 42 across the USA to between 147 to 387
in technology hubs such as San Francisco and Boulder.
Two: the formation rates for technology companies
will certainly increase over the next ten years - ever
so slightly approaching the average private sector
business formation rate of 1,342 per year per million - as
technology becomes an increasing part of business. 14
Given the network effects of digital technology, the
rapid revenue growth, exponential user acquisition of
successful startups and winner-takes-all structure of these
markets, this report estimates that ~20% of these digital
technology companies will create ~80% of the value.
And it is by no means certain that starting a new business
will result in success: the high-risks necessitated by
innovative technology and business models inevitably
leads to a large proportion of startups failing each year
(some estimate the global norm for startup failure rates to
be as high as 90%).
Hence this report uses a power distribution to estimate
the distribution of digital technology companies (both
mature and startup) participating in the sector in 2025
with an increasingly large number of startups being
created each year; of which only a select few will achieve
the high year-on-year growth required to become the new
Australian technology giants by 2025.
a. Startup ecosystems appear to follow this distribution.
b. 4,000 companies employing more than one staff
member. Up to 8,000 including sole-operators.
c. Based on Australian Bureau of Statistics middle
projection for Queensland population numbers in 2025 -
5.9 m.
8

THIS REPORT ESTIMATES THE
POTENTIAL ECONOMIC IMPACT OF
DISRUPTIVE DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES ON
QUEENSLAND’S ECONOMY IN 2025
IS ~$96 BILLION PER ANNUM,
WITH A DIRECT IMPACT FROM THE
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY SECTOR OF OVER
$6 BILLION PER YEAR.
TO ENSURE THE MAJORITY OF THIS
VALUE IS CREATED & RETAINED BY
LOCAL COMPANIES, QUEENSLAND WILL
NEED: 3,000+ STARTUPS, HUNDREDS
OF ESTABLISHED TECHNOLOGY
COMPANIES AND A UNICORN OR TWO.
WITHOUT THIS, ECONOMIC GROWTH
WILL BE LOST TO INTERNATIONAL
COMPETITORS.
9

Creating high growth startups.
BREEDING UNICORNS & ECOSYSTEMS
UNICORNS ARE REAL
The term “unicorn” has been adopted worldwide as
a label for high growth technology companies that
achieve significant scale ($US 100m revenue or $US 1b
valuation/market cap). Startups that achieve this scale
are rare but vital to the creation of a vibrant economy.
Unicorns have the ability to spawn hundreds of new
entrepreneurs, many of whom go on to found or invest
in startups. The IPOs of Google, Facebook and Twitter
alone created almost 4,000 new millionaires. Similar
examples can be seen in Sweden (Skype acquired
by Microsoft for $US 8.5b; Spotify has a market cap
of $US 4b), the UK (Betfair IPOd at $US 2.4b and
lastminute.com acquired by Sabre for $US 1.1b), and
Israel (NDS acquired by Cisco for $US 5b). 15
The network effects of the digital economy and ubiquity
of technology mean that they exist in increasingly
winners-take-all markets and grow with astonishing
speed, creating large numbers of jobs both within the
company and as part of the larger ecosystems that
surround them.
According to the UK innovation agency NESTA, the 6
per cent of UK businesses with the highest growth rates
generated half of the new jobs in the UK between 2002
and 2008. 16
“A small number of high-growth businesses are
responsible for the lion’s share of job creation and
prosperity… This has significant implications for the
direction of economic policy. It shows that enabling
innovation is good for growth. Just as importantly, it
shows that focusing attention on growing businesses and
promoting excellence, far from being an elitist policy,
gives rise to widespread job creation and prosperity.”
Jonathan Kestenbaum, CEO NESTA 16
BREEDING UNICORNS
For Queensland to grow a vibrant startup ecosystem it
is essential to create an environment that is conducive
to creating and retaining unicorns on local soil – and
attracting foreign unicorns.
In a global, highly-connected economy, unicorns can
grow in any geographical region and access global
markets with ease. So far most unicorns have come
from the USA, and it is likely that the upcoming
digital disruption will be created by US firms unless
Queensland and Australia invest in united and focussed
efforts to develop some home-grown unicorns.
Governments are increasingly recognising the
importance of entrepreneurship and high growth
technology startups - implementing programs to create,
attract and retain these unique value creators. Examples
include the UK Government’s Future Fifty 17 program;
Startup America; 18 the Singapore Government’s $14b
commitment to the National Framework for Innovation
and Enterprise; and Sweden’s national network of 43
startup incubators, 12 seed investment funds and 33
science parks that have been incubating over 950 highgrowth
technology companies per annum for the last 20
years.
These programs focus on the small number of
companies with the highest growth potential rather than
broad support for traditional new businesses and SMEs.
CREATING CLUSTERS
Vibrant industry clusters and ecosystems are critical
for increasing the productivity of companies, driving
innovation, stimulating new business creation and
breeding scalable high-growth companies. 13
The factors that contribute to a flourishing technology
ecosystem have been well defined by researchers, policy
makers and entrepreneurs: An entrepreneurial culture
with a large number of active participants; mentoring
from experienced entrepreneurs; a supportive regulatory
environment; a culture of collaboration and networking;
visible successes and role models; risk tolerance; easy
access to risk capital; government policy with a longterm
focus; and access to good technical skills.
Many of these factors are cultural, rather than structural,
and in many ways a strong culture comes prior to
structural changes (e.g. greater access to capital or
supportive regulation). According to PwC’s The Startup
Economy:
“Culture is the key to accelerating the growth of a tech
community. In the 1970s the tech communities of Silicon
Valley and the area around MIT… were similar in size.
But by the 1990s Silicon Valley was dominant. The
accepted explanation for the difference in growth rates
is the open and collaborative culture of the Valley. This
same culture is what is driving growth in both Boulder
Colorado and Israel.” 13
Richard Florida’s work on the rise of the creative class
also demonstrates how critical the culture and liveability
of a city are for the attraction and creation of innovative
startups:
“Despite all the predictions that technology—from the
telephone and the automobile to the computer and the
Internet—would lead to the death of cities, the creative
economy is taking shape around them. Urban density,
the clustering of people and firms, is a basic engine of
economic life. Place is the factor that organically brings
together the economic opportunity and talent, the jobs
and the people required for creativity, innovation, and
growth.” 19
Richard Florida
FUNDING QUEENSLAND’S STARTUP ECOSYSTEM
So the elements required for a flourishing ecosystem
are well known, but how much effort is required for
Queensland to realise the next decade’s economic
opportunity?
To answer this, this report estimated the growth from
the current state of the ecosystem to one that meets
the Queensland Startup Summit’s goal. The diagram
opposite shows the various stages of company size, the
number of each in the ecosystem both now and in 2025,
and some current examples.
This model also takes into account startup failure rates
and the proportion of technology companies that make
it through each stage of growth - extrapolating from
historic data where available.
The report’s assumptions are that startups require:
• $50,000 funding to launch a business,
• $250,000 funding to achieve $1m in revenue,
• $2m to achieve $10m in revenue,
• $20m to achieve $100m, and
• $110m funding to achieve $1b.
Given these assumptions, this report estimates that
over $2b to $5b in total funding needs to flow into the
sector over the next ten years to support the ecosystem’s
growth.With the rate of investment increasing from their
current average of ~$23m per year to between $500m to
$1b per year by 2025.
Approximately 20-30% of these funds would go to seed
stage startup activity (generally pre-revenue), and the
majority of these startups will fail, close, or be acquired.
~30% of funding would go to early stage startups in
the $1m-$10m revenue band, ~20% to expansion/
growth stage technology companies in the $10m-$100m
revenue band, and the remaining ~10% to the handful of
mature later stage companies with revenue at $100m+ -
the unicorns of the pack. 23
TOTAL ECOSYSTEM FUNDING REQUIRED 2014-25
Seed Stage:

1 in 1,000
COMPANY STAGES
This diagram separates the startup stages by revenue.
From people ‘interested’ in entrepreneurship, to those
that actually found a New Startup, and through to
growing and mature technology companies.
Yellow information represents the current size and
distribution of startups within the ecosystem, and
black represents the size and distribution of the
ecosystem in 2025.
Developing high growth technology startups is a high
risk endeavour with a small proportion of companies
achieving the growth required to move to the next stage.
Approximately 90% of bootstrapped or angel-funded
startups fail, and between 30% to 40% of venture
backed startups fail. Even fewer digital technology
companies grow beyond $1b in revenue, or reach a $1b
valuation - less than 0.1% for either. 24,25
300+
20-40
50+
10-20
10+
1
1+
0
3,000+
220+
20,000+
1,000
POTENTIAL
FOUNDERS
SEED STAGE
STARTUP
EARLY STAGE
STARTUP
GROWTH STAGE
TECH CO.
LATER STAGE
TECH CO.
UNICORN
TECH CO.
20%
Portion
of people
interested in
entrepreneurship
who start a
company.

Startup formation rates
FORMATION
YEARLY STARTUP FORMATION RATES PER MILLION OF POPULATION - TOP EIGHT US DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY HUBS VS QUEENSLAND
LOCATION YEAR ESTIMATED
#STARTUPS
FORMED
PER YEAR
POPULATION
RATE PER
MILLION
PEOPLE
USA 2010 415,000 309m 1342
Boulder 2010 25 98,815 256
Queensland 2025 1,000 5.9m 170
San Jose 2010 116 955,225 122
Seattle 2010 69 610,409 113
Fort Collins 2010 16 144,348 109
Washington 2010 66 604,453 109
Denver 2010 63 603,497 105
San Francisco 2010 85 805,607 105
Cambridge 2010 10 104,944 97
USA - the year of
the dot-com boom
1999 21,000 279m 75
USA 2010 13,000 309m 42
Queensland 2013 55 4.7m 12
Startup formation rates are based on the Kauffman Foundation’s 2013
report “Tech Starts: High-Technology Business Formation and Job
Creation in the United States.” While the numbers are some of the best
available, it is this reports opinion that startup formation rates are in
fact higher in US technology hubs than shown above.
50 100 150
200
250 1,300
0
ENTIRE PRIVATE SECTOR COMPANY TYPE3
50 100 150 200 250 300
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY STARTUPS
12

Startup formation rates
FORMATION
US TECHNOLOGY HUBS SUCH AS
BOULDER AND SAN FRANCISCO
HAVE YEARLY STARTUP FORMATION
RATES PER MILLION PEOPLE RANGING
BETWEEN 97 TO 256. QUEENSLAND’S
CURRENT RATE IS 12.
FOR THE LOCAL STARTUP ECOSYSTEM
TO REACH 4% OF GSP AND 30K JOBS,
PARTICIPATION IN THE SECTOR WOULD
HAVE TO GROW AT APPROXIMATELY 40%
EACH YEAR, WITH YEARLY STARTUP
FORMATION INCREASING FROM ~12 NEW
STARTUPS PER YEAR TO ~1,000 BY 2025.
A STARTUP FORMATION RATE PER
MILLION PEOPLE OF 170.
13

