Alex Holderness
100 Australian Tech Companies to Watch in 2018
It’s that time of year, where we start to think about what’s to come in 2018. It’s been a wild year for the Australian Tech scene, from the new startups growing like crazy (hello Hyper Anna) to the more established startups going great guns (we see you Airtasker) all the way through to the big tech giants continuing to push boundaries (looking at you MYOB).
We’ve compiled a list of 100 Australian founded tech companies that look set to be amongst the hottest in 2018.
How did we look at predictions for next year? Two key things, headcount growth in 2017 (you don’t hire a bunch of people if you have plans to slow down next year) and word of mouth in the Australian tech scene.
So let’s get into it, 100 Australian tech companies, which we’ll be watching for big things in 2018.
ADELAIDE
PHS has doubled in size in the past two years. This growth resulted in expansion into Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Ireland and Quebec. Since June they have hired 25 consulting/project management staff in Montreal and made that their Canadian head office. In Australia, their headcount growth was focussed on supporting their international expansion as well as their move into app development.
In 2018, PHS will continue their focus on growing their Canadian operation. They are also seeking to expand their wayfinding application across Australia and looking for growth in Singapore along with continued expansion into Europe and the Middle East.
Over the last year, Mighty Kingdom has nearly doubled its staff, with a current headcount of 35. New additions come from a broad range of disciplines, including programmers, artists, animators, producers and product managers. This year they have attracted new partners including LEGO and KitKatCo, as well as expand their portfolio of Shopkins licensed products.
For 2018, they look to expand their licensing and service work. They are also investing in original product development. To support this growth they will move into Game Plus Adelaide, a co-working space for the game development industry with plenty of room to accommodate additional hires.
BRISBANE
2017 has seen Crowd Delivery go from a team of 4 to a group of over 60. They are growing every part of their business at present from developers to sales, area managers to delivery heroes. They are also now operating in over 175 suburbs, which means significant recruitment activity for Heroes and Hub Managers.
Next year, the team plan to expand their operation to every part of Australia. This means significant staff growth with a few thousand roles to be recruited including developers, sales, recruitment, multimedia and design, accounts and payroll, Hub Managers, Heroes and Hub Area Managers.
Pixc, a photo editing SaaS platform for e-commerce businesses has this year added seven people to their global team, and they are now in use in over 30 countries. The primary business areas benefiting from their increase in headcount were marketing, sales, engineering and customer service.
With their new team in place, 2018 will see the Pixc crew focussing on the development of their platform and service. This development includes the building of new features which will bring more automation for e-commerce stores.
2017 saw outfit.io expand their presence, with a new team coming on in Melbourne, as well as adding a sales resource in London to kick off the UK team. After a successful $1 million VC raise in February, the Brisbane HQ increased staff in the sales and customer success teams, as well as essential experience to their board of directors. So far a headcount growth of 35 percent.
For the year ahead, they will continue growing their UK team to support their UK University business drive. In Australia, growth will continue, primarily in marketing, sales and customer success growth.
2017 saw Brisbane based startup, Travello, add six new staff to their business. The tech team received the majority of the new hires, followed by marketing and analytics.
For the following year, they expect to continue growing headcount with plans to start a Business Development/Sales team. The first hires will be in Australia; then they will look to expand their sales capability in SE Asia, USA, UK and Europe. As they are rolling into a B2B phase for their company, Travello believes the success of this stage will be the result of this newly established, expert sales team.
This year Travelshoot invested in headcount within their marketing and digital department. An investment that has already paid off significantly. So far they are on track for monthly booking growth of 20 percent, and their marketplace growth for both destinations and new photographers is on track to more than double.
For 2018, booking growth and gaining awareness with new clientele is the critical focus which will be achieved through content marketing and a robust digital plan. Travelshoot has built capacity in all of their popular destinations, adding to their global network is now about catering for new location options.
MOVUS started selling their FitMachine in January. They now have units installed across Australia and have grown their web development, manufacturing, marketing and partner management departments. MOVUS started the year with two industries; water and building management. The industries serviced has grown to include mining, transportation, oil & gas, food processing, chemical processing, wineries and manufacturing.
MOVUS are currently in the middle of a Series A capital raise to drive international sales growth. Their partner network is also growing, and they have several large multinationals scoping large-scale deployments locally and internationally. Headcount growth next year will support this growth.
This year the team at Intelligent Pathways experienced an increase in their headcount of 7 percent. This growth brings the Brisbane based organisation to 60 staff in total. Information technology rose significantly with a boost of 200 percent. The business development department also saw serious growth of 100 percent. Then consulting also added 25 percent to their headcount.
Intelligent Pathways are active in their community and will be showcasing their integration capabilities at the BIA Victoria IT Leaders Summit later this month.
