VICTORIA’S STARTUP VALUE REACHES $100B+ MARK, DESPITE VC SLOWDOWN

A new report by LaunchVic and global startup and VC platform dealroom.co has found Victoria’s entire startup ecosystem value has jumped from $91B to $103B in the past year.

After a couple of record years VC investment in Victorian startups has returned to 2018 levels, with $668M of VC investment reported as being raised between January and November 2023. This reflects a global downturn in VC funding.

Rounds between $15M and $100M remain above pre-pandemic levels, while there have been no mega rounds of $100M+ in 2023. Early-stage funding continues to remain below $100m investment per annum, with little movement since 2016.

Victorian Healthtech and Biotech startups are the most funded sub-sectors in 2023, followed by Fintech. These sectors are also capturing a slightly larger amount of VC than the rest of Australia.

Promisingly, over 1,000 Victorian startups founded since 2003 have received VC investment, with around 25 % raising at least $5M, slightly lower than the global average of 30%. However, only 15% of these funded startups have had an exit via strategic sale, buyout or IPO – compared to over 30% globally.

There has also been an increase in the unique number of investors which is 1.5X higher than 2019.

Victorian startups employ 56,000 people globally, of which 35,600 (63%) are located in Australia, a 12.6% increase in local startup jobs from 2020.  Of these 26,400 jobs are located in Victoria.

Of the locally created jobs 43% are in one of three sectors: Healthtech, Fintech and Real Estate. Fintech is responsible for creating the highest number of local jobs, with job creation driven by unicorns MYOB, Judo Bank and Pexa. Healthtech is the second largest job creator, driven by the large number of smaller startups and scaleups hiring new roles. 60% of Real Estate jobs are created by REA Group.

LaunchVic CEO, Dr Kate Cornick said 2023 had been a tough year for investment, however Victoria’s startup ecosystem continued to grow in terms of startup numbers and startup jobs.

“Early-stage investment continues to be a concern for LaunchVic, as it is essential startups get capital to support their early growth.”

“It is pleasing to see the work we have done to bring new investors into the startup sector pay off, however we remain laser focused on increasing access to early-stage capital.”

The valuation, based on Victoria’s 3,200+ startups, scaleups and 19 unicorns shows the local startup ecosystem has grown in value 18X since 2016.

Access the full report here.

For media enquiries contact holly.clark@launchvic.org