Startup
ORGANISATIONS
COMPANIES
Startup companies founded after 2009,
along with key support organisations
based in Queensland. (UA) indicates that
the product type has not been identified.
STARTUPS
13 Text (mobile app)
2 Dudez Studios (game)
247 Systems (marketplace)
2CRisk (other)
3 Blokes Studios (game)
6YS (other)
7bithero (game)
Aberrant Entertainment (game)
Adepto (other)
Aerapay (other)
AgDNA (mobile app)
Akro (analytics)
Allotz.com (other)
Always Interactive/Schoolzine (comms)
Ample Entertainment (game)
App-O-Matic (mobile app)
Appenate (mobile app)
AppFactory (mobile app)
Appointuit (mobile health)
Aquiba (electronics)
Athletable (other)
Attract Mode Games (game)
Auditflow (desktop app)
Auditor Training Online (education)
Auran (game)
Bane Games (game)
Barefoot Entrepreneurs (financial)
BDS.com.au (e-commerce)
BidHere.com (e-commerce)
Bill Hero (communication)
Binary Mill, The (game)
Birthday Gorilla (advertising)
Bitcoin Brisbane (desktop app)
Biz Forms (desktop app)
BlackBird Solutions (desktop app)
Bliip (communication)
Blue Quoll Publishing (mobile app)
Blue Tropical (mobile app)
BonzaDat (desktop app)
Booty.com.au (marketplace)
Brandscope (customer relationship)
Brisbane Art (Vegas Spray) (advertising)
Brus Media (advertising)
Business Ready Tool (communication)
Cartesian Co (electronics)
CartHopper (marketplace)
CatchLog Trading (analytics)
CB Aerospace (transportation)
CBO Telecommunications (comms)
Cerebro (mobile app)
Churn.tv (media & news)
Clinicea (other)
Cloubum (other)
Cloud DC (storage)
Cloudsafe365 (other)
Cloudswirl (UA)
Code Heroes (game)
Cohortpay (education)
Commission Factory (advertising)
Composeright Software (other)
CoSituate (advertising)
CouponIce (ecommerce)
Court Record Solutions Group (UA)
Creative Hearts Group (transportation)
Credosity (productivity)
Cribhut.com (other)
CrowdSource Hire (marketplace)
CryptoPhoto (security)
Cupid Media (other)
Curvy Market (marketplace)
Dark Ice Interactive (mobile app)
Daycare Decisions (education)
BDS.com.au (daily deals)
Defiant Development (game)
Dev-Audio (hardware + web)
Devnet (hardware + web)
Dextr (mobile app)
Dialogix (other)
Dimsdale & Kreozot United Games
Distractless (safety)
DivingTheGoldCoast.com.au (other)
Documaps.io (other)
DoseMe (other)
dp dialogue (other)
Drone Hire (marketplace)
Dugong Software (game)
Eat More Pixels (game)
Eclat (UA)
eContent Management (UA)
EcoWise LED (startup)
Edgevertise (advertising)
EFTlab (analytics)
ekidnaworld (game)
Elastice (ecommerce)
Ellume (mobile health)
EM Solutions (other)
Ennova (other)
Enthuse (sport)
Euclideon (graphics)
Expat Digital Media (media & news)
Eyecon (game)
Factorial Products (mobile app)
Faraday Media (communication)
Fastabook (advertising)
FathomHQ (analytics)
Fitgenes (education)
Five Faces (communication)
Fizzio Fit (mobile health)
Floor Five (ecommerce)
Food Matters (other)
Footballr (game)
Fortune Innovation Brisbane (app)
Freewill (UA)
Frelk Industries (electronics)
FreshTone Games (mobile app)
Fun Mob Games (game)
Fuzzyeyes Studio (game)
Geek Brain Games (game)
Gen3 Media (advertising)
Geoptima (other)
Geospike (other)
Ghostbox (game)
Gideon Shalwick (video)
Glanton (infrastructure)
goACT (other)
goCatch Taxi App (transportation)
Gold Coast IT Forum (communication)
goStandby (marketplace)
Grapple (productivity)
GrassAds (advertising)
Grid Media (other)
Guiix (mobile app)
Guvera (established music tech)
HandleMyComplaint (other)
Health Industy.com.au (other)
Health Risk Management Systems (other)
Hire Hive (other)
Hitbox Team (game)
HollaNote (mobile app)
Hooked Up (education)
Hotel App (UA)
Human Interactive (advertising)
Hydric Media (mobile app)
Hypermancer (media & news)
iEscape (transportation)
ImagePro Studios (advertising)
ImmersaView (hardware + web)
Infinite Wardrobe (marketplace)
inKind (UA)
Inkive (photography)
Intaserve Group (UA)
Integrated Monitoring Systems (analytics)
Intelligent Automation (electronics)
iOnline (mobile app)
iPledg (financial or payment)
JADES Management Solutions (UA)
JobFit Systems Intnl (marketplace)
JoggaDogg (UA)
JW Shannon Engineers (Argus Acoustic)
(infrastructure)
KaWoW! (game)
KindyHub (mobile app)
Kondoot (UA)
Krome Studios (game)
Krunk (UA)
Language and Learning Steps (education)
LEAPIN Digital Keys (mobile app)
Lightmare Studios (game)
Liquid State (mobile app)
Little Dukkies Enterprises (UA)
Live Nourish Play (UA)
Living Room of Satoshi (UA)
Locatrix Communications (location)
Locatrix International (UA)
Lost n Found (UA)
M2Media (hardware + web)
Machinam (education)
Machine IQ (analytics)
Machinery Safety Systems (hardware)
Mammoth Media (hardware + web)
mandraIT (communication)
Mapely (UA)
MassPay (UA)
MechTech Creations (hardware + web)
memeBig.com (communication)
Mesaplexx (communication)
MetaMunch (other)
Metaset (mobile app)
Miiingle Technologies (UA)
Milaana (other)
Mobile Communications (Qld) (other)
Murry Lancashire (game)
My Import Label (other)
My Sunshine Coast (other)
mypresences (other)
Mystrata (other)
N3V Games (game)
Nano Silicon (Australia) (mobile app)
NeCTAR (communication)
New NRG (3D printing)
Nimble (established fin-tech)
NRG (other)
Oar Inspired (sport)
Ollo Mobile (wearable)
Open Gear (infrastructure)
Opmantek (communication)
Optii Solutions (productivity)
OrderXYZ (marketplace)
OtherLevels (UA)
Outfound (to pay) (Software (offline))
Oz Sonotek (financial or payment)
PayRespect (UA)
PeeP Digital (education)
Pelofy (social)
Pineapple Corp (UA)
Pipe Games (game)
PLF Agritech (UA)
Presentation Sells (advertising)
Preveu (mobile app)
Prevue (other)
Qrate.tv (UA)
Quantum Property (UA)
R Fifteen (UA)
Rabotica BVBA (UA)
Red Sprite Studios (game)
RedEye Apps (productivity)
RemarksPDF (mobile app)
Retail Express (ecommerce)
Riff Axelerator (video)
Rinstrum (electronics)
RMSS (electronics)
Rockabilly Kitchen (UA)
RocketBunny Games (game)
RPS/Attract Mode Games (game)
SafetyCulture (mobile app)
Screwtape Studios (game)
Sea Safe (mobile app)
See Out (other)
SellaWhere (UA)
Senath (other)
Sensaware (wearable)
Shovsoft (game)
Siltek (UA)
simPROVAL (infrastructure)
Smooth Operator (financial or payment)
Social Development Company (comms)
Softgineering (other)
SoftPerfect (UA)
Spare Metres (infrastructure)
Splasheo (mobile app)
Splitpack (hardware + web)
Sports Performance Accelerator (game)
Squirrelr (financial or payment)
StartHere (customer relationship)
Startups Australia (infrastructure)
Stats App (UA)
Studio Blimp (game)
Stylegrab (other)
Subarashi (other)
Swipeads (advertising)
T 2 Green (game)
Tagly (communication)
Tappr (financial or payment)
TechHatch (other)
The Allergy Menu (other)
The Core (social)
The Creative Assembly (UA)
The Travel App (UA)
TheyerGFX (3D printing)
Tiger Temple (UA)
Total Range Design (communication)
Tracknology (analytics)
14

TrekTraka (advertising)
Trinity Software Australia (sport)
Tripcover (financial or payment)
Txt4Coffee (financial or payment)
Typefi (other)
Ubegin (other)
UniMap (UA)
V2i (health)
Veilability (marketplace)
Vendle (mobile app)
Victus Health (other)
Volt4 (UA)
Walk Thru Walls Studios (game)
Well Placed Cactus (game)
We Are Hunted (music)
Where2Tonight (UA)
WiFi Ads (UA)
Wikifashion (media & news)
Wildfire Studios (game)
Wishing Well Web Hosting (UA)
Witch Beam (game)
WunderWalk (UA)
XY Gaming (game)
Y2 Investments (UA)
Yackstar (UA)
ZipID (other)
Zippy.com.au (marketplace/deals)
ZOVA (other)
INCUBATION
QUT Creative Enterprise Australia
(seed accelerator / incubator)
iLab (seed accelerator)
Innovation Centre Sunshine Coast (Inc)
Right Pedal Studios (seed accelerator)
Silicon Lakes (incubator)
FUNDING
Accelerate Ideas (Gov grant)
AMMA Private Equity (private equity)
Artesian Capital (vc)
Australian Association of Angel Investors
Australian Small Scale Offerings Board
Blue Sky Alternative Investments (vc)
Brisbane Angels (angel group)
Budding Entrpnrs Grant (Gov grant)
Commercialisation Australia (Gov grant)
Founders Forum (angel group)
Gold Coast Angels (angel group)
One Ventures (venture capital)
Screen Australia (Gov grant)
teQstart (Gov grant)
Transition Level Investments (angel group)
Uniseed (university fund)
CO-WORKING & HACKER SPACES
Co-Spaces (coworking - Gold Coast)
Cojimbo Coworking (coworking - SC)
Gold Coast Tech Space (coworking)
Hackerspace Brisbane (hackerspace)
Mowbraytown Co-Working Space (SC)
Noosa Boardroom (coworking - SC)
River City Labs (coworking - Brisbane)
Thoughtfort (coworking - Brisbane)
Salt House (coworking - Brisbane)
Light Space (coworking - Brisbane)
Rabbit Hole Ideation Cafe (coworking)
Work Club (coworking - Gold Coast)
MEET GROUPS BY NO. MEMBERS*
The Bris. Web Design Group (1661)
Silicon Beach Bris. (1069)
Agile Bris. (858)
Bris. Web Tech (823)
Bris. Internet Business Meetup (705)
BrisJS - Bris. JavaScript (613)
Bris. .Net User Group (587)
Bris. Functional Programming (560)
Barcamp Queensland (541)
The Bris. Ruby and Rails (500)
AWS - Bris. User Group (500)
WordPress Bris. (496)
Silicon Beach Gold Coast (467)
Queensland JVM Group (446)
Bris. SEO (425)
UX Bris. (402)
Gold Coast Techspace (349)
Bris. Joomla Users Group (329)
Bris. Content Strategy Group (298)
Hackerspace Bris. (257)
Bris. Unity Developers (251)
CocoaHeads (244)
Game Technology Bris. (243)
Bris. Python User Group (241)
Bris. Azure User Group (239)
Devops Bris. (233)
The Bris. NoSQL Group (198)
Queensland Bloggers (197)
IT Forum Gold Coast (171)
Bitcoin Bris. (157)
Bris. iOS and Android Group (133)
Project & Program Managers (127)
Gold Coast WordPress Network (126)
Lean Business Strategies (126)
Coding from Beach (125)
Bris. Hacks for Humanity (123)
Drupal Bris. (120)
Young Bris. IT Social (119)
Hack the Evening (116)
Byron Web (53)
Docker Bris., Australia (108)
Queensland C# Mobile Developers (103)
QLD ALM Users Group (95)
Bris. Dynamics CRM User Group (94)
StartUp Mastermind Groups (85)
Bris. Software Testers Meetup (84)
WordPress Gold Coast (82)
Open Knowledge Bris. Group (81)
SAGE Queensland (80)
Bris. Inbound Marketing (78)
Hacks/Hackers Bris. (72)
Rhok Bris. (71)
Web Accessblty & Inclusv Design (69)
GDG - Bris. (69)
Startup Grind Bris. (67)
Cloud Solutions for Modrn Business (65)
Humbug (64)
Data Vault & DWH modeling Group (64)
Bris. Online Marketing Workshops (62)
Big Data Analytics Group Bris. (61)
Queensland Legion of Tech (59)
Bris. OpenShift Group (58)
Bluemix-Developers-in-Bris. (58)
DevExpress User Group Bris. (57)
Sunshine Coast Digital Association (55)
HackerNest Bris. Tech Socials (53)
Bris. Data Scientists Group (51)
Bris. Big Data Analytics (47)
clj-bne (46)
Bris. 3D Printing Meetup (46)
Gold Coast JavaScript Developers (41)
Bris. Coder Club (39)
Queensland SilverStripe Meetup (37)
Drupal Gold Coast (37)
The Data Warehousing Community (36)
Software Architctr & Project Design (36)
Sunshine Coast WordPress Meetup (35)
Northern Rivers Bitcoin enthusiasts (5)
Bris. Tableau User Group (33)
Bitcoin and Beyond (Gold Coast) (33)
Ruxmon Bris. (33)
Bris. R User Group (BrisRUG) (32)
Bris. Game Design & CG Artists (30)
Bris. Adobe User Group (29)
ShopTalk eCommerce Meetup - Bris. (29)
Bris. Evernote Users Group (28)
Sitecore Bris. User Group (28)
dotMaleny (26)
Bris. Spark Group (26)
Queensland Puppet Meetup (26)
Ruby on Rails Gold Coast (22)
Dream. Design. Develop. Deliver. (21)
Bris. ColdFusion (20)
Digital Dialog (17)
Gold Coast WordPress Designers &
Developers (16)
Work@Jelly Noosa (16)
gsummitx - Gamification in Bris. (15)
3D Printing Bris. (15)
THATCamp Bris. (13)
Bris. Business Catalyst User (Partners)
Group Meetup (12)
Bris. Salesforce Dev. Group (12)
Creating an online presence for over 50s (10)
Bris. Salesforce Group (9)
Bris. AppDynamics with RP Data (9)
Startup Mastermind - Gold Coast (8)
Information Server User Group Bris. (3)
Godl Coast Salesforce User Group (3)
Search Factory Content Writers (1)
Ubuntu Bris. Information Group (0)
EDUCATION, SUPPPORT & EVENTS*
Aust Centr for Entrprnrshp Resrch (edu)
Binary Options (education and training)
BizSpark Expressway (event)
Boardroom Briefings - IC (event)
Bond University (education)
Brisbane Intnl Game Developers Assoc.
Brisbane Startup Pitch Group (event)
Brisbane Writers Festival (event)
Build my Robot (event)
Business Expo (event)
Cleantech Expo (event)
Coder Dojo (education program)
Creative Conference (event)
Culture Hack Gold Coast (hackathon)
Enterprise Connect (events)
Game On Program (event)
Gemini Program (event)
GO423 Symposium (event)
Gov Hack (hackathon)
Gov Open Data (hackathon)
Griffith University (education)
Griffith Enterprise (commercialisation arm)
Insights (education and training)
Institute for Future of the Book (edu)
Investment Incentives (event)
Kids Biz Conference (event)
Lean Launchpad (education)
Lean Startup Machine (education)
Literacy Planet (education program)
Maroochydore Chamber of Commerce
(education and training)
Mentor Blaze (event)
Mentoring 4 Growth (event)
Mobile Mondays (event)
MoboDev (advisor)
NASA Space Apps Challenging (event)
National Angels Conference (event)
Qld Intractv Design Delegation (event)
Queensland University of Technology (edu)
Questions on Capital (event)
QUT Bluebox (commercialisation arm)
RiverPitch (event)
South by Southwest Delegation (event)
Startup Club Meeting (event)
Startup QLD (community enablement)
Startup Weekend - Brisbane (education)
Startup Weekend - Gold Coast (edu)
Startup Weekend - SC (edu)
State Library QLD (community)
Sunday Coder Club (event)
Sunshine Coast Entrepreneurs (commu)
Sunshine Coast TAFE (education)
Sunshine Coast Technorati (community)
Ted x Noosa (event)
The Startup Club (community)
Uniquest (commercialisation arm)
University of Southern Queensland (edu)
University of Sunshine Coast (edu)
UQ - Ideas Network (community)
Wavebreak (advisor)
*Note many of these groups and events
are not directly focused on startups,
but rather support activities around
digital technology. They are included as
an indication of the level of interest in
digital technology, and are often feeders
to people taking the leap into joining or
launching their own startup.
15

