đź‘Ť The startups are alright
The Canva IPO will release a lot of liquidity into the market, but it's also likely to release a lot of experienced founders into the ecosystem's talent pool. The Valley had the 'Paypal Mafia' — could Australia have the 'Canva Cartel'?
There's been so much press coverage about down rounds, tighter funding conditions and layoffs this year that it's easy to overlook a simple truth: Australia's startup ecosystem is actually thriving.
None of this was more evident than at last week’s Southstart, where the general consensus was that “the startups are alright”. And that wasn’t just the result of a high from a few days in the sun mixed with some wine.
Yes, there are issues and things that need fixing, but we’re a long way from 12 people on a Google email list calling themselves CEOs of their one and two person companies. Fundamentally, we’ve also gotten better at helping each other and connecting people in where they need it — something that Australians have long admired from folks in the Valley.
Roughly a decade after the birth of what is the modern day ecosystem, Australia is seeing a large number of global deep tech companies emerge, and we’ve got a number of well-established unicorns, a growing number of angel investors and well-established VC.
