How did Australian startups approach going global?

“And so when you break that down, We say technology-driven, and we mean technology in the broadest sense. We say that they're innovative because they are disrupting, typically. And global is really important for us. We don't believe there are very many startups at all that can function purely on a domestic basis. That doesn't mean to say that they don't have a solely domestic focus for a period of time, but we are such a small market in Australia, they necessarily have to be thinking global. This is not about muesli bar companies. Great businesses, love them, eat a lot of muesli bars, Your average music bar is not a global brand. And so when you add all of that up together, what are we trying to say? We're really trying to get behind companies that have a very rapid growth trajectory, can reach a billion-dollar valuation, and can hire many hundreds of staff.”

“Well, I think Australia is doing well at producing great companies, and I listed a few before. We are a tiny nation, a long way from the rest of the world, and yet we are producing some really great companies. Would we like to see them be produced at greater scale and faster? Absolutely. But the reality The reality is we are being noticed and we have got great founders, the Atlassians, the Canvas, the Akinexes, the Airwallexes, the Afterpays, et cetera, that are proving that you don't have to jump ship, move to Silicon Valley, and go and grow your business overseas. Absolutely, we're talking startups, we're talking businesses with global potential. They have to necessarily have global offices. At Launchvic, we're not particularly interested in startups that don't have that that international trajectory. We recognize that there will be strong presence internationally for these companies, but the fact that headquarters aren't jumping ship and moving to the US or the UK is really fantastic. It's fantastic for the startup sector, it's fantastic for the founders, it's fantastic for the people that do well, whether it's a founder exiting or an employee with a piece of equity who then exit, who then come back as often very experienced staff into new startups or invest into the ecosystem. So I think we're starting to see that flywheel kick off, and that's really a great thing for the community.”