Investors and Investments
FUNDING RAISED
TOP 35 RAISES AMOUNT YEAR #RNDS REGION EST FUNDING SOURCE
Guvera $45,000,000 09, 10, 12 4 Gold Coast 2008 AMMA Private Equity
Nimble $18,300,000 12,13,14 ~3 Gold Coast 2005 Acorn, Monash Inv, Angels
Euclideon $3,969,304 2010 1 Brisbane 2010 CA, Unknown
SafetyCulture $3,600,000 2013 1 Regional 2004 CA, Blackbird, Angels
Halfbrick Studios $3,000,000 2011 1 Brisbane 2001 NSW Interactive Media Fund
Other Levels $2,528,853 2012 2 Brisbane 2012 Confidential
ImmersaView $2,449,805 2013 2 Brisbane 2006 DIISRTE, CA, Unknown
Tappr $2,420,000 2013 2 Brisbane 2012 Unknown
EM Solutions $2,397,984 1 Brisbane 1997 CA
Mesaplexx $1,849,804 2012 1 Brisbane 2007 CA, Unknown
Rinstrum $1,824,370 1 Brisbane 2005 CA, Unknown
V2i $1,716,126 2011 1 Gold Coast 2000 CA, Unknown
Cloud DC $1,600,000 13 & 14 2 Sunshine 2012 Angels, CA, Unknown
Out of Credit Solutions $1,500,000 2012 1 Brisbane 2012 AMMA
Opmantek $1,500,000 2013 1 Gold Coast 2010 ASSOB, Confidential
From Concept To Completion $1,004,800 1 Brisbane 2010 CA, Unknown
Right Pedal Studios (accelratr) $1,000,000 2012 1 Brisbane 2012 Steven Baxter
Fitgenes $934,888 2012 1 Brisbane 2007 CA, Unknown
Qs Semiconductor Australia $924,000 2009 1 Brisbane 2009 CA, Unknown
JobFit Systems Intnl $900,000 2012 1 Brisbane 2013 CA, Unknown
Court Record Solutions $839,280 2011 1 Brisbane 2010 CA, Unknown
5 Lives Studios $830,400 2013 1 Brisbane 2013 Kickstarter
mandraIT $830,080 2013 1 Sunshine 2012 CA, Unknown
Liquid State $805,000 2013 2 Brisbane 2011 Confidential, CA
Kondoot $800,000 2012 1 Brisbane 2010 ASSOB
Health Risk Management Sys. $767,402 1 Brisbane 2009 CA, Unknown
CatchLog Trading $745,198 2011 1 Regional 2005 CA, Unknown
Art $71,791
Event
$44,184
Photography
$40,532
Social Enterprise
$37,160
Comics
$30,360
Video
$30,046
Fashion
$24,849
Food & Drink
$24,045
Other
$12,226
Journalism
$11,640
TOTAL Technology FUNDING RAISED - ALL TECH $5,737
Research
$
126M
$3,480
Craft
$160
Total venture capital, private equity, government grants,
crowdfunding and angel funding raised by startups
and established digital technology companies located
in Queensland, from 2009 to July 2014. Based on data
from COMPUTER Crunchbase, GAME Angel SALES List, research and interviews.
$3B
TOTAL FUNDING RAISED - STARTUPS
$2B
$
$1.5B
37M
$1.61B
2011 2012 2013 2017
Total funding raised in Queensland from 2009 to July
2014 by Startups established after 2009.
No. STARTUPS THAT RAISED FUNDING
99/136
TOP COMMUNITY ISSUES: RANKED BY WEIGHTED VOTES
Raise Awareness
1
Number Education of Queensland startups (99) out of all digital 2
technology Culture companies (136) that raised funding. 3
Funding
4
No. Government ROUNDSPolicy
5
116/165
Collaboration & Networking
6
Procurement
7
Infrastructure
8
Number Talent & of Skills funding rounds for startups (116) out of the 9
total Leadership number for all digital technology companies (165). 10
MEDIAN FUNDING - STARTUPS
$
100,000
TOP COMMUNITY ACTIONS: RANKED BY WEIGHTED VOTES
Education Program
1
Form Leadership Group
2
Median amount of total funding raised in Queensland
for
Startup
startups.
Apprentice
Median for all digital technology
3
companies Highlight Success was $200,000. Stories
4
Collaboration & Networking
5
Attract Talent
6
AVERAGE FUNDING - STARTUPS
Communication Hub
7
$
371,000
Govt Incentive - Investment
8
Hub
9
NBN Advocacy Group
10
Average amount of total funding raised in Queensland
for startups. Average raised for all digital technology
companies was $928,000.
Sea Safe $742,400 2013 2 Gold Coast 2004 CA, Unknown
TOTAL RAISED BY YEAR - ALL DIGITAL CO. ($)
Defiant Development $704,095 2013 x2 2 Brisbane 2010 Screen Australia, Kickstarter
35000000
34M
Yackstar $667,836 1 Brisbane 2009 CA, Unknown 30000000
27M
27M
TrekTraka $650,000 12 & 13 2 Brisbane 2011 Confidential
Trinity Software Australia $601,600 1 Regional 2010 CA, Unknown
Txt4Coffee $600,000 11 & 12 2 Brisbane 2010 Confidential
13M
10M
15M
goACT $600,000 1 Gold Coast 2010 CA, Unknown
Appointuit $503,911 12 & 13 2 Brisbane 2010 Brisbane Angels
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
16

1500000
35000000
30000000
Investors and Investments
TOP COMMUNITY ISSUES: RANKED BY WEIGHTED VOTES
FUNDING
Raise Awareness
1
Education
2
Culture
3
Funding CURRENT FUNDING LEVELS
Government The report’s Policy funding data covers the January 2009 to 5
Collaboration July 2014 period & Networking and includes all digital technology 6
companies in Queensland with publicly available
Procurement
7
information. It includes both investments and
Infrastructure
government grants (where no equity was exchanged). 8
Talent & Skills
9
This report identified 136 digital technology companies
Leadership
10
that ran 165 separate funding rounds, 99 of which are
startups by this report’s definition. $126m was raised
TOTAL RAISED BY LEAD FUND TYPE
in total, which gives an average $23m per year, or
Private Equity
$46.5m
$4.90 per capita per year invested in digital technology
companies for Queensland. The median total funding Government Fund (CA)*
$36.5m
TOP COMMUNITY ACTIONS: RANKED BY WEIGHTED VOTES
raised for all digital technology companies was $200k, Individual Angel/s
$18.4m
Education but the average Program total raised was much higher at $928k, 1
and the average size of a funding round was $765k. The Venture Capital
$12.0m
Form Leadership Group
2
averages are high due to a small number of large raises, Angel Group
$5.5m
Startup particularly Apprentice one very large raise ($45m) for Guvera - 3a
Highlight music streaming Success service. Stories
4 Government Fund (other)
$4.1m
Collaboration & Networking
5 Crowdfunding
$1.4m
Funding levels within Queensland are on par with norms
Attract across Australia Talent for startup investment - between $4 6 Accelerator
$1.0m
Communication to $6 per capita per Hubyear. However, local and national 7 Other
$0.4m
Govt
norms
Incentive
are well
-
below
Investment
global startup investment norms
8
and best practice which ranges between $30 to over Corporate
$0.2m
Hub $3,000 per capita per year.
9
Friends & Family
$0.2m
NBN Advocacy Group
10
When examining the source of funding, private equity
0 10000000 20000000 30000000 40000000 50000000
comes out as the leader $47m or 37% of all funding,
driven primarily by AMMA’s $45m investment in
Guvera. Government funding comes out as the second
largest source of funding, both in total amount of
funding ($24m or 19% of all funding by type) and
TOTAL FUNDING BY FUND INVESTOR TYPE TYPE
Private Equity
Government Fund (CA)
$46.9m
$19.6m
total raised by lead investor ($41m or 32% of funding).
Individual Angel/s
$18.0m
Government funding is almost entirely made up of
funding from the Commercialisation Australia program, Unknown (Matched Funding)
$15.6m
~$20m or 16% of total funding, which attracted
Venture Capital
$13.4m
matched funding of $18m (14% of all funding) from
Angel Group
$5.1m
angels and VCs. It is noteworthy how effective CA was
in attracting risk capital into the sector. The third largest Government Fund (other)
$4.3m
funding source is individual angels - $18m or 14% of Crowdfunding
$1.4m
all funding.
In Brisbane the project identified 115 raises totalling
$45m by 101 companies across the five and half year
period. An average of ~$8m per year, and $4.03 per
capita. 2009 For 2010 startups only, 2011 the report 2012 identified 2013 792014
startups
that raised, with a median startup raise of $100,000 and
an average round size of $317,000.
On the Gold Coast 21 raises totalling $69m by 14 digital
technology companies were identified. An average
fund pool of $13m per year, and $24.60 per capita. The
report identified 5 startups with a median startup raise
of $62,500 and an average round size of $453,000. Total
digital numbers on the Gold Coast are higher due to
TOTAL AMMA’s INVESTED investment BY in INVESTOR Guvera (a TYPE music ($M) service) and
Acorn Capital’s $10m investment in Nimble (a financial
Private service). Equity Excluding these two outliers brings the $46.9M total
Venture investment Capital to $5.7m, ~$1m invested per year, and $20.2M $2.03
Government
per capita across
Grant
all
- Matched
tech.
(CA) $19.6M
Matched On the Sunshine Funding Coast (CA) 18 raises totalling $5m+ $15.6M by 13
Individual technology Angel/s companies were identified. An average $10.9M fund
Angel
pool of
Group
~$1m per year and $2.91 per capita. 9 startups
$5.1M
with a median startup raise of $200,000 and an average
Government round size of Grant $294,000 were identified. $4.3M
Crowdfunding
$1.4M
Accelerator
$0.9M
Unknown
$0.8M
Corporate
$0.2M
4
AVG FUND POOL PER YEAR - ALL TECH
$
22.9M
Based on total funding raised over five and a half years.
Average total fund pool for startups was $6.7m.
Accelerator
Unknown
Corporate
TOP TWELVE FUNDING SOURCES
$0.9m
$0.8m
$0.2m
AMMA
$46.5m
Commercialisation Australia
$19.6m
Acorn Capital
$10.0m
Transition Level Investments
$3.5m
NSW Government Interactive Media Fund $3.0m
Brisbane Angels Syndicate
$2.8m
ASSOB
$2.3m
Blackbird Ventures
$1.2m
Founders Forum
$1.2m
5 Lives Studios' Kickstarter Backers $0.8m
Screen Australia
$0.6m
iLab
$0.6m
*Note this number includes both the government grant
and the Matched Funding provided by participants.
FUNDING PER CAPITA - ALL TECH
$
4.90
Average fund pool per year divided by Queensland
population. Startup per capita funding was $1.43.
VENTURE CAPITAL PER CAPITA
Silicon Valley
Israel
USA
1000000
500000
Switzerland
Norway
Melbourne Cup Bets
Australian Bio-tech
Sweden
Finland
Denmark
France
Britain
2012 Aus Olympic Team
Ireland
Netherlands
FUNDING BY REGION
Belgium
New Zealand
Austria
Perth (incl govt)
Queensland
Australia
Queensland (excl govt)
Perth (excl govt)
26, 27, 28
$4241
$183
$81
$74
$54
$52
$44
$40
$28
$16
Non-Digital Rest of Australia
$15
$15
$14
$14
$14
$12
$11
0 50 100 150 200
FUNDING SOURCES
TOTAL FUNDING FUNDING BY TECHNOLOGY
BY TECHNOLOGY TYPE
Software (web and mobile)
Software and Hardware
Software (offline)
Silicon Chips & Semiconductors
Software (monil only)
3D Printing
Advanced Robotics
Digital Queensland
Non-Digital Queensland
Digital Rest of Australia
$8
$5.66
$4.90
$4.09
$4.02
$2.96
The top 12 funding sources, from AMMA to iLab
provided 73% of all funding - approximately $92m
dollars in total. It is interesting to note that these 12
only made up 16% of all the funding enties the report
identified, ~70 in total. Within these top 12, the top 8
organisations provided 70% of all funding: AMMA,
Commercialisation Australia, Acorn Capital, Transition
Level Investments, NSW Government Interactive
Media Fund, Brisbane Angels Syndicate, ASSOB, and
Blackbird Ventures - just 12% of all funding entities
identified.
$108m
$14.2m
$1.5m
$1.0m
$1.0m
$0.1m
$0.1m
17