Josephmark is a digital product studio working in Brisbane, Los Angeles, Sydney and Stockholm. The firm identifies and incubates their own digital ventures (Vest, Hash orUndrtone) as well as creating digital products for clients (Myspace, CBA or Red Bull). This past year they’ve hired across operations, design, development and motion.
Moving forward, they will continue to design, develop and launch digital products. This focus includes looking into designing for interfaceless experiences and exploring the impact of machine learning, AI and VR on various industries and day-to-day applications. They are always on the lookout for talent.
GO1 launched as an education platform in 2015. In 2016 they broke through 100,000 users on their platform, and in 2017 they have already exceeded 500,000. To support this growth, they’ve been hiring across sales, content, partnerships, product, engineering, and their customer success team. By the end of 2017, they will have over 100 people in the business.
In 2018, they will continue to expand sales, customer success and product development as well as grow their partner channel. The focus will remain on the Australian market as well as abroad where they see most of their revenue coming from.
Megaport, this year have experienced headcount growth of 23 percent, bringing the international team to a total of 97. Information technology hires exploded, this area added a whopping 220 percent to their headcount. Other areas soaking up some new hires were engineering, marketing and business development, which grow 25 percent, 20 percent and 8 percent, respectively.
In Australia, Megaport this year announced their cloud connectivity collaboration with Oracle to leverage their FastConnect capability. They now have 52 datacentres in APAC, 65 in the US and 56 in Europe.
PERTH
M-Power has grown over 28 percent in revenue and increased headcount by more than 24 percent in the last financial year. The critical area of growth has been in the delivery of digital finance transformation projects. Their increase in revenue and people has come from the areas they are adding talented experts to; finance, business process, analysis and technology.
For 2018 they have a total focus on the improvement of digital finance solutions, helping organisations transform their business processes by harnessing the power of Cloud-based applications from Oracle.
In the last 12 months, HealthEngine has undergone rapid growth, doubling their workforce from 70 to 140 employees across offices in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne. Notably, they have appointed ex-Citibank IT director Mark Hammond as the company’s new Head of Technology, Engineering and Data Security, and former LinkedIn Australia sales director Mark Dick as Head of Sales.
This year’s growth has laid the foundations for continued growth in 2018. Their focus will be to continue building their customer base — currently 1.5 million patient users per month and around 5000 health practices — and expand their services across Australia.
This year Boundlss have hired ten full-timers to their Perth HQ, and ten part-time coaches who are working remotely. Their focus has been to bring in the right engineering talent to continue building their platform, business developers to promote their platforms and win deals, and content managers to develop the health programs in their app.
For 2018 their development focus will be on the AI Health Assistant, using machine learning and NLP, ensuring that they can automate a higher percentage of user conversations. To achieve this, Boundlss will have a continued needed for skills in engineering and content.
In 2017 Immersive Technologies saw a steady headcount increase of 8 percent, bringing their total staff count to 173. The sales department received the highest number of new starters, growing by 16 percent. Engineering added 15 percent and information technology brought in another 6 percent to their team.
This year Immersive Technologies sought to continue their efforts in the Brazilian market and announced a partnership with Tecwise Sistemas De Automaçao which will help to maintain their foothold in that region. They are also continuing work in Africa.
It was a year of modest growth for ASG Group who have added 4 percent to their headcount. Notably, ex-Chief Operating Officer of DWS Limited, Andrew Rose has joined the business as Head of Operations. Other areas to add headcount were engineering, which increased by 14 percent and consulting which added 6 percent, bringing the company-wide staff total to 781.
After expressing their interest in SMS Management & Technology back in May, ASG Group announced in September that the acquisition was successful. New hires like Andrew Rose will help to drive the operational integration of the two businesses.
Ignia has had a significant growth year with the business increasing headcount by 31 percent, bringing them to a total of 118 staff. The technology team took on the most significant amount of new hires with an increase of 63 percent. Consulting added 45 percent, and sales took on an additional 29 percent.
2017 has been a big year for the company who, late last year, was acquired by the world’s largest Microsoft partner, Insight Enterprises. It is great to see the acquisition has not halted growth in any way.
2017 marks 15 years since Moodle 1.0 was first released. Today they are in version 3.3 (soon to be 3.4) and have launched MoodleCloud and Moodle Users Association. In 2017 they introduced full UX and Education teams and increased the number of developers in the Open Source team.
After welcoming a $6 million European investment, Moodle will be accelerating their growth plans, including improving Moodle core; Establishing their new EU subsidiary with their first office in Barcelona; Launching a Moodle Foundation in the EU; Enhancing existing offerings and building new products and entirely new platforms such as MoodleNet.
In the past 12 months, Empired has had headcount growth of 9 percent. The increase comes from the introduction of its Business Leadership Group to help the organisation better manage each of their locations. This initiative included the recruitment of key people in a range of disciplines, including consulting, engineering and project and program management. These new additions bring the company to a staff total of 524.
