startup-ecosystem-mapping-report

The role of the arts in Queensland startups
THE ARTS
#ARTS STARTUPS
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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”.
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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.
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