$12,226
Art and Recreational Art and Recreational Services Services
Kickstarter and Pozible
CROWD FUNDING
Craft
$3,480
Research
$5,737
Technology
$160
Other
$11,640
Food & Drink $24,045
Journalism
AMOUNT RAISED BY YEAR ON KICKSTARTER All Categories - Australia All Categories - Queensland Digital - Australia Digital - Queensland
No. CO & GROUPS: FOUNDED
3000000
KICKSTARTER QLD
Video Games
$1,076,266
2500000
Product Design
$160,230
2000000
Technology
$137,829
3D Printing
$137,356
1500000
Documentary
$61,825
Animation
$38,089
1000000
Tabletop Games
$37,859
500000
Design
$23,746
Pop
$20,660
Accessories
$14,043
2009 2010 Illustration 2011 $10,246 2012 2013 2014
Music
$9,368
CROWDFUNDING IN AUSTRALIA 2009 - 2014: QLD VS AUSTRALIA. Live Games DIGITAL VS OTHER
$7,528
CROWDFUNDING DIGITAL - QLD
Fiction
$7,090
$1,358,172
Painting
$6,225
Digital Queensland
Webseries
$5,517 $1,358,172
Food
$5,325
$1,900,915
People
$3,934
Total Amount Raised for Digital Technology projects
Non-Digital Queensland
on both Kickstarter and Pozible by Queensland startups
Rock
$3,115 2009 - 2014
Comics
$2,796
$4,393,417
Young Adult
$2,506
GAME PROJECTS QLD 2013
Digital Publishing Rest of Australia
$2,226
$1,022,171
Architecture
$2,040
Digital Queensland $18,976,424
Non-Digital Rest of Australia
Non-Digital Queensland
2013 was a big year for Queensland games on
crowdfunding platforms with 31% ($1m) of all
KICKSTARTER: AMOUNT Digital RAISED
Rest of of Australia
POZIBLE: AMOUNT RAISED
Crowdfunding in Queensland from 2009 to 2014
TOP
KICKSTARTER
CATEGORIES
QLD
2009 - 2014
ALL POZIBLE CATEGORIES 2009 - 2014
($3.3m) raised by three local studios 5 Lives Studios,
N3V Games and Defiant Development.
Video Games
Non-Digital Rest Rest of of
$1,076,266
Australia Film
$316,574
Product Design
$160,230 Music
$312,822
SATELLITE REIGN
Technology
$137,829 Performance
$180,488
3D Printing
$137,356 Community
$135,195
$830,400
Documentary
$61,825
Writing
$107,652
FUNDING BY REGION
Design
Animation
$38,089
$84,045
Art
$71,791 Satelite Reign is a real-time, class-based strategy game,
Tabletop Games
$37,859
Event
$44,184 set in an open world cyberpunk city. Produced by 5
Design
$23,746
Lives Studios - the creator of Syndicate Wars - this
Photography
$40,532
Pop
$20,660
project raised 25% of all Crowdfunding in Queensland
Social Enterprise
$37,160 over the last 5 years. 5 Lives was founded in 2013 by
Accessories
$14,043
Comics
$30,360 Dean Ferguson, Chris Conte, Mitch Clifford, Brent
Illustration
$10,246
Video
$30,046
Waller and Mike Diskett.
Music
$9,368
Fashion
$24,849
Live Games
$7,528
Food & Drink
$24,045 TRAINZ SIMULATOR
Fiction
Painting
Webseries
$7,090
$6,225
$5,517
Other
Journalism
Technology
$12,226
$11,640
$5,737 $191,771
Food
$5,325 Research
$3,480
Already with a large following N3V Games (formerly
People
$3,934 Craft
$160 Auran - founded in 1991) raised near $200k to fund the
Rock
Comics
Young Adult
Publishing
$3,115
$2,796
$2,506
$2,226
rebuild and relaunch one of the world’s favourite rail
simulators.
Architecture
$2,040
Blue bars indicate projects that involve digital technology.
COMPUTER GAME SALES
18
FUNDING BY TECHNOLOGY
Software (web and mobile)
3000000
& GROUPS: FOUNDED
CO No.
$108m $108m
$2B
$3B
40 50 60 70 80
COMPUTER GAME SALES
30
$3B
$2B
$1.5B $1.61B
2500000
2000000
2017
2013
2012
2011
1500000
1000000
500000
TOP COMMUNITY ISSUES: RANKED BY WEIGHTED VOTES
1
Raise Awareness
2
Education
3
Culture
4
Funding
5
Government Policy
6
Collaboration & Networking
7
Procurement
8
10
9
Advocacy Group
NBN
Hub
Infrastructure
Talent & Skills
Leadership
TOP COMMUNITY ACTIONS: RANKED BY WEIGHTED VOTES
1
Education Program
Digital Queensland
2
Form Leadership Group
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
3
0
Startup Apprentice
Non-Digital Queensland
4
Highlight Success Stories
5
Collaboration & Networking
Digital Rest of Australia
6
Attract Talent
7
Communication Hub
Non-Digital Rest of Australia
8
10
9
Govt Incentive - Investment
FUNDING BY REGION
35000000
30000000
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
No. CO &
30000

Investors and Investments
FUND FLOW
Startup and Established Digital Technology Companies
that received funding and the associated investors,
directors and founders.
teQstart
Zippy
CloudMGR
RemarksPDF
Brisbane
Angels
Liquid State
Budding Entrepreneurs
Grant Program
Appointuit
StartUp
BootCamp
Berlin
Gold Coast
Angels
CoSituate
Commercialisation
Australia
Bliip
Brandscope
Yackstar
SafetyCulture
Grass Ads
OSHC
Australia
iLab
Euclideon
Blackbird
Ventures
Acorn
Capital
Nimble
Hirehive
Qualcomm
See Out
Transition
Level
Investments
Ollo Mobile
Y Combinator
Out of Credit
Solutions
AMMA
Guvera
NSW Government
Interactive Media
Fund
Creative
Enterprise
Australia
River City Labs
Halfbrick Studios
Steven Baxter
Right
Pedal
Studios
ASSOB
19

Meetup.com
GROUPS
Groups from meetup.com related to startups, technology
and entrepreneurship, with their organisers and venues.
Brisbane
Web Tech
BrisJS -
Brisbane
JavaScript
Brisbane
Square Library
The Brisbane
Web Design
Meetup Group
Barcamp
Queensland
UX Brisbane
Brisbane Internet
Business Meetup
River
CityLabs
Silicon
Beach Brisbane
Brisbane Web Accessibility
& Inclusive Design
Brisbane Hacks for Humanity
Rhok Brisbane
In a Day
Training
Brisbane SEO
Data Vault and
DWH modeling
interest group
Microsoft
Innovation Centre
Brisbane
.Net User Group
Brisbane Functional
Programming Group
Agile Brisbane
State Library of Queensland - The Edge
Robina Community Centre - Room 2.1
Amazon Web
Services -
Brisbane User Group
MEETUP GROUP STATS
9313 Members
3150 Events
260 Venues
109Groups
RIVER CITY LABS - BRISBANE
3,500+
Number of attendees over two and half years.
Founded in 2012 by Steve Baxter, River City Labs is
Brisbane’s main co-working space for startups, with
over 100 members ranging from early to established
startups. It has a network of 38+ mentors led by mentorin-residence
Peter Laurie, and has been instrumental in
getting Startup Weekend, Rails Girls Weekend and Lean
Startup Machine to Brisbane. Over the past 2.5 years it
has run 150+ events, had 3,500+ pass through its doors,
been the venue for over 13 meetup groups, run the
quarterly RiverPitch event, and been the home to Right
Pedal Studios.
RIGHT PEDAL STUDIOS – BRISBANE
THREE
Number of Game Studios in the first program.
Founded in 2012 with $250,000 investment by Steve
Baxter and managed by games veteran John Passfield,
Right Pedal Studios is a seed accelerator for games
studios based in River City Labs - Fortitude Valley,
Brisbane. Its alumni include Ghostbox (founded in 2012
by Troy Duguid, Dominic Drysdale, Cameron Pyke and
Chris Webb) , GeekBrain Games (founded in 2012 by
Don Kirkland) and Screwtape Studios (founded in 2011
by Anthony Wood and Megan Summers).
20

Growth accelerators
INCUBATION
Organisations associated to the main incubators,
accelerators and co-working spaces in SEQ.
INNOVATION CENTRE
Food Matters
Victus Health
RIVER CITY LABS
Splasheo
Cavitus
Typefi
Future Oceans
Cloud DC
Schoolzine
RIGHT PEDAL
STUDIOS
Code Heroes
Perfect Day
Miji
YOLO
Mobodev
OrderXYZ
Machine IQ
Stylegrab
Commision Factory
newNRG
Geek Brain Games
Ghostbox
Swipeads
Screwtape Studios
ZipID
Tech Tidal
Bane Games
Cloudsafe365
Ollo Mobile
Bitcoin Brisbane
Eat More Pixels
Y2 Investments
Factorial Products
HollaNote
PayRespect
Cartesian Co
Veilability
CB Aerospace
Bliip
Grapple
Credosity
Hire Hive
WiFi Ads
Subarashi
Kindyhub
Lost n Found
Hypermancer
Elastice
Krunk
Sensaware
Spare Metres Tiger Temple
Footballr
ILAB
iEscape
SILICON LAKES
Miggy
Pokajot
ILAB - BRISBANE
$70M+
Total funding raised by startup alumni.
Established by the Queensland Government in 2000
as a startup incubator it was acquired in 2009 by
UQ Holdings (later UniQuest), a subsidiary of The
University of Queensland. It currently runs two
seed-accelerator style programs alongside incubator
services for established startups. Over the past 14
years, with funding from the Queensland Government,
it has incubated 100+ startups companies and helped
them raise $70m+ in grants and investment & directly
generated nearly 400 technology jobs.
INNOVATION CENTRE - SUNSHINE COAST
400+
Total jobs created by startup alumni.
Sitting on the edge of the University of the Sunshine
Coast campus, the Innovation Centre has provided
incubator services to 100+ startups in tech, clean
technology and health tech, since inception in 2002 by
USC. It has a network of 19+ mentors led by the Board
of Directors, CEO Mark Paddenburg and entrepreneurin-residence
Dean Alle. Over the past 12 years, with
funding from the Queensland Government, it has run
148 events with 6,000+ attendees, helped member
startups create 400+ jobs, and raise $26m+.
SILICON LAKES – GOLD COAST
TWO
Trade missions to Silicon Valley for startup founders.
Founded in 2012 by Aaron Birkby, Bill Bass and Greg
Burnett, Silicon Lakes is a non-profit incubator and
co-working space in Robina. It has 12 startups in the
co-working space, has run over 20 events with 1,000+
attendees, held 3 Startup Weekends, one GovHack
event, a NASA Space Apps Challenge event, organised
2 trade missions to Silicon Valley and helped launch
54 startups. It recently won a tender to establish an
accelerator program for which they are also raising an
investment fund. Moving to larger premises shortly!
21

Startup
KEY NODES
Startups, their employees, and key community
builders such as incubators and funds, along with their
employees. Links are professional relationships via
Linkedin.
Amma
RedEye Apps
Ghostbox
Ellume
Mesaplexx
River
City
Labs
Right
Pedal
Studios
TrekTraka
Stephen Baxter
Txt4Coffee
ZOVA
Brisbane
Angels
Transition
Level
Investments
Auditflow
Food
Matters
SwipeAds
cohortpay
Appointuit
Liquid
State
Gold
Coast
Angels
Inkive
Milaana
Innovation
Centre
Five Faces
Zippy
Cloud
DC
Euclideon
Commercialisation
Australia
Silicon Lakes
Distractless
Budding
Entrepreneurs
Grant
CoSituate
Cartesian Co
iLab
Adepto
Commission
Factory
Halfbrick
Tappr
22

Network
CENTRALITY
PEOPLE
30 Most Central People Ranked by >
ORGANISATIONS & EVENTS
30 Most Central Organisations & Events Ranked by >
Rank Votes Betweenness Votes Between
1 Colin Kinner Colin Kinner iLab Commercialisation Australia
2 Peter Laurie Paul Jones River City Labs iLab
3 John Mactaggart Stephen Baxter Brisbane Angels River City Labs
4 Anna Rooke John Scott Startup Weekend - Brisbane Appointuit
5 Ruth Drinkwater Chris Macaulay Association of Angel Investors Bliip
6 Peta Ellis Ian Dutka Centre for Entrepreneurship Research Budding Entrepreneurs Grant
7 Ian Connor Michelle Kazukaitis Arts Queensland CoSituate
8 Aaron Birkby Rick Anstey Queensland University of Technology Silicon Lakes
9 Richard Moore Tony Winters Silicon Beach - Brisbane Innovation Centre
10 Sue Swinburne Greg Searle Startup QLD Distractless
11 Christy Dena Andrey Shirben Founders Forum PeeP Digital
12 Greg Burnett Daniel Harman Gold Coast Angels Future Oceans
13 Jock Blair Danielle Bennett QUT Creative Enterprise Australia cohortpay
14 Dean Alle Alhusayn Hamidaddin Halfbrick Studios Credosity
15 Mark Paddenburg Drew Leishman River Pitch OtherLevels
16 Steve Dalton John Lambie Innovation Centre - SC Brisbane Angels
17 Clarence Tan Karen Bracher iPledge Transition Level Investments
18 Rick McElhinney Matthew Clarkson Startup Weekend - SC TrekTraka
19 Tanya Lipus Jackie Stapleton Silicon Lakes Euclideon
21 Bryan Vadas Kellie Rainbow Cartesian Co Liquid State
21 Bernie Woodcroft Marie Ewings Coder Dojo Right Pedal Studios
22 Cieron Cody Matthew Evans Creative Conference Sea Safe
23 Cole Wilkinson Nick Drewe Idea Network Cartesian Co
24 Elaine Stead Stephen Colbran Microsoft Innovation Centre Ample Entertainment
25 Guy Jones Stephen Walsh Ollo Mobile Five Faces
26 Hans Van Vilet Sean Edwards QUT Bluebox Milaana
27 Josh Tanner Tony Lee State Library of Queensland Swipeads
28 Kieran O’Hea Adam M ASSOB Cloud DC
29 Kristen Souvils Andy Tompkins City of Gold Coast Optii Solutions
30 Tim Kastelle Ashley Pearson-Adams Wavebreak Ghostbox
METHODOLOGY
“There’s a temptation in our networked age to think
that ideas can be developed by email and iChat. That’s
crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings,
from random discussions. You run into someone, you
ask what they’re doing, you say ‘wow,’ and soon you’re
cooking up all sorts of ideas.” Steve Jobs
Network centrality is a measure of the density of a
person or organisation’s interconnectedness with a
network and density of relationships. It is a strong factor
in entrepreneurial success, and is a great indicator of
how likely you are to have spontaneous meetings and
random discussions. Also if you want to be introduced
to a particular person, someone more central in a
network will be more likely to know them.
As part of the project three workshops, one in each
region, with 66 key members of the ecosystem were
held. Participants were asked to map the community
and vote on the key people, organisations and events in
the ecosystem. The two columns above, labelled Votes,
display the community votes weighted proportionately
to the relative sizes of each region’s population and
ranked accordingly.
In addition the relationships between people within the
startup ecosystem on Linkedin, Angel List, Crunchbase
and Meetup, were aggregated and analysed using an
algorithm to calculate a network centrality score for all
the nodes in the network. There are several measures
of centrality. This report uses a common measure of
network centrality - Betweenness - to identify the top 30
people and organisations.
23