This year has also been significant for their net profits as the company turned the tables, going from a $1.7 million loss last year, to $3.2 million for the 2017 financial year.
CANBERRA
Spinify is an AWS serverless environment using Lambda and Node.js. They also utilise iOS and Android skills for the App components of their leaderboard solution. Their remote team in 2017 has increased to over 30 experts in SEO, Node.js, Salesforce AppExchange Certification, Ad Words, Script and Video development for Tradeshows, design for website, brochures and panels.
Headcount additions in 2018 will be sales and marketing staff as well as expert coders. The response to the launch of their leaderboard product in San Francisco will drive the numbers of staff required both locally in Australia and overseas.
2017 has seen Data61 grow their headcount by 35 percent, bringing their total number of employees to 144. The national business grew most significantly in business development with an increase of 133 percent to their team. The information technology department also increased over 50 percent, engineering by 33 percent and research by 32 percent.
The team are working on incredibly innovative projects, this year announcing they are developing software for the early detection of cancer. In recent news on this project, researchers in Japan have said that AI can detect bowel cancer in less than a second.
The team at ContentKeeper Technologies have this year seen an increase in headcount of 9 percent across the organisation, bringing the team to 35. Sales and information technology were the areas to receive the highest injection of new talent, with each department adding 25 percent to the team.
This year was not just about exciting growth, ContentKeeper CTO, Mark Riley, wasawarded ACT Chief Minister’s Pearcy Entrepreneur Award and the company announced they have signed an OEM agreement with Cylance to further enhance their Multi-layered Gateway Security Platform.
Seeing Machines, a leader in computer vision technologies has grown their headcount 15 percent in the past 12 months, bringing their team total to 159. Significant increases were made to the sales team, where headcount grew by over 50 percent. Engineering also saw a considerable boost to their numbers with the team gaining an additional 45 percent.
Next year, you can expect to see Seeing Machines FOVIO driver monitoring technology in the General Motors 2018 Cadillac CT6. The technology is designed to monitor driver concentration and aid in hands-free driving.
MELBOURNE
LiveHire.com is a software platform that many of Australia’s most well-known brands use to proactively build private Talent Communities (reserve armies) of excellent candidates that are open to working for them in the future, helping companies humanise their recruitment process while improving the experience for candidates.
Since their launch just over three years ago, the LiveHire ecosystem of employers and candidates has grown exponentially every month. The LiveHire team has nearly doubled in the last three months from 28 to 50 people.
Cogent work with novel digital businesses to turn great ideas into remarkable software.
Cogent has almost doubled in size in the last year both regarding headcount and the volume of work they’re doing. They’re very conscious about growing purposefully, so they have a pretty robust growth strategy in place.
As they continue to grow, they will be focusing on culture and work on projects that are fulfilling for their people. They believe in full transparency and a testament to that is their open salaries model and profit share, so as they scale their values like transparency, diversity and personal wellbeing become more critical than ever.
This year headcount at Mydeal.com.au has almost doubled with the total number of employees currently coming in at 60. Since launching in 2011, they have grown from 0 to $35 million last financial year. $20 million more than the previous financial year. The platform has expanded into fashion, launching online fashion marketplace MyWardrobe, and into FinTech, launching MyDeal Marketplace Loans. They now have 2000 categories and 45,000 products.
For the future, Mydeal.com.au intend to continue diversifying their offering and developing their platform; introducing new technological improvements for retailers. Growing retailers for their fashion marketplace and MyDeal will also take focus.
Sidekicker is Australia and NZ’s #1 on-demand staffing platform – revolutionising the way thousands of businesses source and manage casual and temporary staff and providing their ‘Sidekicks’ with the flexibility to work when and where they want.
To meet the demand of their clients with a national presence, Sidekicker has launched into three new geographical markets – Wellington, Perth, and Brisbane – bringing the total number of locations to 7. To support their growth and better service their clients, they have also tripled the size of their head office staff.
Unlockd is a mobile platform that rewards consumers when they unlock their digital device and view targeted ads, content or offers.
Unlockd is now the world’s first attention based virtual currency. They are live with eight partners across seven markets and have raised Series B funding of $30 million, totaling $50 million invested since 2015. In July, they moved into their cushy new Melbourne office where their product, engineering, and global support teams are based. They now have teams and offices in Delhi, London, New York, Singapore & Melbourne. And finally, they have clocked up $10m in value to users against their target of $500m by 2025.
Whispir helps businesses engage with their audience through easy-to-use communications applications and intelligent data-driven workflows.
