Over the past decade, Australia has gone from a tech backwater better known for its coal than its code to one of the most active startup ecosystems in the world, spawning numerous unicorns along the way.

Since 2010, it has minted unicorns such as Atlassian, Canva, Airwallex, Immutable, Judo Bank, Safety Culture, Culture Amp, SiteMinder and Employment Hero.

Given these feats, and despite the country’s remoteness and its relatively paltry population of just 26 million people, Startup Genome ranked Sydney #20 in its ranking of the world’s startup ecosystems.

Let’s take a closer look at Australia’s top 28 tech companies and who’s on the cap table.

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Of these 28, 10 didn’t raise venture capital, opting to bootstrap, leverage debt, or list publicly early.

That leaves 18 venture-backed companies.

Atlassian is the clear winner in terms of valuation, notching a market cap of US$48B at time of writing, but peaking at over $100B back in 2021. 

Other darlings of Australia’s tech startup ecosystem include Canva (US$25.5B), Afterpay (US$14.7B), and Airwallex (US$5.5B). 

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Who’s on the cap table?

In terms of investment, Blackbird and AirTree lead the way.

The duo features on the cap table of four of the top 18 venture-backed Australian companies, with Insight Partners coming in a close second with three. 

Blackbird

Blackbird got in early on Canva, Safety Culture, Culture Amp, and Gilmour Space.

AirTree

AirTree got in early on Canva, Employment Hero, LinkTree, and Secure Code Warrior. 

Insight Partners

Insight got in early on Employment Hero, LinkTree, and Campaign Monitor. 

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Content and returns

Interestingly, as with our analysis on leading US and UK venture deals, these three firms also invest a lot of time, money, and effort into producing high quality content, per the above.

The trio relentlessly produce high quality articles, podcasts, videos, reports, resources, and more to drive brand awareness and traffic to their websites, build relationships, and get access to high quality deal flow.

Check out our spotlights on how these firms do content here: Blackbird | AirTree

If you want to generate market-beating returns, then producing high quality content, consistently, and frequently, can help your firm stand out from the pack. 

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