South East Queensland
LOCATION
24

Location, Place and
ENTREPRENEURIAL DENSITY
“PLACE IS SUPPLANTING THE INDUSTRIAL
CORPORATION AS THE KEY ECONOMIC
AND SOCIAL ORGANIZING UNIT OF
CAPITALISM. DENSITY, THE CLUSTERING
OF CREATIVE PEOPLE – IN CITIES,
REGIONS, AND NEIGHBOURHOODS -
PROVIDES A KEY SPUR TO INNOVATION
AND COMPETITIVENESS.”
RICHARD FLORIDA 19
No. GROUPS BY SUBURB
Brisbane
Brisbane CBD
South Bank
Robina
Fortitude Valley
Toowong
Parklands Drive
Southport
Bundall, East Brisbane, (#each)
Helensvale, Maleny, Spring Hill, (#each)
55
35
22
20
12
8
6
5
4
3
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
No. GROUPS: VENUE
State Library of Queensland / The Edge
Silicon Lakes / Robina Comnty Cntr / Tech Space
Microsoft Innovation Center
River City Labs
Brisbane Square Library
Grand Central Hotel
QUT
Red Hat Brisbane, Innovation Centre - SC
Griffith University
Toowong Library, Suncorp & Bond Uni (#each)
31
23
15
13
12
11
10
8
7
6
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
While formal office locations are useful indicators
of where creative people are based, they spend an
increasing amount of the time outside their registered
office addresses (assuming they have one at all) in
what Richard Florida calls the “4th space”: central,
easily accessible places where people can network in a
leisurely but intensively productive manner. Co-working
spaces, incubators and web cafés are examples of this
trend.
To identify these alternate spaces and map
entrepreneurial density across SEQ all the public geotagged
posts in SEQ from Meetup, Twitter, Instagram
and Linkedin were collected and filtered by people
within the ecosystem, to identify specific locations
beyond the office that participants in this ecosystem
frequent.
Brisbane Central Business District, Brisbane’s
Southbank, Robina, Fortitude Valley and Toowong come
out with the most entrepreneurial density.
25

3000000
3000000
15
FUNDING BY TECHNOLOGY
2500000
2500000
Software (web and mobile)
$108m
Software and Hardware
$14.2m
Location 2000000
2000000
Software (offline)
$1.5m
No.
Silicon
GROUPS
Chips
FOUDNED
& Semiconductors
PER YEAR BY REGION$1.0m
1500000
1500000
Software (monil only)
$1.0m
3D Printing
$0.1m
REGIONAL 1000000
1000000 DATA
Advanced Robotics
$0.1m
500000
500000
12
15
NO. GROUPS FOUNDED PER YEAR BY REGION Brisbane Gold Coast Sunshine Coast
No. GROUPS FOUDNED PER YEAR BY REGION
15
9
12
12
9
6
9
6
6
3
3
3
Digital Queensland Digital Queensland
Non-Digital Non-Digital Queensland Queensland
Digit
Non-
0
0
Digital Rest Digital of Australia Rest of Australia
Digit
2002 Q4 Q32006 Non-Digital Q4 Q3 Non-Digital Rest 2008 Q4 of Australia Rest Q2 of Australia 2009 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2010Q3
Q4 Q2 2011 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2012Q3
Q4 Q1 Q2013Q3
Q4Non-
Q1 2014Q2
Q4 Q3 Q4 Q3 Q4 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2
1500000
TOTAL FUNDING RAISED BY YEAR BY REGION ($M) Unknown Region Brisbane Gold Coast Sunshine Coast
FUNDING BY REGIONBY REGION BY REGION
ALL PROJECT FUNDING ON KICKSTARTER BY YEAR AND REGION
$25M
1200000
1500000
ALL PROJECT FUNDING ON KICKSTARTER BY YEAR AND REGION
$20M
900000
$15M
1200000
600000
$10M
300000
900000
$5M
0
600000
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
FUNDING BY TECHNOLOGY BY TECHNOLOGY BY TECHNOLOG
Software (web and mobile) (web and mobile) $108m $108m (web and mobile)
REGIONAL COMPARISONS
Software and Hardware and Hardware $14.2m $14.2m and Hardware
Software TYPE > (offline)
(offline)
ALL TECH $1.5m $1.5m (offline)
STARTUPS AVG YEARLY
300000
Silicon Chips & Semiconductors
Chips & Semiconductors $1.0mChips & Semicondu
STARTUP
Software REGION
(monil only) (monil POPULATION only) TOTAL $1.0m $1.0m AVG (monil PER #CO TOTAL AVG only)
PER #CO #CO FORMATION
3D Printing
Printing Printing
FUNDING $0.1m $0.1m FUNDING CAPITA FUNDED FUNDING FUNDING CAPITA
FUNDED RATE PER
Advanced Robotics
Robotics
$0.1m $0.1m PER YEAR FUNDING Robotics
PER YEAR FUNDING
MILLION
0
Queensland 4,680,000 $126,207,129 $22,946,751 $4.90 136 $36,706,240 $6,673,862 $1.43 245+ 99 10
South East Queensland 2,880,000 $120,701,737 $21,945,770 $7.62 129+ $35,546,046 $6,462,918 $2.24 238+ 94+ 15
No. GROUPS FOUDNED GROUPS PER FOUDNED GROUPS YEAR PER BY REGION YEAR BY REGION FOUDNED PE
Brisbane 2,040,000 $45,226,995 $8223,090 $4.03 101 $28,546,252 $5,190,228 $2.54 150+ 79 13
15 15
Gold Coast 510,000 $68,990,338 $12,543,698 $24.60 14 $2,265,214 $411,857 $0.81 60+ 5 21
Sunshine Coast 330,000 $5,284,404 $5,284,404 $2.91 13 $3,534,580 $642,651 $1.95 20+ 9 11
12
12
Other Regions 1,800,000 $5,505,392 $5,505,392 $0.56 7 $1,160,194 $210,944 $0.12 7+ 5 1
9
26
9

BRISBANE GOLD COAST SUNSHINE COAST
NO. STARTUPS
150+
Number currently based in Brisbane.
NO. STARTUPS
60+
Number currently based on the Gold Coast.
NO. STARTUPS
20+
Number currently based on the Sunshine Coast.
TOTAL DIGITAL FUNDING
$45M+
Total funding for digital technology since 2009.
TOTAL DIGITAL FUNDING
$69M
Total funding for digital technology since 2009.
TOTAL DIGITAL FUNDING
$5.3M
Total funding for digital technology since 2009.
NO. GROUPS
89
Total number of Groups in Brisbane.
NO. GROUPS
12
Total number of Groups on the Gold Coast.
NO. GROUPS
6Total number of Groups on the Sunshine Coast.
NOTABLE STARTUP: CARTESIAN CO
$130K+
ESTABLISHED STARTUP: NIMBLE
$20M
NOTABLE STARTUP: THE COMMISSION FACTORY
55%
Raised on Kickstarter.
Founded in 2009 by Ariel Briner, John Scott, Isabella
Stephens and Nick, Cartesian Co. is developing a 3D
printer for circuit boards. The team participated in
iLab’s accelerator program Germinate in 2013 and
recently successfully raised $137,356 from over 300
backers on Kickstarter for the production of their first
printer – the Argentum.
Estimated Revenue.
Founded by Greg Ellis (38) and Sean Teahan (39) in
2005, Nimble is an online micro loans service providing
over 550,000 small, fast loans of between $100 and
$1200 to clients using advanced credit risk assessment
technology. With access to more than 4,500 data
points Nimble’s risk assessment engine responds to
loan applications within hours. Previously called Cash
Doctors, Nimble is growing at nearly 50%, and recently
raised $10m in Series A funding from Acorn Capital and
Monash Investors. In 2012 they raised their first external
investment for $1.5m from super angels, and prior to
this latest round of VC funding raised ~$9 million from
angels including iSelect founder Damien Waller, iSelect
director Les Webb and Wotif executive Sam Friend.
Nimble is located in Southport on the Gold Coast and
has 84 employees.
Market Share in Southern Hemisphere.
Founded in 2011 by Zane McIntyre, Mario Johnston
and David Hayman the Commission Factory is one
of the largest Affiliate marketing platforms in the
southern hemisphere. The Commission Factory helps
attract customers to over 300 small to large sized online
retailers from across the world including David Jones,
SurfStitch, The Iconic and HSBC. The Commission
Factory experienced rapid growth shortly after
launching in mid 2011 and was profitable within one
year. The Commission Factory has around 10 staff and
was located in the Sunshine Coast Innovation Centre
before relocating to their current office in Maroochydore
in 2013 to allow for further expansion. They are
currently seeking their first external investment and
raising funds both in Australia and the US.
PEOPLE
ORGANISATIONS
Centrality rank by community votes >
Colin Kinner
iLab
Peter Laurie
River City Labs
John Mactaggart Brisbane Angels
Anna Rooke
Startup Weekend - Bris
Ruth Drinkwater Assoc. Angel Investors
Peta Ellis
Aust Centre Entreprnrshp
Ian Connor
Arts QLD
Richard Moore
QUT
Sue Swinburne
Silicon Beach - Brisbane
Christy Dena
Startup QLD
PEOPLE
ORGANISATIONS
Centrality rank by community votes >
Aaron Birkby
Founders Forum
Steve Dalton
Gold Coast Angels
Clarence Tan
Silicon Lakes
Rick McElhinney ASSOB
Tanya Lipus
City of Gold Coast
Bryan Vadas
Wavebreak
Rick Anstey
Chamber of Comrce - GC
Sharon Hunneybell Silicon Beach - GC
Ruth Drinkwater Startup Weekend - GC
David Novakovic TechConnect
PEOPLE
ORGANISATIONS
Centrality rank by community votes >
Dean Alle
Innovation Centre - SC
Mark Paddenburg Startup Weekend - SC
Russel Mason
Ted x Noosa
Ben Duncan
MRDA SC
Michael Whereat SC Local Council
Matt Forman
Chamber of Comrce - SC
Nigel Hall
Noosa Boardroom
Anne Lawrence Cloud Biz
Craig Josic
Uni of Sunshine Coast
David Novakovic TechConnect
27

Target market of startups
MARKETS
TARGET MARKET OF STARTUPS COMPARED TO TOP 20 QUEENSLAND INDUSTRIES
Construction
Mining, Energy & Resources
Ownership of Dwellings
Health Care & Social Assistance
Manufacturing
Transport, Postal & Warehousing
Public Admin, Defence & Safety
Finance & Insurance Services
Professional, Scientific & Technical Services
Wholesale Trade
Retail Trade
Education & Training
Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing
Electricity Gas, Water & Waste Services
Rental, Hiring & Real Estate Services
Accommodation & Food Services
Administrative & Support Services
Information Media & Telecommunications
Other & Unknown Services
Arts & Recreation Services
20% 10%
5% 0
5%
10%
PERCENTAGE OF STARTUPS
TARGETING INDUSTRY
APPROX. PERCENTAGE OF QLD GSP
FROM INDUSTRY
2012-2013 29
28

Target market and product type of startups
PRODUCT
NUMBER OF
STARTUPS
BY TARGET
MARKET &
PRODUCT TYPE
ARTS & RECREATION SERVICES
INFO MEDIA & TELECOMMUNICATIONS
HEALTH CARE & SOCIAL ASSISTANCE
PROFESSIONAL & TECHNICAL SERVICES
FINANCE & INSURANCE SERVICES
RETAIL TRADE
ADVERTISING SERVICES*
ADMINISTRATIVE & SUPPORT SERVICES
EDUCATION & TRAINING
ELECTRICITY GAS & WATER SERVICES
CLOTHING & FOOTWARE RETAILING*
Game 26 26 12
Marketplace 2 2 1 2 1 4 3 2 2 1 1 1 22 10
Communication 9 1 1 2 2 15 7
Health 14 14 6
Productivity 1 6 2 1 1 1 12 5
Financial or payment 8 1 1 1 11 5
Advertising 1 2 1 5 1 10 4
Analytics 2 3 3 1 1 10 4
Education 1 1 1 5 8 4
Sport 7 7 3
Developer tool 3 1 1 5 2
Ecommerce 1 4 5 2
Electronics 3 1 1 5 2
Media & news 4 1 5 2
Social 4 1 5 2
Photo, video & audio 3 1 4 2
Transportation 3 1 4 2
Daily deals 2 1 3 1
Publishing 3 3 1
Tourism 1 2 3 1
3D printing 1 1 2 1
Infrastructure 1 1 2 1
Music 2 2 1
Safety 1 1 2 1
Security 2 2 1
Storage 2 2 1
Wearable 1 1 2 1
Graphics Engine 1 1 0
Other or Unknown 1 33 34 15%
TOTAL (COUNT) 43 42 17 12 11 11 8 7 6 5 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 1 34 226 100
Total (%) 19 19 8 5 5 5 4 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 15 100
TRANSPORT, POSTAL & WAREHOUSING
CONSTRUCTION
FOOD & BEVERAGE SERVICES*
PUBLIC ADMIN, DEFENCE & SAFETY
RENTAL & REAL ESTATE SERVICES
TRAVEL & TOURISM SERVICES*
ACCOMMODATION & FOOD SERVICES
AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY & FISHING
MANUFACTURING
MINING, ENERGY & RESOURCES
OTHER & UNKNOWN SERVICES
TOTAL (COUNT)
TOTAL (%)
*Sub-sector of “Professional & Technical Services.” **Sub-sector of “Retail Trade.” ***Sub-sector of “Arts & Recreation Services.”
29

Disruptive technologies vs #startups
TECHNOLOGY
DISRUPTIVE DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES - POTENTIAL ECONOMIC IMPACT WITHIN QUEENSLAND VS No. STARTUPS
0 20 40 60 80 100
Automation of Knowledge Work
Construction
Mobile Internet
Mining
The Internet of Things
Ownership of Dwellings
Advanced Robotics
are and Social Assistance
Cloud Technology
Manufacturing
Autonomous and Near-Autonomous Vehicles
rt, Postal and Warehousing
3D Printing
Adminstration and Safety
ce and Insurance Services
50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0 $10 $20 $30 $40 $50
ific and Technical Services
Wholesale Trade
Retail Trade
Education and Training
Agriculture
PERCENTAGE OF
STARTUPS DEVELOPING
DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY
ESTIMATED POTENTIAL ECONOMIC
IMPACT IN MILLIONS *
*Estimated potential economic impact of technologies
within Queensland in 2025 based on the McKinsey
Institute’s 2013 report Disruptive Technologies:
Advances That Will Transform Life, Business, And
The Global Economy. Note these estimates do not
represent GDP or market size (revenue), but rather
economic potential, including consumer surplus. They
are not directly additive due to partially overlapping
applications and/or value drivers across technologies. 9
Water and Waste Services
l and Real Estate Services
Administrative Services
Communication
odation and Food Services
Other Services
and Recreational Services
30

