Compass is charting a global course

Last Updated: Thursday 12 September, 2024

Meet the Melbourne business that changed the game for keeping parents in the loop.

In an office block in suburban Melbourne, a fast-growing tech business has been studiously designing education tools that are trusted by millions of people.

Compass was founded in 2010 when John de la Motte and Lucas Filer got to work writing thousands of lines of code with the aim of building a platform to help with every school process, from report writing to buying lunch at the canteen.

Over the past 15 years, Compass has emerged as one of the best-known edtech brands in Australia and has amassed 3 million users across more than 3000 schools, including offices in the UK and Ireland.

Schools across the world log on to the platform every day to complete the attendance roll, track student progress and communicate with parents about important school news.

But while turning to Compass is second nature for parents and teachers these days, the company’s chief operating officer Travis Gandy remembers a time when schools were battling with much more fragmented technologies.

“Schools used to have lots of separate systems that didn’t really talk to each other particularly well,” he said.

“Before, the approach was ‘we’ll just send emails to ourselves about everything.’”

When Travis started at Compass 12 years ago, there were just five employees. These days, the headcount sits closer to 240.

In the early days the company faced the challenge of educating schools about the power of its technology, but over the past few years remote learning requirements thanks to COVID-19 have helped show the value of its product.

“Compass was actually the third most-used tool by schools during the time of distance education. That was a really big thing for us,” Travis said.

Reflecting on growth

Compass’s headquarters sit in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn, but over the years it has also expanded to offices in New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, Dublin and London.

The company’s sustained growth has led to predictions that it could one day hit unicorn status.

Compass was one of ten startups selected in 2024 for LaunchVic’s 30X30 program, which aims to uncover scaleups with the potential to hit a billion-dollar valuation and help them achieve the next stage of growth.

Travis says that after more than a decade focused inward on their own growth targets, he and his team gained big benefits from spending time reflecting with other scaleups.

The program has helped connect him to a network of startup leaders from other businesses that he can use as a sounding board into the future.

“We had a catch up two or three weeks ago to just chat and see where everyone was up to. That was really good. Here are 10 other people in a similar spot to you that you can sound ideas of and concerns,” he said.

Working with mentors who work at Australian-founded unicorns also helped remind the team that even success stories faced tough times when scaling their businesses.

“I also think that hearing from those big brands that are a bit further ahead than we are – like Employment Hero and Xero – shows us, ‘you guys have had these problems too’.”

Chasing a multi-billion-dollar opportunity

Investment into edtech has surged over the past decade, and the industry hub EduGrowth believes the sector has doubled in Australia since 2015.

Education technology companies now generate $3.6 billion of revenue in Australia alone.

Having established a significant foothold locally, Travis says his team is now focused offshore.

“The UK education market is enormous so we will continue to grow and invest there, while the US market is a big opportunity.”

Despite its global ambitions, most of Compass’s team look set to stay in Australia. Travis says that the depth of the talent pool will keep the company developing its product in Victoria.

“This is where we have been, this is where we are, and it’s what we want to keep doing,” he said.

This figure is from EduGrowth’s most recent market outlook.