In the past 12 months, Whispir has enjoyed rapid growth and continued international expansion, adding 75 new staff across Australia and New Zealand, Asia Pacific and North America. Looking ahead, Whispir has plans to double their headcount by 2020. Jeromy Wells, Whispir CEO says, “We have a bold vision for further expansion. The growth we have achieved so far will accelerate by building on our strengths with a product pipeline that includes AI, the internet of things and data analytics.”
IRESS designs develops and delivers technology for the financial services industry. They provide solutions that help with life’s big decisions – from getting a mortgage approved to planning for retirement or building wealth on the stock exchange – things that make a real difference to people’s lives and financial well being.
IRESS has operations in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, and Asia. For the financial year ending December 2016, IRESS had group revenue of $389.7m, up 8 percent and they have grown to be a 1,800 strong team across six countries. They aim to attract and retain the best people through graduate programs, learning and development opportunities, industry-leading benefits and by creating an inspiring, creative, community-focused and rewarding work environment.
Adslot‘s Automated Guaranteed technology streamlines the trading of premium digital media for Buyers and Sellers. In August last year, Adslot signed a long-term contract with GroupM – the world’s largest media buyer. Following that, the company successfully concluded an $18m Capital Raising. The raising was conducted to expand the R&D team in support of deployments in new markets for GroupM, and increase the velocity of new feature development. Additional product & development resources were hired and on-boarded during the period October ’16 to June this year. Over this period the product & development team nearly doubled in size, with a corresponding threefold improvement in output.
Easy Weddings offers planning tools and access to Australia’s premium wedding suppliers including wedding dresses, venues, invitation, cakes, and flowers.
The business has grown their website audience (couples planning their weddings) by 21% in the last 12 months, maintaining their 17-year position as Australia’s most visited wedding website. They’ve expanded the team by 10 percent. 2018 will be more about international expansion, both into new countries, as well as continuing the growth of their UK operation which launched in 2015.
TRIBE is the world’s fastest-growing self-serve marketplace connecting brands with micro-influencers.
TRIBE was successful in raising a $5.35M Series A investment round to fund international expansion and solidify their Australian position. They’ve used those funds to invest in some areas; they opened a Sydney office to complement their Melbourne HQ, and over the year increased their headcount from 6 to around 30 Australian staff. These funds were also used to launch in the UK. Since the Series A, they’ve grown from approximately 5,000 influencers to now having 22,000 with 50-100 joining per day.
Venuemob is the easiest way to find and book the perfect venue for your event – whether it’s a birthday, conference, launch party, gala dinner or a wedding.
A year ago, the Venuemob team was a posse of 12 crammed into a tiny office space. They’re still packed like sardines, but that’s because they’re about to outgrow their (much larger) space, with a team of almost 35. In 2018, the Venuemob team is focusing on international expansion to New Zealand and Singapore. They’ll be growing their world-class team to build additional tools for venues and event planners, and add a payment solution into the platform – making Venuemob a true online marketplace for events.
Versent helps businesses understand, transform and operate in the cloud.
This young consulting company has increased headcount by 50 percent making their total number of employees to over 160. Not bad for three years in business. Engineering saw the greatest increase in staff with 121 percent growth. Followed by a 50 percent increase in Information Technology, 40 percent in Sales and 18 percent in Consultants. Earlier this year James Coxon, co-founder of Versent to discuss their wild success. On the topic of growth, James offered “As a company, we continue to grow to meet customer demand, as well as continue to expand into full-stack development. We have some ends to end, full stack product development programmes in flight – and I’m personally very excited to expand Versent’s experience and capability in this space.”
MYOB is an Australian multinational corporation that provides tax, accounting, and other services to small and medium businesses.
This year they have experienced growth of ten percent bringing their total employee count to nearly 2000. It is not surprising that a majority of their new hires went into technical roles. They increased Engineering headcount by 40 percent this year and Information Technology listed roles by 10 percent.
The Urbanise platform uses cloud technology and the Internet of Things (IoT) to completely reimagine service delivery to buildings and communities. This relatively new business, established in 2014 has had a year of growth, adding 10 percent to the team to now makeup 110 employees. There was an increase of around 50 percent in the Sales functions and 20 percent added to Engineering.
Attra is a multinational IT solutions and services delivery firm focussed on the banking, finance and payments industries.
Attra continues to grow year on year. The business has seen a growth of three percent with over 1110 employees. The two skillsets most recruited within the business are under the categories Quality Assurance (which increased by 16 percent) and Engineering (an increase of two percent.)
Kloud is an award-winning IT services company offering public and private enterprises the best technical expertise and business acumen. The team at Kloud have a decent growth spurt this year, adding 20 percent more people. They now have around 250 employees. Their Engineering and Information Technology category saw the most additions, with an increase of approximately 15 percent new hires in each.
Rome2rio is a comprehensive global trip planner that helps you discover how to get anywhere.