The role of the arts in Queensland startups
THE ARTS
#ARTS STARTUPS
43
Number of startups focussed on the Arts & Recreation
Services market or developing tools that fall under the
creative arts, including music, photography, video,
publishing, tourism and computer games.
#STARTUPS IN THE ARTS BY PRODUCT TYPE
Digital Games
Sport
Publishing
Music
Marketplace
Graphics
Advertising
Productivity
Queensland has a high proportion of startups focussed
on serving the Arts & Recreation Services market - 43
startups out of the total 226 startups identified within
Queensland, or 19% of all startups.
The vast majority of these are Digital Game studios a
developing their own content. Twenty six games studios
in total or 12% of all startups, and over half of arts
focussed startups. As it’s the largest product category
the report goes into games studios in greater detail on
the following pages.
If Digital Games are excluded from the Arts, the number
of arts related startups falls to 17 or 8% of all startups.
Under the Australian and New Zealand Standard
Industrial Classification (ANZSIC), Sports (7 startups
or 3% of all startups) are included within the Arts &
Recreation Services industry, if these are then excluded
from the arts just 10 startups remain that target the
creative arts - 4% of all startups.
Within these 10 startups the most notable is We Are
Hunted, a music discovery and recommendation
platform that was acquired by Twitter in late 2012 for an
undisclosed sum. The We Are Hunted team then led the
development of Twitter’s #Music service, before it was
closed down in early 2014.
a. “Digital Games” studios or developers do not have
a seperate classification within the ANZSIC industry
classification. The ABS states “there is no specific
ANZSIC class for digital game development... [they]
have been found to be predominantly coded to ANZSIC
class 7000 (Computer system design and related
services).” - a subset of “Professional, Scientific and
Technical Services.” However the ABS analyses them
alongside Film & television broadcasters in their recent
publication “Film, Television and Digital Games,
Australia, 2011-12”, 30 a subset of “Information Media
& Telecommunications.” Within this report the market
focus of Digital Games Studios are categorised as “Arts
& Recreation Services”.
26
7
3
2
2
1
1
1
FUNDING BY TARGET MARKET - ALL TECH ($M)
Arts & Recreation Services $51.8
Finance & Insurance Services $22.3
Information Media & Telecommunications $21.9
Public Admin, Defence & Safety $5.6
Advertising Services $4.6
Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing $4.4
Health Care & Social Assistance $3.2
Education & Training $2.9
Professional, Scientific & Technical Services $2.8
Construction $2.0
Unknown $1.7
Retail Trade $1.2
Mining, Energy & Resources $0.4
Clothing & Footware Retailing $0.4
Administrative & Support Services $0.4
Entertainment, Tourism & Sport $0.3
Manufacturing $0.1
Rental, Hiring & Real Estate Services $0.02
Transport, Postal & Warehousing $0.01
While not a startup, the music service Guvera is also
a notable digital technology company within the arts
sector, given its $45m in funding over the past 5 years.
The company has stated it recently secured a deal with
Lenovo to be pre-installed in all Lenovo smartphones.
Liquid State is also notable having secured a place
in Berlin accelerator, Startup Bootcamp, and raised
~$800K from CA, Angel and the accelerator.
Another startup of interest is Hirehive, a peer to peer
marketplace for filmmakers to share equipment - this
is perhaps one of the few startups focussed solely on
directly serving creatives within the Arts & Recreation
Services industry.
Funding
In terms of funding the Arts & Recreation Services
market attracted the greatest funding across all digital
technology companies and startups, with 41% of all
funding - primarily driven by Guvera’s funding. Exclude
this and it falls to fifth or sixth on the ranking for all
digital technology companies. Funding for arts startups
was $3.8m - a little over 10% of all startup funding.
In terms of funding sources, three Arts organisations;
the NSW Government Interactive Media Fund, Screen
Australia, and Creative Enterprise Australia; provided
3% of all digital technology funding, or $3.7m in total.
This funding was primarily made up of a $3m grant
from the NSW Government Interactive Media Fund to
Defiant Development - a game studio.
FUNDING BY TARGET MARKET - STARTUPS ($M)
Information Media & Telecommunications $12.2
Finance & Insurance Services $4.0
Advertising Services $4.0
Arts & Recreation Services $3.8
Health Care & Social Assistance $2.3
Construction $1.8
Professional, Scientific & Technical Services $1.7
Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing $1.4
Unknown $1.3
Public Admin, Defence & Safety $1.2
Retail Trade $1.1
Education & Training $0.9
Mining, Energy & Resources $0.4
Clothing & Footware Retailing $0.4
Administrative & Support Services $0.4
Rental, Hiring & Real Estate Services $0.02
Transport, Postal & Warehousing $0.01
Support
In terms of arts organisations that support the startup
sector the key organisation identified was the State
Library of Queensland and specifically the Edge, a
creative / hacker type space within the library. Thirty
one out of 109 digital technology related groups happen
within the library - 28% of all meetup groups identified
within the state.
31

Pandemic Stud
Games, Games, and
MORE GAMES
Below is a summarised network map of the most central
people and organisations within Queensland’s Games
sector. It includes active, closed and acquired Game
Studios. Both those developing their own IP (Startups)
and those making games for clients. Connecting lines
represent professional relationships (past and present)
such as employee, founder or director. The whole
network can be seen in the top right of the following
page.
In analysing the full network of people employed by
gaming companies Krome Studios comes out most
central, with 50% of the entire network connected to
Krome by 3 steps: 1st step is to an employee of Krome,
2nd step to ‘other’ companies the same employee has
worked for and a 3rd to the employees of the ‘other’
companies. In this way half of the entire sector is
connected to Krome. The graph gives a small taste of the
long-term impact of a large pioneer on an ecosystem.
The summarised graph shows the interconnection
between core game studios in the middle dominated by
Krome, Pandemic and Arun, and the relationship of these
studios with movie-related studios on the far left, 3D
animation studios second from left and to the right the
commercialisation of gaming technology within services
such as advertising and gambling platforms that employ
gaming approaches.
Griffith University
Guy Blomberg
Simon Dye
QLD University
of Technology
Ratbag Games
Cutting Edge
Sega
THQ
Randy Vellacott
Photon VFX
Rising Sun Pictures
Alex Drummond
Animal Logic
MOVIE INDUSTRY
3D ANIMATION
KROME STUDIOS - ESTABLISHED
Founded in 1999 by Robert Walsh, Steve Stamatiadis
and John Passfield, Krome has created over 19 titles -
both their own IP and for clients. They are best known
for Ty the Tasmanian Tiger and in 2010 ranked 52 in the
Develop 100 list, placing them alongside studios such
as LucasArts, Blizzard and EA. From 2010 to 2012 they
experienced difficulties - closing their Adelaide studio
and cutting staff in Melbourne and Brisbane. In 2012
they reopened after being dormant since 2010.
PANDEMIC STUDIOS - CLOSED
Founded in 1998 with an equity investment by
Activision this US-Australian game studio had offices in
Los Angeles, California and Brisbane. In 2000 Andrew
Payne and Adam Iarossi left the LA studio to start the
satellite studio in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane. In 2007
Electronic Arts acquired Pandemic’s parent company
VG Holdings for $860m USD, and shortly afterwards
closed Pandemic in 2009.
HALFBRICK STUDIOS - ESTABLISHED
Founded in 2001 by Shainiel Deo, Halfbrick is one of
the most recognised independent studios worldwide
with games such as Fruit Ninja, Jetpack Joyride,
Monster Dash and Age of Zombies. Since being
released in 2010, their blockbuster title Fruit Ninja,
has been downloaded by over 500 million users, was
number two on the list of the top all-time paid iPhone
apps, and grosses more than $1m a month.
32

TOP COMMUNITY ISSUES: RANKED BY WEIGHTED VOTES
KICKSTARTER QLD
Video Games
Product Design
Technology
3D Printing
Documentary
Animation
Tabletop Games
Design
Pop
Accessories
Illustration
Music
Live Games
Fiction
Painting
Webseries
Food
People
Rock
Comics
Young Adult
Publishing
Architecture
$1,076,266
$160,230
$137,829
$137,356
$61,825
$38,089
$37,859
$23,746
$20,660
$14,043
$10,246
$9,368
$7,528
$7,090
$6,225
$5,517
$5,325
$3,934
$3,115
$2,796
$2,506
$2,226
$2,040
70 80
Krome Studios
POZIBLE
ios
Auran Games
Halfbrick Studios
Film
Eyecon
Music
Performance
Community
Writing
Design
Art
Event
Photography
Social Enterprise
Comics
Video
Fashion
Food & Drink
Other
Journalism
Technology
Research
Craft
$316,574
$312,822
$180,488
$135,195
$107,652
$84,045
$71,791
$44,184
$40,532
$37,160
$30,360
$30,046
$24,849
$24,045
$12,226
$11,640
$5,737
$3,480
$160
GAMES CGI SERVICES GAMBLING
DEFIANT DEVELOPMENT - STARTUP
Defiant is a Brisbane-based game development studio
founded in 2010 by Dan Treble and Morgan Jaffit.
Defiant has released a number of best selling games
for iOS and Android including Ski Safari, Heroes Call
and Rocket Bunnies. Their games have secured Apple’s
lucrative Game of the Week spot, and Ski Safari has
been the Number 1 Game in over 65 countries.
GAMING STARTUPS
26+
Queensland has a vibrant community of indie game
studios and developers, with a games studio seed
accelerator and over 38 studios building their own
games for distribution on mobile and web platforms,
26 of which this report classified as “startups”.
COMPUTER GAME SALES
AUSTRALIA
31,32,33
$3B
$2B
$1.5B $1.61B
2011 2012 2013 2017
33

Startup
PEOPLE
Founders of Startup companies,
people within key support
organisations and others
that have made a tangible
contribution to the ecosystem.*
Aaron Birkby
Aaron Gillet
Abdul Alabri
Adam McGill
Adam Gallagher
Adam Humphrey
Adam Samuel
Adam Williams
Adrian Di Marco
Adrian Seeto
Adrian Stein
Adrian Turner
Adum Blunn
Aisha Bradshaw
Alan Johnson
Alan Noble
Alex Adsett
Alex Naghavi
Alex Norton
Alex Sharp
Alex Streit
Alexander Lotersztain
Alexandra Higgins
Allan Murnane
Amanda Shadforth
Amandeep Kang
Andrea Martins
Andrew Brown
Andrew Duval
Andrew Lang
Andrew Boud
Andrew Brett
Andrew Buckle
Andrew Duval
Andrew Fern
Andrew Gibb
Andrew Howarth
Andrew Lane
Andrew Leask
Andrew Liveris
Andrew Loch
Andrew Longhorn
Andrew Ryan
Andy Garman
Andy Harvey
Andy Jane
Andy Nematalla
Angela Lisle
Angie Dunbavan
Anna Rooke
Annabel Candy
Anne Lawrence
Anne Maree Cotterell
Anne-Marie Birkill
Anoushka Schollay
Ant Mckenna
Anthony McClean
Anthony O’Dempsey
Anthony Wood
Antti Sarela
April Forbs
Ariel Briner
Artem Kulakov
Avril Jean
Baden Uren
Barry Eager
Belinda Noakes
Ben Duncan
Ben Amos
Ben Chong
Ben Cooper
Ben Duncan
Ben Grubb
Ben Hamley
Ben Harrison
Ben Hauser
Ben Howe
Ben Johnston
Ben Maggacis
Ben Manderville-Clarke
Ben Vale
Benjamin Forday
Benjamin Harrop
Bernie Woodcroft
Bili Potter
Bill Bartee
Bill Bass
Bill McKeague
Billy Bowyer
Birgit Lohmann
Bjorn Rust
Bob Dunne
Bob Christiansen
Bob Christiens
Bob Eather
Bob Waldie
Brent Watts
Brett Adams
Brett Buckland
Brett Caird
Brett Hales
Brett McCallum
Brian Finn
Brian Keayan
Brian Keayes
Brian Ruddle
Brock Aspalnd
Brock Hamilton
Brook Kitson
Brooke Marsh
Bruce Green
Bryan Vadas
Buzz Usborne
Cameron Cross
Cameron Owen
Carl Jackson
Carolyn Bullen
Casey Lightbody
Cassandra Head
Cat Matson
Catherine MacAdam
Catherine Kitney
Channon Goodwin
Charles Hodgson
Chi-Han Hsu
Chris Nave
Chris Richards
Chris Cameron
Chris Drake
Chris Durrer
Chris Eldridge
Chris Guthrie
Chris Macaulay
Chris McKenzie
Christian Jones
Christian King
Christy Dena
Cieron Cody
Claes Loberg
Claire Rowland
Clarence Tan
Clint Thomson
Cohen Hyde
Cole Wilkinson
Colin Kinner
Colin Graham
Collin Guinness
Cr Glenn Tozer
Craig Aspinall
Craig Deveson
Craig Josic
Craig Mason
Craig Morrison
Cynthia Macnee
Dale Trickett
Daley Pearson
Damien King
Dan Mckinnon
Dan Norris
Dan Treble
Dan Vogt
Daniel Deeney
Daniel Filmer
Danielle Bennett
Danielle Duell
Danielle Neale
Danni Zuvela
Danny Hood
Danny Maher
Darcy Naunton
Darren Herft
Darryl Redding
Dave Metcalf
David Cotton
David Bartlett
David Bycroft
David Foster
David Ives
David Novakovic
David Ryan
David Shaw
David Zwierzchaczewski
Dean Alle
Dean Shannon
Deiter Bohm
Derek Stephens
Des Jaobson
Dion Klein
Donna Moritz
Dr John Kapeleris
Dr Michael Blumstein
Dr. Rowan Gilmore
Drew Wackley
Duncan Curtis
Duncan Schultz
Duncan Thompson
Dylan Street
Elaine Stead
Elliot Smith
Emily Craven
Emma Milikins
Ferdinand Kreozot
Fran Leman
Fraser O’Keefe
Gareth Gower
Gary Christian
Gary Mays
Gavin Tomlins
Gavin Keeley
Gavin Kremor
Geoff Moller
Geoff Schrader
George Fidler
Gidean Shalwick
Glen Bunney
Glen Conventon
Glenn Corbet
Glenn Wilkinson
Gordon Cooper
Gordon Moyes
Graham Berman
Graham Edelsten
Graham Rodgers
Graham Wood
Grant Ferry
Grant Mason
Greg Barnet
Greg Beaver
Greg Burnett
Greg Ellis
Greg Hallam
Greg Laverty
Greg Searle
Greg Tuckwell
Guilio Rovera
Guy Jones
Hans Van Vilet
Hany Pham
Hollie Gordon
Hugh Geiger
Ian Noy
Ian Wright
Ian Connor
Ian Crawley
Ian Mayfield
Ian Sampson
Ingamur Lak
Iqbal Singh
Ivan Kenny-Sumiga
Jack Gillespie
Jai Mitchell
James Banks
James Colquhorn
James Davidson
James Klobasa
James Paulson
James Podesta
James Turner
Janette Wright
Jarrad Laursen
Jason Bird
Jason Cook
Jason Seed
Jason Seeto
Jason Spencer
Javin Wood
Jaz Choi
Jed Carey
Jeff McDermit
Jeff Rogers
Jeff Van Dyck
Jeremy Colless
Jeremy Herbert
Jessica Ainscough
Jessica Huddart
Jillian Kenny
Jim Kalokekinos
Jimmi Bradbury
Jo Procter
Jo Rosier
Jo Ucukalo
Jock Blair
Jodi Cleghorn
Joe Brumm
Joe Hayes
John Bartlett
John Dobson
John Goleby
John Hughes
John Hummelstad
John Jessop
John Mactaggart
John Miles
John Nicholls
John Passfield
John Puttick
John Rivett
John Swete Kelly
Jon Ferrara
Jordan Green
Jörg Strobel
Jose Maria Ravalo
Joseph Glanville
Josh Smith
Josh Tanner
Josh Williams
Joshua Tanchel
Juhani von Hellens
Julian Price
Julien Cahn
Justin Brown
Justin Morrissey
Kane Bradshaw
Karen Bracher
Karen Gawen
Kat McArthur
Kate Tuxford
Kate Edwards
Kate Pryde
Kath Massey
Kaylene Langford
Keith Armstrong
Keith Duncan
Keith Grisman
Kerry Esson
Kerry Finch
Kevin Gosschalk
Kevin Grove
Kevin Wright
Kieran Lord
Kieran O’Hea
Kieran O’tter
Kim Castel
Kirsten Baulch
Kobus Haupt
Kris Trott
Krishna Everson
Kristen Souvils
Kyle Burch
Kyle McGinty
Lara Murray
Laughlin Rigby
Lauren Clemett
Laurie Hammond
34

