
Australia
Melbourne
A globally renowned creative and education hub with access to world-class education, Melbourne is now home to numerous unicorns. Our talent, creativity, and thriving startup community make Melbourne a great place to build and scale global startups.



Highlights
Victoria is home to more than 2,600 startups that are rapidly becoming the beating heart of a new economy — the startup sector is now the same size as Victoria’s tourism sector. The state capital, Melbourne is a thriving hub for startups across an array of sub-sectors including Life Sciences, SaaS, AI, Blockchain, Advanced Manufacturing, IoT, Big Data, and Fintech. Victoria consistently ranks highly for the quality of its educational intuitions. It’s home to the University of Melbourne, Australia’s highest ranked university at #37, along with Monash University at #58 in the top 400 universities according to the QS World University Rankings 2022. RMIT University has been ranked #2 in the world for research that has impacted the development of Blockchain technology, and its Blockchain Innovation Hub is the world’s first research center focused on the social science of Blockchain. LaunchVic, the state’s lead startup agency, continues to create infrastructure to support the growth of the ecosystem. Its initiatives include the AU$10 million Alice Anderson Fund, an angel sidecar for women-led startups, and the Victorian Startup Capital Fund, a fund of funds set to unlock AU$240 million ($168 million) to support Victorian early-stage startups with high growth potential. LaunchVic has also helped launch dozens of programs. Three of the latest, which were created in partnership with Agriculture Victoria, hope to boost the local Agtech sub-sector. Farmers2Founders, Rocket Seeder, and SproutX will each receive AU$600,000 ($420,000) to run pre-accelerator programs.
Ecosystem by the numbers
Amount ($B)
Count (#)
Exits
(2017-2021)Sub-Sector Strengths
Life Sciences
Fintech

Reasons to move your startup to Melbourne
Dynamic, Educated Workforce
World-Class Universities
Government Support
The Victorian government reduced the employer rate of payroll tax from 2.02% to 1.2125% in 2021. The Business Event Sponsorship Program provides up to AU$10,000 ($7,400) to support those hosting conferences. The 2021–2022 Victorian budget allocates AU$484.5 million ($361 million) through 2025 towards new job creation initiatives, with dedicated funds for small business services and support initiatives and funds to revitalize Melbourne’s central business district. The AU$2 billion ($1.49 billion) Breakthrough Victoria Fund is investing in projects in health and Life Sciences, Advanced Manufacturing, digital technologies, Agtech & New Food, and clean economies.
Startup Community
Startup Genome Members
“Startup Genome is honored to work with LaunchVic in accelerating ecosystem growth, job creation and impact in Melbourne. We are excited about Melbourne's startup community's future because of the increasing investment in its innovative entrepreneurs.”
Key Ecosystem Players
Startup Victoria
Hatch Quarter
Startup Genome
Partners
Featured Articles from
Local Ambassadors

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