This well-established business has seen a significant growth of 60 percent in the past 12 months to bring the team past the 40 employee milestone. Media, Communications, and engineering saw the most significant increase in listed members, growing over 150 since 2016.
PageUp‘s innovative HR Software is configured to make your business more efficient & profitable.
The business has grown steadily in the last 12 months, to reach around 220 employees. The majority of new headcount came from the Engineering category and the Business Development team. In an interview with The Australian, founder Karen Cariss suggested PageUp are looking at their next stage of growth which could look like a float on the ASX to continue their international expansion.
BidEnergy is a cloud-based platform to manage the energy spend of your business by giving you real-time visibility into your spend data. BidEnergy now delivers source-to-pay services globally. Over the last two years, BidEnergy has grown by over 60 percent. This year, Business Development and Operations both increased headcount by 40 percent and Engineering by 14 percent. The team nearly has 40 employees.
Redbubble is a global online marketplace for print on demand products based on user-submitted artwork.
This year saw Redbubble increase headcount by around 10 percent bringing total employees to over 660. Engineering received the bulk of new hires and had increased by 26 percent. Redbubble has stepped into Augmented Reality. In September they released Redbubble for iOS with an AR update. Founder Michael Huskings said, “We moved down the path of AR because our tagline is ‘Find Your Thing.’ So customers finding their thing and seeing that in their environment [through AR] is deeply aligned with our brand and positioning.”
Travelport Locomote is a corporate travel platform. Their API connects you with the partners you work with every day ensuring a seamless experience for everyone within your company.
Earlier this year Travelport Locomote announced their launch in New Zealand and had increased headcount by nearly 50 percent, bringing the team close to the 100 mark. The highest increase was in the Information Technology category which grew by 150 percent. Earlier this year the company announced further global plans launching into the UK.
Culture Amp makes it easy for companies to collect, understand and act on employee feedback.
Culture Amp has experienced fantastic growth this year. They have increased headcount by nearly 50 percent in the past 12 months. Business Development received a high injection of talent and increased by over 70 percent. Followed by Information Technology based employees. They now employ more than 170 workers around four office around the world. To gear up for further growth, the company raised $26.4 million earlier in the year with co-founder Elzinga committing to further increase with goals to double the number of employees.
Dubber is a cloud-based call recording software which operates as a software-as-service offering.
It’s been a big year for Dubber, increasing headcount by nearly 60 percent. The Sales category had the most significant boost with 400 percent, followed by the engineering department. The company now employs around 40 people. The team also just raised $7M to expand its U.S., Europe operations.
Yellowfin BI is the only modern BI Platform that supports both the analyst and business user workflows, to deliver increased user adoption and faster analysis.
This year Yellowfin BI had a headcount increase of 16 percent, bringing total employees to nearly 100. Business Development surged their numbers by 60 percent. Information Technology by 50 percent and Sales by 18 percent.
In the past year, Yellowfin has more than doubled the number of customers relying on the platform and added more than a million new users. ”
ROLLER provides digital software solutions for Events, Leisure & Hospitality businesses around the world.
ROLLER has had a cracking year with a headcount increase of over 25 percent. The Business Development category was the most significant beneficiary of this expansion, growing by 400 percent. Engineering and Sales both increased headcount by 50 percent, taking their employee count to nearly 60. Luke Finn, the CEO of Melbourne-based tech company ROLLER recently shared the company’s results so far: “experiencing two years of rapid growth, during which we expanded into North America, the UK, and Europe with offices opened in London and LA.
Afterpay Touch is a technology-driven payments company with a mission to make purchasing feel great for a global customer base.
It has been an exciting 12 months for Afterpay Touch, the new business venture between Afterpay and Touchcorp. The combining of the businesses saw them increase headcount by 23 percent to make up a workforce of around 170 employees. The company was very recently tipped as the IT Stock to watch stating that since 2014, The business has already amassed more than 1 million active users in Australia with more than 7,200 merchants including Myer, Country Road and The Iconic.
Airwallex is a financial technology company that offers integrated solutions for personal and business cross-border transactions.
The startup is continuing to kick solid goals and has had an excellent growth year, adding 62 percent to their headcount. Engineering has had a decent expansion of 63 percent and Business Development hires are up 25 percent, Product Management has also been an area for new hires. The team has grown to nearly 50 with offices in Melbourne, Shanghai and Hong Kong and Singapore coming soon. This year Airwallex raised $13M to bring its cross-border payment service to Europe, with plans to set up shop in London.
Envato operates a group of digital marketplaces that sell creative assets for web designers, including themes, graphics, video, audio, photography, and 3D models. The tech giant now has over 1300 employees, that’s an increase in 9 this year alone, pretty impressive when you consider the size. Regarding department breakdown, Engineering saw the most significant influx of new hires, increasing the team by 25 percent. Information Technology came in second and then, Media and Communications. In their recent 11-year birthday celebration, Envato announced reaching $500M in lifetime community earnings.