Lawrence English
Lee Waters
Leigh Angus
Lexie Dostal
Liam Casey
Liam O’Sullivan
Libby Sander
Lindsay Parmenter
Lisa Harrison
Liz Gaskin
Liz O’Rourke
Louis Oswald
Louise O’Donnell
Lubi Thomas
Luke Anear
Luke Brannelly
Luke Humble
Luke MacDonald
Luke Muscat
Luke Swetman
Lynne Banford
Macushla Montell
Madeleine King
Madeline Veenstra
Malcolm McBratney
Malcolm Thompson
Malcom Brough
Manual Papas
Marcus Fielding
Marcus Ford
Marcus Foth
Marcus Holland
Margerietha Scheepers
Mario Johnston
Mario Pennisi
Marion Horsington
Mark Harrison
Mark Bathie
Mark Batten
Mark Cassidy
Mark Coates
Mark Cracknell
Mark David Ryan
Mark Dowling
Mark Ferris
Mark Furler
Mark Gill
Mark Harvey
Mark Leckenby
Mark McCalliog
Mark Paddenburg
Mark Phillips
Mark Rainbird
Mark Richardson
Mark Sowersby
Mark Warnick
Mark White
Marko Grgic
Martin Brady
Martin Mankowski
Matt Bush
Matt Forman
Matt Hall
Matthew Beaumont
Matthew Ford
Matthew Seeto
Matthew Snowden
Max Grant
Meg Summers
Melanie Summer
Melissa Reid
Melody Rodgers
Mentor Panel (IC)
Meyrick Adams
Michael Shadforth
Michael Whereat
Michael Angus
Michael Bloomstein
Michael Finney
Michael Frizell
Michael Griffin
Michael Molloy
Michael Morris
Michael Murtagh
Michael Otway
Michael Puls
Michael Stevens
Michael Whereat
Michelle Kazukaitis
Mik Dobele
Mike Avey
Mike Clements
Mike Cunningham
Mike Hefferan
Mike Hulbert
Min Collie Holmes
Morgan Jaff
Morgan Jaffit
Nadene Townsend
Nadine Bates
Nathan Challen
Nathan Hoad
Nathan Mayfield
Neil McNulty
Neil Rainey
Nic Gomez
Nicholas Mathiou
Nicholas Wood
Nicole Millard
Nigel Hall
Nikki Parkinson
Niranjan Bidargaddi
Nkosana Mafico
Nora Kinnunen
Owen Warhurst
Pamela Wardner
Paul Barrs
Paul Beaver
Paul Cooper
Paul Gillett (Flux)
Paul Graham
Paul Hamilton
Paul Jansz
Paul L’Estrange
Paul Lange
Paul Martins
Paul McNab
Paul Neiderer
Paul StapelBerg
Paul Steer
Paul Turner
Pauline O’Sullivan
Per Davidsson
Persis Anderson
Peta Ellis
Peter Ball
Peter Devine
Peter Riddles
Peter Bradd
Peter Davison
Peter Grant
Peter Kable
Peter Laurie
Peter Lavcio
Peter Lions
Peter Lorre
Peter Stack
Peter Wakim
Peter Woodward
Petrina Buckley
Phil Johnson
Phil Larsen
Phil Reardon
Phillip Andrews
Piero Dametto
Prasant Moorthy
Prof. Andrew Brown Griffith
Prof. Bhesh Bhandari
Rainine Darabiha
Ralph Rogers
Ramine Darabiha
Randal Makin
Ray Turner
Rebecca McIntosh
Rebecca Wilson
Reg Williams
Reinard Van Der Leij
Retha Scheepers
Richard Moore
Richard Neal
Richard Robinson
Rick Anstey
Rick Hoy
Rick McElhinney
Ricky Robinson
Rob Hinds
Rob Littler
Robert Blackman
Robert Collins
Robert Walsh
Robert Wriedt
Robin Nixon
Robin Ormerod
Robyn Littlejohn
Rod Bloom
Rod Richards
Ronnie McKenzie
Ross Balbuziente
Ross Cockburn
Ross Hepworth
Ross Patane
Rowan Schindler
Rowena Ryan
Russel Mason
Russell Bullen
Russell Mason
Ruth Drinkwater
Sacha (Alex) Voevodin
Sally Ernst
Sam Bevis
Sam Friend
Sam Winter
Sami Malia
Samuel Cartwright
Samuel Clifton
Sanatana Mishra
Sandra Mau
Sandy Zubrinich
Sarina Quinlan
Sarina Quintan Fetch
Scott Breust
Scott Duffield
Scott Hamilton
Scott Maidment
Scott McTaggart
Scott Standen
Sean Bannister
Sean Buchanan
Sean Pringle
Sean Bannister
Sean Edwards
Sean Parsons
Shainiel Deo
Shane Davis
Shane Morgan
Sharon Hunneybell
Sharon Schoenborn
Sheng Yeo
Simon Budden
Simon Ambrose
Simon Groth
Simon Jupe
Simon Lydiard
Simon Newstead
Soenke Weiss
Sonja Ceri
Sonya Henderson
Stephen Goodall
Stephen Beirne
Stephen Colbran
Stephen Neate
Stephen O’brien
Stephen Phillips
Stephen Robinson
Stephen Tait
Stephen Wilson
Steve Baxter
Steve Dalton
Steve Dunn
Steve Huff
Steve Stamatiadis
Steve Walsh
Steve Weston
Steve Williams
Stewart Gow
Sue Swinburne
Surya Graf
Susan Oliver
Susanne Bransgrove
Tahnee Lambrechtsen
Tanya Lipus
Tarun Bastiampillai
Terence Lee
The Core Team
The Edge SLQ
The Mentor Group
Thom Saunders
Tim Eldridge
Tim Dawson
Tim Heasley
Tim Kastelle
Tim Marchington
Tim Melvich
Tim Warwick
Timothy Marks
Tina Souvlis
Tjitze Meter
Toby Gifford
Tom Murphy
Tom Adams
Tom McArthur
Tom White
Tony Chadwick
Tony Wheeler
Tony Winters
Tracey Robertson
Traci Castle
Travis Dewan
Trent Lund
Trent Sampson
Troy Bates
Troy Haines
Tsu Shan Chambers
Tyler Crowley
Vera Dean
Veronika Bilkova
Vicki Johnson
Victor Vicario
Vincenzo Pignatelli
Vivienne Anthon
Warren Buffet
Warrick Bidwell
Wayne Gerard
Wayne McFetridge
Will Wilson
Winston Hall
Woodley Nye
Yolanda Vega
Yvette Adams
Zach Johnson
Zane McIntyre
Zoe Wyatt
* Queensland Government
employees have been excluded
from the list.
35

Frequent Founders and
SERIAL ENTREPRENEURS
People or groups of people within the ecosystem
that have founded multiple companies. This does not
necessarily represent financial value created.
STEVE DALTON
Share Your Love
Gold Coast TechSpace
Refactor
secluded.io
GC Tech Shop
Dalton Technology
Sensaware
AARON BIRKBY
Coded Intelligence
Internet Here
SenseHubly
Arinda Internet
App Start Studios
The Chat Room
Aptek
Beyond The Black Stump Productions
Silicon Lakes
AVRIL JEAN
Smooth Operator
Creature Creative
Neo Media Networks
STEPHEN NEATE
Subtle Difference
My Sunshine Coast
Brolga Real Estate
KRISTY OUWERKERK
Veilability
Wedding Village
Toto Solutions
PETRINA BUCKLEY
PAUL JONES
Credosity
Last Thursday Club
Magneto Communications
MARK WHITE
Greencloud Labs
Mobile Monday Brisbane
Locatrix Communications
STEVE BAXTER
Right Pedal Studios
River City Labs
Transition Level Investments
PIPE Networks
SENet (ISP)
TRISTAN MATTHIAS
PAUL KNITTEL
Documaps.io
Pixler Webdesign
FlowPro
STEVE BAXTER
Stephen is one of Queensland most active investors
through his seed fund Transition Level Investments,
and also one of the most active founders, having
founded both River City Labs (technology co-working
space) and Right Pedal Studios (seed accelerator for
game studios). He is currently a board member and
advisor to several companies including ASX listed
Vocus Communications, and investor in many startups
including txt4coffee, TrekTraka, goCatch, OrionVM and
Atomo Diagnostics.
At age 15 (1986) Steve joined the army serving for nine
years (1995) working on electronics, & whilst still in
the army at age 23 (1994) he convinced his fiancée to
invest their $11,000 savings (which was to be a deposit
on their first home) into building an ISP in their rented
house using six telephone lines and grew it to the 7th
largest ISP in Australia at the time. His company was
acquired by Ozemail just before the dot com bust of
the early 2000s. After taking a year off to fish he cofounded
PIPE Networks in 2001 with Bevan Slattery,
which floated with a $14m market cap. PIPE was later
acquired by TPG Telecom for $373m.
AARON BIRKBY
Aaron is one of the founders at Silicon Lakes
(incubator), founder at App Start Studios (app
development company), and founder of Coded
Intelligence (a remote telemetry monitor system for
amusement rides and vending machines). Aaron was
also a founding Director for 8 years at Arinda Internet,
a business that specialises in internet kiosks, wireless
hotspots and digital wireless advertising systems, prior
to selling it in late 2012. He has been involved in
setting up numerous other IT start-ups, including Web
Site Writers, Softcom Consulting, The Chat Room, and
Perfect World.
Before moving to the Gold Coast in 2004, he was the
A/g Manager of Intelligence Systems for Customs in
Canberra, had various intelligence roles in the National
Crime Authority, NSW Crime Commission, and was
a Consultant at PwC in Sydney. He has a Bachelor of
Science (Physics and Mathematics) from the UNSW,
and a Bachelor of Law from the University of New
England.
STEVE DALTON
Steve founded Secluded.io a sensor platform for remote
areas in 2014. Prior to this he co-founded Sensaware
(formerly Rehydrate), a wearable device that assists
rural fire-fighters to stay hydrated, and one of the
winners at the first Gold Coast Startup Weekend in
2013. Steve founded Gold Coast Tech shop in 2012 a
marketplace for Open Source & hackable hardware such
as Arduino, Electronics kits & Raspberry PIs. Since
2006 he has been an organiser for Barcamp Queensland
(a meetup group), is a Silicon Lakes Ambassador, and
recently started the very popular Lego workshops for
kids, held in the School holidays. He originally studied
at the University of Birmingham from 1992-96.
36

KEVIN GOSSCHALK
CHRIS MACAULAY
MATTHEW FORD
SwipeAds
Secure Skateboards
JOHN PASSFIELD
Right Pedal Studios
3 Blokes Studios
Krome Studios
Red Sprite Studios
LUKE BRANNELLY
V2i Pty Ltd
3Dme Creative Studio
V2i Mining & Resources
AVARDI
CRAIG DEVESON
Cloud Manager
Devnet
DVSGroup
cloudsafe365
GERARD DOYLE
Zippy.com.au
Lead Galaxy
DiscountVouchers.co.uk
BDS.com.au
CHRIS HOOPER
GEOFF KWITKO
Cirillo Hooper& Company
the startup club
EcoLivingScene.com.au
CHRIS DRAKE
Elastice
uCrack iFix
Viscous Solutions
Summer Drift Group
GINO DE PASQUALE
dp dialogue
De Pasquale Advertising
The Authentic Executive
Dojo Wellness Experience
NKOSANA HUMPHREY MAFICO
NICHOLAS JENKINS
Academic Technologies
PeeP Digital
B2K Gardening
GERARD DOYLE
In late 2013 Gerard founded BDS.com.au - a mobile
marketing and daily-deals service after his original
company Zippy (founded in 2009) merged with
Qwibble. In 2011 Gerard worked in the UK as
CEO for DiscountVouchers.co.uk (currently 100m+
revenue). Discount Vouchers was founded by Doug
Scott, one of the UK’s leading angel investors and a
serial entrepreneur himself, who provided funding
for BDS through his seed fund Potential. Prior to
working at Discount Vouchers, Gerard had a range of
executive roles at UK daily deals and affiliate marketing
companies. In 2005 he founded Lead Galaxy, a
marketplace for UK property investors.
CHRIS DRAKE
Chris founded Elastice, a service to democratise the
pricing and discount process for e-commerce stores,
Viscous Solutions (an e-commerce consulting firm),
uCrack iFix (a smartphone repair business that has
expanded to include several online stores that drop-ship
products internationally). He is a member of River City
Labs, participated in iLab’s Germinate program, was
a speaker at TEDxUQ, and is an organiser of a student
entrepreneurship conference to be held in July 2014
(Global Innovative Youth Conference).
JOHN PASSFIELD
John is currently the program manager for Right Pedal
Studios and has founded a number of games companies
including Krome Studios, 3 Blokes Studios and Red
Sprite Studios. He was the creative director of Pandemic
Studios, VP of Rockyou, and has led the creative
direction on a number of Facebook titles including
Brainiversity, Hospital Town, Virtual Villagers, Galactic
Trader, Galactic Allies, and Save Our Village.
37

