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.