Aconex provides the #1 cloud and mobile collaboration platform for the global construction industry.
Aconex has continued steady growth this year with an increase in headcount of seven percent. To date, the team has reached the 800 mark spread across 47 offices in 23 countries. The Engineering Department was the area listed with the most growth this year adding to the team, followed by sales.
Catapult is a public athlete analytics company that engineers wearable technology for elite sports.
It’s been a big year of growth for Catapult with a headcount lift of over 20 percent. This brings their global workforce to nearly 200 employees with over half based in Australia. Sales and Business Development seem to be the areas bringing on the most recruits, followed closely by the Engineering team
Carsales.com.au allows you to search 200000+ new & used cars for sale or sell your used car.
It’s been a steady growth year for this well-known site; overall headcount has increased by ten percent bringing total employees well over the 500 mark. The Engineering department saw the largest number of new hires; Information Technology came in second followed by Sales and Marketing at seven percent.
Sydney
Local Measure helps businesses understand and manage the social conversations and influencers at their locations, stores and event venues.
Over the last 12 months, the team have grown by 30 percent with an increase in headcount over 80 percent if we go back two years. Sales seem the biggest area of growth for the Surry Hills-based company, with a total employee count of around 45.
Canva makes design simple for everyone. Create designs for Web or print including blog graphics, presentations, Facebook covers, flyers, posters, and invitations.
From animations to launching a print house and continuing global expansion, it’s been another big year for Surrey Hills based Canva. The team has grown to nearly 300 in size, looking set to increase headcount by 50 percent this year.
hipages connects Australian homeowners with local, trusted tradies. The team helps consumers find verified and licensed tradies in their local area while helping tradies grow their business.
The team is on the move to new offices, which is always a good indicator of gearing up for growth. In more hard stats though, the team committed to adding more than 50 staff to their Sydney based offices.
HotelsCombined compares the top travel sites in just one search to find the best hotel deals.
HotelsCombined’s key metric is accommodation bookings, and they’ve grown from FY16-FY17 by a healthy 36 percent. The team has also seen an impressive 11 percent growth in headcount so far this year.
When we asked about 2018 plans, the team shared; “We believe there are still lots of challenges to solve when it comes to helping people find the perfect place to stay. With the growing trend in people booking accommodation on their phones, we will continue to invest in our mobile experience. We have recently started to re-build our app product in React Native and will continue to focus on mobile throughout 2018.”
Nuix aims to be the leading technology for solving complex real-world data challenges including investigation, cybersecurity, insider threats, intelligence, litigation, regulation, privacy and risk management.
Within the last two years, the team has grown by nearly 20 percent to bring current employees near the 400 mark. As you’d expect the team has grown largely in the IT and engineering space, with some expansion across sales and business development also.
Content Security can fully manage your Information Security investment to ensure your security solutions work correctly.
Over the past 12 months, Content has grown by 30 percent. This growth has predominantly come from their Governance, Risk and Compliance services and their Managed Security Service offerings. This continues their year on year growth which they plan to maintain through their significant expansion and investment into the Queensland and Victoria markets. In 2018, they will continue to focus on growing their Managed Services for Information Security.
Jayride allows you to search and compare thousands of shared shuttle and private transfer companies.
Over the last 12 months, Jayride.com has nearly doubled their headcount. They are now at 60+ staff who are focused on delivering a greater product experience to their consumers through Jayride.com, and their travel business partnerships. They also just secured a cool $8 million funding. In 2018 they plan to continue their investment in core competencies; marketing, and technology.
finder.com.au takes the stress out of choosing life-changing products. Compare credit cards, savings accounts, home loans, mobile phones and more.
Finder has grown to nearly 200 employees, that’s a 90 percent increase in the last two years alone. In Australia, they have a balanced gender profile, with 51 percent of employees male and 49 percent female. Over the past year, they’ve had 34 million visits to the site, which is up 70 percent. On average, they get 3 million monthly visits to finder.com.au.
In 2018 they are looking to grow their core money product comparisons, build a loyalty system and personalise the user experience. They’re also investing their energy and efforts into hiring and retaining talented staff both here in Australia and worldwide.
4mation is a full-service custom web and software agency.
4mation have experienced close to 30 percent growth this year due to an increased demand for high-quality, local software development services. They believe it is a truism that great people make other people great – and their focus is on attracting, developing and retaining good people – and helping them to become great. They’ve found that the combination of the work, culture, and focus on personal and professional growth are the key factors behind the growth and success of their team.
Kounta is a Cloud-based Point of Sale Software System with Powerful add-ons.
Kounta has grown significantly in 2017. Over 15,000 new cafes, restaurants, bars and other hospitality venues have started using the product, and they’ve added around 30 people to the team.