Research $3,480
Craft
$160
Issues & Actions
COMMUNITY IDEAS
COMPUTER GAME SALES
As part of the project, workshops
$2B
and interviews
were
$1.5B
held with $1.61B key members of the SEQ ecosystem.
Participants were asked to discuss, identify and
vote on “which issues were critical to the growth of
Queensland’s
2011
startup
2012
ecosystem”,
2013
and the actions
2017
which
would address these challenges. Votes are weighted
proportionately by the relative sizes of each region’s
population. The top ten issues in order of total weighted
votes from all regions were:
TOP COMMUNITY ISSUES:
RANKED TOP COMMUNITY BY WEIGHTED ISSUES: VOTES RANKED BY WEIGHTED VOTES
Raise Awareness
Education
Culture
Funding
Government Policy
Collaboration & Networking
Procurement
Infrastructure
Talent & Skills
Leadership
3. CULTURE
Participants from all regions said a culture of
entrepreneurship and innovation needs to be developed
within Australia if we are to create globally-relevant
technology companies. Specific cultural themes
that inhibited innovative entrepreneurship included:
Australia’s natural modesty; the tall poppy syndrome;
lack of forgiveness of business failure; aversion to
risk taking; male dominance of the technology sector;
little understanding of the impacts of technology on
economies and culture; little understanding of the global
role of technology innovation; default to ‘employeeship’
job rather than entrepreneurship; entrepreneurs thinking
beyond local markets; and entrepreneurs having a
boldness of ambition. While developing the culture of
entrepreneurship and innovation within Australia comes
in third on the ranking, in many ways it underpins the
challenges faced within all the other issues discussed.
4. FUNDING INNOVATION
Across all regions access to early-stage funding ranked
as a critical challenge for startups, the shortage of
funding being particularly pronounced at the angel,
seed and Series A stages - growth funding being more
accessible due to the proven nature of the startups at
this stage. Securing globally-comparable valuations for
startups within SEQ at any stage is difficult and forces
many startups to look for funding in the US or Europe.
TOP 5. GOVERNMENT POLICY
1. RAISE COMMUNITY AWARENESS ACTIONS: RANKED BY WEIGHTED VOTES
For Education the sector Program to grow and play a substantive role in the 1
Australian Form Leadership economy Group there needs to be greater awareness 2
of the startup ecosystem, the economic impact of high
Startup Apprentice
3
growth startups, and the impact of technology on the
nation. Highlight Raising Success awareness Stories is also a critical factor in 4
most Collaboration of the following & Networking issues - especially attracting 5
investment, facilitating regulatory change, attracting
Attract Talent
6
greater participation in entrepreneurship, developing
a Communication national culture Hub of high-growth entrepreneurship, 7
and Govt drawing Incentive more - Investment students to study the core STEM 8
courses
Hub
required for technology innovation. Participants
9
identified celebrating the success of startups as a key
issue NBN for Advocacy the growth Group of both the startup ecosystem and 10
national economy.
2. EDUCATION FOR ALL
$3B
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Across all regions education, in its varied forms
(accelerator, mentoring, courses, etc.), is seen as
critical to creating a vibrant ecosystem. On both sides
35000000 of the table, participants in the ecosystem highlight
both the dearth of suitably educated and experienced
30000000 entrepreneurs, and on the other side, investors with
very little understanding of the business models, global
valuation norms and technology challenges associated
with startups.
Workshop participants across all regions lamented
the low number of Computer Science graduates
and identified this as a critical long-term challenge.
Entrepreneurs also spoke about the challenge in getting
access to mentors with experience building global
technology 2009 2010 companies. 2011 2012 2013 2014
Startup entrepreneurs in both Brisbane and on the Gold
Coast expressed concern at government policy that
failed to facilitate innovation and entrepreneurship.
While the Sunshine Coast was specifically focused on
the government bringing basic broadband infrastructure
to the region, Brisbane and the Gold Coast criticised
policy at odds with global best practice, specifically
employee share schemes; matched funding for
innovation; and investment and R&D tax incentives. The
lack of a clear, consistent and long term government
agenda was seen as a serious impediment to increasing
foreign VC investment in Australian startups, and a
contributing factor in the flight of talent, companies and
funds to foreign soil.
6. COLLABORATIVE NETWORKS
While many people see the startup sector as being
extremely collaborative, participants within the sector
understand the benefits of strong network ties and still
see a great deal of work to be done to achieve a similar
level of collaboration to global hubs such as Tel Aviv,
Boulder and the San Francisco bay area. Increasing
the breadth and depth of collaboration, along with
financial support from government for key nodes
was seen as critical to the continued growth of the
ecosystem. Collaboration with international ecosystems,
international markets, local universities, and big
business was also called out as a key issue. Establishing
both physical and digital centralised hubs was seen as
critical in most regions.
River City Labs, Silicon Lakes, Sunshine Coast
Innovation Centre and Startup Weekend events are
superb examples of hubs that bring the community
together.
No. CO & GROUPS: FOUNDED
3000000
7. PROCURING LOCAL STARTUP TECHNOLOGY
2500000
Participants spoke about the challenges involved in
securing contracts from both corporate buyers and
government. 2000000To manage risk most government agencies
and large corporates require substantial track record
from 1500000 their IT suppliers, making it difficult for new
startups to displace incumbent technology providers.
1000000
8. ACCELERATE NBN ROLL-OUT
For participants
500000
within the Sunshine Coast ecosystem,
access to fast broadband via the National Broadband
Network (NBN) was seen as the most critical issue for
the growth of the local startup community. Fast, easy
access to digital infrastructure is critical to the growth of
startups, and the poor quality of the local network leads
to substantially reduced productivity.
9. TALENT & SKILLS
Building, attracting, and retaining talent was seen as
a critical factor in growing the ecosystem. While the
voting methodology only picked this up within the
Brisbane and Sunshine coast regions, the state and
country’s ‘brain drain’ came up within most interviews
and workshops. The Gold Coast in particular suffers
from a lack of talented designers, developers and
technology entrepreneurs. Retaining a critical mass
of developers, designers, data scientists, electronic
engineers, angel investors, venture capitalists, and other
technologists is critical to the sustained growth of any
startup ecosystem. Participants also spoke about the
need for a cultural shift, so that we come to accept,
Digital Queensland
encourage and support the movement of ‘talent’ to
global innovation hotspots as a good ‘right of passage’
for entrepreneurs, who then Non-Digital bring their Queensland skills, experience
and connections back to the state at a later date.
10. LEADERSHIP
Within the Gold Coast region leadership was seen as a
critical factor in driving engagement Non-Digital and Rest participation.
of Australia
While this wasn’t articulated so clearly within other
regions, communication and physical hubs were
discussed for similar reasons.
FUNDING BY REGION
Digital Rest of Australia
38
TOTAL INVESTED BY INVESTOR TYPE ($M)

TOP TEN COMMUNITY ISSUES BY REGION
Issues
Ranking based on
Weighted Wkshp Votes
Percentage of Total Votes from the Region (unweighted)
Brisbane Sunshine Coast Gold Coast Interviews
Raise Awareness 1 26% 0% 2% 7%
Education 2 16% 10% 16% 24%
Culture 3 18% 11% 0% 2%
Funding 4 11% 10% 19% 24%
Government Policy 5 12% 0% 10% 2%
Collaboration & Networking 6 9% 10% 16% 24%
Procurement 7 7% 0% 0% 0%
Infrastructure 8 0% 39% 0% 3%
Talent & Skills 9 2% 20% 0% 0%
Leadership 10 0% 0% 17% 6%
39

Endnotes
REFERENCES
1. Meeker, M, 2014. Internet Trends 2014 - Code Conference. KPCB (www.kpcb.com/internet-trends), Menlo Park.
2. eMarketer, 2014. Smartphone Users Worldwide Will Total 1.75 Billion in 2014. eMarketer (www.emarketer.com/Article/
Smartphone-Users-Worldwide-Will-Total-175-Billion-2014/1010536#sthash.8v2V3zzE.dpf),
3. Ibid.
4. www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6025/60
5. The Internet of Things: How the Next Evolution of the Internet Is Changing Everything, April 2011, CISCO authored by Dave Evans.
6. Global Top 100 Companies by Market Capitalisation, 31 March 2014, PWC.
7. www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2000/20000407.htm
8. A Snapshot of Australia’s Digital Future to 2050, IBIS World & IBM, Phil Ruthven,
9. Disruptive Technologies: Advances That Will Transform Life, Business, And The Global Economy, May 2013, McKinsey Institute
10. Building the Lucky Country: Business imperatives for a prosperous Australia - Digital disruption Short fuse, big bang? September 2012, Deloitte Australia. For additional
information on the impact of digital technology on the Australian economy see: Mobile Nation: The Economic and Social Impacts of Mobile Technology, 2013, Deloitte.
11. Enrico Moretti, 2012, The New Geography of Jobs
12. State of Queensland (Department of Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts), Queensland Startup Summit Report, May 2014
13. PWC, 2013, The Startup Economy: How to Support Tech Startups and Accelerate Australian Innovation. PWC Sydney.
14. Based upon the authors calculations using data from: Konczal, J, 2013. The Most Entrepreneurial Metropolitan Area? Kauffman Foundation. (http://
www.kauffman.org/~/media/kauffman_org/research%20reports%20and%20covers/2013/11/the%20most%20entrepreneurial%20metropolitan%20
area.pdf) Hathaway, I, 2013. Tech Starts: High-Technology Business Formation and Job Creation in the United States. Kauffman Foundation.
(http://www.kauffman.org/~/media/kauffman_org/research%20reports%20and%20covers/2013/08/bdstechstartsreport.pdf)
15. Kinner, C, 2014, Crossroads: an action plan to develop a vibrant tech startup ecosystem in Australia. StartupAus, Sydney.
16. Bravo-Biosca, A and Westlake, S, 2009. The vital 6 per cent: How high-growth innovative businesses generate prosperity and jobs. NESTA, London.
17. Future Fifty. www.futurefifty.com, accessed 10 June 2014.
18. The Whitehouse. Startup America Commitments. The Whitehouse, (www.whitehouse.gov/economy/business/startup-america/commitments), accessed 2nd June 2014.
19. Florida, R, 2012. The Rise of the Creative Class: Revisited. Basic Books.
20. CB Insights, 2013. It Takes $78 Million in Prior Funding for a Tech Company to IPO, and It’s Getting Bigger Every Year. Capital Efficiency? CBInsights.
21. Tunguz, T, 2014, The Financing Trends Of Billion Dollar SaaS Companies. (www.tomtunguz.com/fundraising-history-saas-publics)
22. Tunguz, T, 2014, How Much Cash Does Your Startup Need To Go Public? (http://tomtunguz.com/burn-rates-before-ipos/)
23. This report’s estimates of funding distribution by company stage is based on aggregated data from the National Venture Capital Association’s “2014 Yearbook”
(www.nvca.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=257&Itemid=103), the Centre for Venture Research’s report “The Angel Investor Market in
2013: A Return to Seed Investing” (https://paulcollege.unh.edu/sites/paulcollege.unh.edu/files/2013%20Analysis%20Report%20FINAL.pdf), and EY’s 2013 report
“Global Venture Capital Insights and Trends 2014” (http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Global_venture_capital_insights_and_trends_2014/$FILE/
EY_Global_VC_insights_and_trends_report_2014.pdf#page=15), Right Side Capital’s “Historical Size of the US Angel Market” (http://www.rightsidecapital.
com/assets/documents/HistoricalAngelSize.pdf), and NESTA’s “Siding with the Angels” (http://www.nesta.org.uk/sites/default/files/siding_with_the_angels.
pdf). Both the NVCA and EY do not include angel funding within their breakdown of funding by company stage. To establish an estimate the report uses NVCA’s
breakdown of software investment in 2013 in the USA ($20b across Seed Stage - 3%, Early Stage - 34%, Expansion Stage - 33%, and Later Stage - 30%), and
incorporated CVR’s data on US software sector angel investment in 2013 ($5.7b), to get a breakdown across stages in 2013 of: Seed Stage - 21%, Early Stage -
29%, Expansion Stage - 27%, and Later Stage - 24%. The writers of this report note that measuring seed stage funding is particularly difficult and that numbers for
dollar share of technology company funding range between

People
ECOSYSTEM
Paul Jansz
Darren Herft
Claes Loberg
Elaine Stead
Steve Dalton
Gabriel Buckley
Aaron Birkby
Martin Mankowski
Bernie Woodcroft
Matthew Ford
Richard Moore
Steven Baxter
Paul Jones
Greg Searle
Mark Paddenburg
Danny Maher
Paul Niederer
John
Passfield
Colin Kinner
Damien Waller
Sam Friend
Wayne Gerard
Sean Bunton
41

AUTHORS
Mike Kruger and Jonah Cacioppe - founders at
Boundlss. Produced for and in partnership with the
Queensland Department of Science, Information
Technology, Innovation and the Arts; Brisbane
Marketing; the Sunshine Coast Council and City of
Gold Coast.
For a copy of the report visit:
DSITIA (www.qld.gov.au/dsitia/reports),
www.startupqld.org or www.boundlss.com/seq