State government sets up unicorn production line

The Victorian state government is financing a program to develop 30 technology unicorns by the end of the current decade.

The 30X30 program is being run by state government financed start-up agency LaunchVic with the objective of developing 30 tech companies each valued at a minimum of $1 billion by 2030.

The program will be supported by mentors who have worked at high levels, in areas such as HR, operations and finance, at tech companies such as Atlassian, Canva, Bumble and Safety Culture.

The mentors will help selected businesses build the world-class back-office operations they will need to progressively scale-up.

The program will also support entry into overseas markets through a partnership with the state government trade agency Global Victoria.

LaunchVic chair Leigh Jasper – co-founder of Melbourne-founded Aconex – said a major challenge for the founders of rapidly growing scale-ups was finding the time to develop their HR, operations and finance leaders.

“30X30 enables scale-up founders to focus on their strategic growth while the leadership team gets coaching and mentoring from experienced peers who have previously scaled tech companies,” he said.

LaunchVic chief executive Dr Kate Cornick said supporting scale-ups to become Victoria’s next unicorns represented a significant economic opportunity for the state.

“To date, just 20 unicorns have created more than $100 billion of value between them – so we have a vested interest in supporting this growth.

“The first cohort of LaunchVic’s 30X30 program is a really exciting list of scale-ups with strong ‘unicorn’ potential,” she said.

This year’s 30X30 program had already begun and two further cohorts are to be selected for 2023 and 2024.

Scale-up founders can learn more at: launchvic.org/30x30

The 2022 cohort comprises:

• Bare – a high-quality, low-cost cremation service
   
• Buildkite – a platform for running fast, secure and scalable continuous integration for software development on existing infrastructure
   
• Carbar –Australia’s number one car subscription website
   
• HammerTech – a leading construction industry safety software platform
   
• InternMatch – the world’s number one platform for internships
   
• July – Australian-made luggage and travel accessories manufactured with unique production technology
   
• Mr Yum – Australia’s leading mobile phone food ordering, payments and marketing platform
   
• Nutromics – revolutionising precision medicine through continuous molecular monitoring
   
• Seer Medical – reimagining how people undergo long-term monitoring of epilepsy, sleep, and cardiac conditions

LaunchVic was established by the state government in 2019.

The agency says Melbourne’s early-stage ecosystem has more than doubled in value in a year, up 126% from $10.5 billion to $23.6 billion.

Victoria is now home to more than 2,650 technology start-ups and, as of June this year, tech start-ups, scale-ups and established unicorns had created 58,572 jobs in the state.

Image: An information page from the InternMatch website.