On focus for 2018, the team shared “We’ll continue to invest in all areas of our business, including product, engineering, operations, etc. One of the biggest areas of focus will be our Go To Market teams, including marketing, sales, partnerships & customer success. We’ve got a great product that our customers love, and it’s time to start scaling our go to market initiatives so that more people can experience it.”
Practice Ignition powers online accounting practices.
In the past year, Practice Ignition has raised 5 million AUD to invest in their international markets both in product development and marketing. In the past eight weeks, they’ve made eight new key hires, including Head of Operations, Head of Partnerships, Head of Digital Growth, Product Managers, Sales Managers and Customer Success Agents. As well as being named industry app partner of the year by Xero at their recent Xerocon in Melbourne, the team has seen year on year growth every month this financial year.
In 2018, they will be focused on expanding further into the UK and North America, as well as further enhancing the product across all of their key markets. They now have three full time-product managers working on improving the product, every week.
Deputy is the ultimate cloud-based workforce management solution that makes it easy to schedule employees, manage time and attendance, track performance, and improve workplace communication.
The Surrey Hills-based company has been through impressive growth this year with a whopping 66 percent increase in headcount. The team has largely been expanding their sales and tech functions.
Lendi is Australia’s number 1 online home loan platform that matches borrowers and lenders. We combine smart technology with real people support to make it easy to search, choose and settle your home loan online.
The team at Lendi have certainly been busy, increasing the team to over 250 staff covering roles as diverse as Engineering, User Experience, Marketing, Data Science, Inside Sales, Recruitment, Learning, and Development.
When discussing 2018 plans, the team shared: “We will be growing our engineering, user experience and inside sales teams and more…”
Thinxtra is building nationwide Internet of Things networks with Sigfox connectivity
Over the last 12 months, the team has grown 100 percent with nearly 40 employees, from 19 this time last year. 2018 looks very bright for the Alexandria based team with the government buying into a cool $10million (15 percent) just a few months ago.
Tigerspike is a global digital products company that delivers business value, fast.
In the past 12 months, Tigerspike has experienced staff growth of 19 percent. The largest increase in headcount is within Sales with an increase of 50 percent. Other main areas experiencing growth this year are Engineering, Program and Project Management and IT.
Atlassian is a leading provider of collaboration, development, and issue tracking software for teams.
There’s no Australian tech growth list that doesn’t feature Atlassian. This year is no different as the business has experienced a further 20 percent growth in headcount to reach over 2,400 employees. The main areas of growth for Atlassian this year have been in Marketing, HR, Engineering and Information Technology.
InfoTrack is an award-winning Australian technology company that is helping a range of professionals move into the digital age.
Between 2016 and 2017, InfoTrack has grown their headcount by 33 percent. Development has experienced significant growth, expanding from a 38 to 50 person headcount in 4 months. Other areas expanding the team were Business Development, Sales, and the newly created Innovation team.
With 2018 in sight, the team explains “we plan to expand their offering to B2C, as well as continuing to cater to their current B2B audience.”
Founded in 2002, ELMO is the leading talent management software company in Australia and New Zealand. The software offers a suite of integrated Talent Management Solutions and a comprehensive, editable Course Library.
With around 120 employees, the Bondi Junction-based team has grown 30 percent in headcount this year, and over 50 percent in the last two years.
Mad Paws is a go-to pet sitting community online, where pet owners can find trusted pet sitters near their homes.
Mad Paws, one of the startups listed in our Sydney Startup feature, have had a huge growth year with 50 percent increase in headcount to reach around 40 employees. The business was founded in 2014 and have experienced much of their headcount growth in Support, Marketing, IT and Community and Social Services areas.
zipMoney is the smarter way to pay for life’s larger purchases over time, on your terms.
zipMoney have had a whopping year with growth of 50 percent. The company, which was launched in 2013 seem to have had an explosion in headcount this year, reaching over 140 employees. Main areas of growth have been in Business Development, Engineering, Finance, and Sales.
Airtasker is a trusted community platform that connects people who need to outsource tasks and find local services, with people who are looking to earn money and ready to work.
This year has been another big year of growth for the Sydney based platform, with over 120 employees. Already this year the team has grown by over 50 percent, taking two-year growth to 150 percent.
Employment Hero is a SaaS-based recruitment, HR, payroll and compliance platform.
Employment Hero has had 18 percent growth in this past year. The primary areas of growth for Employment Hero this year were in Engineering and IT. The business now has a team of around 60 employees.
JobAdder is a global recruitment platform built for staffing agencies and in-house corporate recruiters.
JobAdder has had a great year with 37 percent headcount growth. They are up to around 80 employees and the teams seeing the most growth are Information Technology, Engineering, and Consulting.
Data Republic provides a multi-lateral data exchange platform.
