STARTUP ECOSYSTEM PRELIMINARY REPORT

STARTUP WA LETTER
Deloitte forecasts that “one-third of the
Australian economy is facing imminent and
substantial disruption by digital technologies
and business models by 2025”. 1
In 2013, the City of Perth commissioned the
inaugural Startup Ecosystem Report.
This data mining exercise painted an invaluable
picture of the state of Perth’s then-nascent
startup community, the growth of which
was centered around Spacecubed, the CBD
coworking space which had just celebrated
its first birthday, Meetups and events such as
Startup Weekend, and entrepreneur-focused
education programs like Founder Institute.
The report was designed to quantify and report
on the startup ecosystem, providing a platform
to monitor progress and inform policy. Having
jointly funded the WA Startup Ecosystem
Report 2015, the Department of Commerce -
Industry and Innovation and the City of Perth
now provide us with another chance to reflect on
the growth of the startup ecosystem to date, and
provide deeper insights as to the opportunities
and challenges that lie ahead if we are to unlock
the potential of digital technology and disruptive
innovation as a creator of new jobs and wealth in
the years to come.
The 2013 report identified a core of 100
digital and internet-based early-stage startups
businesses in Perth. As you will see from the
pages that follow, we have already seen this
number balloon to 335 active startups - a 235%
increase in just over two years.
The first report identified nine key opportunities
for development within the ecosystem, a number
of which have already borne fruit. Although still
in their early stages, we have seen the handful
of accelerator programs, university programs
and corporate partnerships launch in the past 18
months - including Bloom and Start Something.
at UWA; Amcom Upstart (from which the first
cohort of companies graduated earlier this year),
RAC SeedSpark, and the Unearthed program -
which launched from Perth with a mandate to
drive innovation in the resources sector, and has
already expanded to a national hackathon series
and accelerator program.
As the WA Startup Ecosystem Report 2015
makes abundantly clear, countless growth
opportunities remain - particularly in the context
of partnerships with government, universities,
and industry, helping to deepen capital pools and
develop infrastructure to support entrepreneurs’
continued development.
With Gross State Product forecast to reach
~$300 billion in 10 years, up to ~$100 billion
is therefore ‘at risk’ of digital disruption - how
much of the value of this disruption will be
captured by WA companies?
Clearly we must act now to seize these
opportunities and to assist local entrepreneurs.
StartupWA would like to thank Department of
Commerce - Industry and Innovation and the
City of Perth for their support of the startup
ecosystem as a key driver of economic growth,
jobs and prosperity across WA. We look forward
to their continued support and to the rapid
evolution of the startup sector over the months
and years ahead.
Sheryl Frame
Justin Strharsky
Samuel Birmingham
Brodie McCulloch
Andrew Outhwaite
Mark Shelton
Zane Prickett
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