The Top Tech Companies in Melbourne to Watch in 2020
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2019 marks the end of a decade. In the tech world, this is a lifetime. A lifetime of breakthroughs, advancements and a generation of homegrown and global tech startups who have chosen to call Melbourne home. And it’s easy to see why.
Melbourne has established itself as the tech hub of Australia.
It’s the only Australian city that’s among the best 22 global cities for tech companies according to Savills. Its digital economy is projected to grow by almost 50% in the next two years from A$35 billion to A$50.8 billion according to Deloitte. And the city is also home to more than half of Australia’s top 20 technology companies.
With Melbourne ranked as having the 5th best talent pool in the world, startups hiring in Melbourne are in overdrive to get ready for 2020.
Here are some of the best companies to work for in Melbourne if you’re a tech professional.
Driven by a passion to teach the world to cloud, two brothers from countryside Australia, Sam and Ryan Kroonenburg, founded A Cloud Guru. That was in 2015. Today, it is the leader in online cloud certification training and one of the top tech companies in Melbourne.
More than one million global users have expanded their knowledge by using the online learning platform where content is delivered in bite-sized chunks for higher engagement with opportunities for students to interact and engage with one another.
A Cloud Guru has helped reskill some of the biggest companies in the world including Dow Jones and Qualcomm. And it looks like things are only going to get bigger. It has just recently acquired its largest competitor, Linux Academy, giving it the world’s largest cloud computing training library. The combined company is growing revenues at a current rate of nearly 100 per cent and employs roughly 400 people around the world.
Envato builds platforms where creative digital assets can be bought and sold to help freelancers, small businesses and agencies with their creative projects. Its biggest platform, Envato Market, has 1.5 million active buyers, where everything from video footage and WordPress themes can be sourced.
Founded in 2006 by husband-and-wife team Collis and Cyan Ta’eed, the entirely bootstrapped startup made $US82.3 million in revenue in 2017. This year, Envato has continued its portfolio expansion by acquiring stock photo subscription service Twenty20.
Envato currently employs over 600 people across the world with around 10 million community members in 200 countries. Where to from here? Ta’eed has revealed that in terms of company growth, it’s closing in on $1 billion in terms of what its community has earned.
In 2014, the world of shopping was turned on its head when co-founders Nicholas Molnar and Anthony Eisen brought out Afterpay – a retail payments innovator that offers simple interest-free instalment plans for online and in-store shoppers.
In 2016, Afterpay joined the ranks of ASX listed companies in Melbourne and was awarded ‘FinTech Organisation of the Year’ at The Finnies. Today, more than 35,000 retail merchants offer Afterpay with over 5.2 million active customers. This year, global sales increased 140% to $5.2 billion and it’s projected to hit $20 billion by 2022. Afterpay has recently announced a strategic partnership with VISA to support business growth in the US market.
When it comes to high profile tech companies in Melbourne, it’s hard to beat San Francisco-based tech giant Zendesk which expanded its operations by opening a Melbourne HQ in 2015.
Founded in 2007 by Mikkel Svane, Morten Primdahl, and Alexander Aghassipour, Zendesk is a global provider of cloud-based customer service and engagement software with over 3,400 global employees and serving 150,000 customers in 160 countries, from startups and small businesses to growth companies and enterprises.
Zendesk’s Melbourne operations continue to grow at a strong pace. In 2018, the number of employees across its ANZ business grew by nearly 50% with more than 300 people in both engineering and go-to-market roles as well as establishing teams in Sydney, Brisbane and Auckland.
Another success story in the Melbourne tech start ups scene is Cogent. Founded in 2007 by name, the company works with digital businesses to transform great ideas into even greater digital products.
Cogent adopts a lean approach, preferring to take action and solve problems sooner rather than getting bogged with lengthy documentation. With a strong ethical and values-based approach, Cogent is touted as one of the best places to work in Melbourne. In 2017, the company almost doubled in size both in terms of headcount and the volume of work. They have also expanded their Ventures arm, investing in promising tech startups in Melbourne that align with the Cogent values.
Airwallex is a financial tech company that offers integrated solutions for business cross-border transactions. Founded in 2015 by Jack Zhang, Lucy Liu, Xijing Dai and Max Li, Airwallex allows customers to create international bank accounts instantly and send money through clearing networks to more than 130 countries.
Airwallex has closed the decade with milestone after milestone. Tremendous growth has led to over 400 employees across 9 global offices including Melbourne. This year, Airwallex is the highest-ranked Australian Fintech on KPMG’s top 50 Global Fintechs list. It also received a valuation of over US$1 billion making Airwallex Australia’s first-ever fintech unicorn.
Founded in 2011, Culture Amp is an employee analytics platform that makes it easy for companies to collect, understand and act on employee feedback.
Culture Amp helps over 1000 innovative companies who use its platform to become better places to work and turns their culture into a competitive advantage. Like Airwallex, Culture Amp has closed the year cementing itself as one of the top tech companies in Melbourne. It’s raised $120 million this year which not only makes it one of the biggest raises in Australia but also crowns it as the latest home-grown unicorn with a valuation surpassing the $1 billion mark.
Redbubble is another Melbourne tech startup fairytale. Born in 2006, Rebubble is a global online marketplace connecting over 700,000 independent artists and designers with millions of customers from around the world.
With offices in Melbourne, San Francisco and Berlin, the Redbubble team is closing in on 800 employees. Since 2017, the company has experienced revenue growth of 30% year-on-year. Redbubble continues to be driven by innovation with recent examples including an AR offering for its iOS app.
MyDeal.com.au is one of Australia’s fastest-growing technology companies in Melbourne. Established in 2011 by founder Sean Senvirtne, MyDeal.com.au is the country’s leading online retail marketplace connecting thousands of Australian retailers and leading brands with millions of consumers.
In 2017, MyDeal.com.au was named Online Retailer of the Year by Optus. The platform has expanded into fashion with the launch of MyWardrobe, and into FinTech with the launch of MyDeal Marketplace Loans. High sales this year has given the company a $60 million revenue run rate for 2020.
Yellowfin is a global Business Intelligence (BI) and analytics platform that helps people understand not just what happened but why it happened.
Founded in 2003 by Glen Rabie and Justin Hewitt, Yellowfin has pioneered the way people discover and share insights to make the best decisions. Today, more than 25,000 organisations and more than 3 million end-users across 75 different countries use Yellowfin every day.
2019 has been a ground-breaking year with the launch of Signals, an automated data discovery product that sends alerts to users about critical changes in their business. Innovations like this have seen significant business growth with new partnerships forming with organisations in Asia, US and UK.