In the past year, Data Republic has seen 25 percent growth, bringing their staff to nearly 50 employees. Program and Project Management, as well as Business Development, seems to be the areas with the greatest increase.
Flare HR provides software that manages the onboarding of new employees, payroll, and other HR functions.
Another one of our Sydney Startup top picks, Flare HR, have grown their headcount by 36 percent this year. The group launched in 2015 and now have a staff base of around 40 employees. The main areas of growth have been in Sales, Business Development, HR, and Engineering.
Leadbolt is a High-Performance Mobile advertising platform for User Acquisition and In-app monetisation.
The company, which was established in 2010, has grown 25 percent in the last year. They now employ around 60 staff. The areas to receive the greatest injections of headcount are Media and Communication, Business Development and Marketing.
Inabox Group is the leading provider of IT, cloud, and IP services, from resale and wholesale solutions to managed IT, NBN, and IAAS services.
Inabox Group has seen headcount growth of over 40 percent this year, now with around 100 employees in total. Sales, Business Development, Information Technology and Engineering all saw an increase in team size this year.
ITSM delivers comprehensive Infrastructure Management Services and Cloud Solutions for companies and institutions, increasing user productivity to access applications and computing resources.
ITSM, who have been around since 2011, has had a nice year of growth. Headcount has increased by 20 percent. They have over 55 employees. Both their Sales and Operations team saw increases of over 50 percent and their Support team also increased in number.
Need a car for Uber? Splend is more than a car hire company; they offer the complete service.
Splend also made our list of 50 Sydney Startups to watch in 2017. No wonder. The business, which was launched in 2015, has grown by 40 percent this year. Marketing, Sales, Business Development, and Operations the major areas adding headcount, taking them to nearly 50 staff.
Bravura Solutions is a leading global supplier of superannuation/pension, life insurance, investment, private wealth and portfolio.
Bravura employs well over 900 staff and has been around since 2004. The team has increased headcount by 9 percent in the last 12 months. The main areas to increase numbers have been Program and Project Management, Engineering, Consulting and Information Technology.
ansarada is a global provider of data rooms for merger and acquisition due diligence.
In the last 12 months, Ansarada has increased their headcount by 15 percent. They now employ over 175 staff and seen most of this year’s growth in their Engineering, Sales and Marketing areas.
Soprano Design is the leading provider of mobile enterprise messaging technology for mobile network operators and global enterprise customers, with more than one billion group enterprise messages delivered annually worldwide.
Soprano Design has been around for quite some time, setting up shop in 1994. Still going strong, they have increased headcount by 15 percent in the last 12 months. Information Technology received the largest injection of 56 percent most staff. Other areas to grow were Sales, Engineering and Admin. They employ 100 staff.
HUB24‘s award-winning investment and superannuation platform offer broad product choice and an innovative experience for advisers and investors.
In the game for the past ten years, HUB24 are going from strength to strength. This year they have grown headcount by 80 percent to now employ around 80 staff. Engineering increased by 100 percent. Other areas to benefit from additional headcount were Business Development, Administration and Finance.
Arxxus is a cloud-focused enterprise services provider specializing in salesforce.com consulting and development.
The team at Arxxus have grown headcount by 30 percent in the past 12 months. Engineering increased the most by 43 percent. Business Development and Research were also beneficiaries of the headcount growth. The business now employs over 120 staff.
Barhead is a customer solutions company, born in the cloud and focused on Microsoft.
Over the last 12 months, they’ve been through a 20 percent growth in headcount, bringing total employees to over 125, around 30 are listed as being located in Australia.
Saviom is a leading global provider of enterprise resource planning and workforce planning tools.
Another established business in Aussie tech is Saviom Software. They have been in business since 1999. They have grown in headcount by 20 per cent this year. Their Sales team saw the majority of this, increasing by 50 per cent. Today they employ over 40 staff.
SuperConcepts is the leading innovator in SMSF services spanning administration, education, and software.
SuperConcepts are another established business seeing some good headcount growth. In the past 12 months, they have increased by 10 percent. The majority of this headcount went into Business Development, followed by Information Technology and Sales. They now employ over 200 staff.
Expert360 allows businesses to engage and manage top talent for short-mid term project-work.
Since founding in 2013, the Sydney based company has grown to nearly 100 employees, with a 40 percent headcount growth this year alone. Business Development and Engineering were the biggest growth areas.
Uno Home Loans provide access to technology that helps consumers find the right home loan to match specific needs. Since launching in 2015, the uno team has had a pretty flying start, hitting nearly employees with a 50 percent growth this year. Key growth areas have come from Business Development and Finance.
Author Bio: – Alex Holderness is an independent Freelance writer at The Martech. She has a unique 15 year background in writing industry and her recent article includes “100 Australian Tech Companies to Watch in 2018”. She has started her carrier from The Martec as Content Manager.
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