Company: Tibra Capital
Age: 29 and 29
Little known financial whiz kids Christian King and Kinsey Cotton are executives and shareholders at Sydney-based financial trading company Tibra Capital, which contained a stunning seven members of BRW magazine’s Young Rich list which was published in September 2010.
The company, which specialises in high-frequency trading based on complex algorithms, is a money-making machine – according to BRW, it produced a profit of $77.5 million in 2008-09, and paid dividends of $36 million in the 2009 financial year.
Cotton, who is head of trading for the Asian region, was valued at $36 million by BRW, while King, who is director and a senior trader, has a fortune estimated to be $28 million.
Wai Hong FongCompany: OzHut
Age: 25
OzHut founder Wai Hong Fong didn’t let the reluctance of bigger players to work with his new company get him down. Rather, the Malaysia-born Melburnian chose to target small suppliers instead for his niche online retail site and build up traffic over time, before gradually getting larger players on board.
“The biggest lesson learnt in this was definitely not to be discouraged by being turned down,” Fong, who won the Young Entrepreneur of the Year award at this year’s StartUpSmart award, says.
Revenue at OzHut, which sells items from breathalyzers to telescopes and Victorinox Swiss Army knives, has soared from $300,000 in its first year to a predicted $3.1 million in its third.
Alex GransburyCompany: Dreamfarm
Age: 29
Most investors would be lucky to have one decent invention in them. At the age of 29, Alex Gransbury has produced 15.
What started as a childhood hobby of making napkin holders for his mother has grown into Dreamfarm, a maker of innovative kitchenware and homewares and winner of three prestigious Red Dot Design Awards, including the Best of the Best award. Gransbury founded the company in 2003 at the age of 22.
His first product was a coffee grind knockbox, the Grindenstein. By 2005 it was being sold internationally, despite an incident that almost saw Gransbury take his own arm off.
A US subsidiary was established in 2008, and today Dreamfarm’s products are sold in more than 309 countries. The Brisbane-based company survived half a metre of muddy water sweeping through its operations earlier this year and is looking at growth of greater than 30%.
James GriffinCompany: SR7
Age: 26
Social media has been one of the fastest growing phenomena to emerge from the internet in the past decade, so it’s little wonder that it is also throwing up a crop of bright young entrepreneurs.
James Griffin co-founded SR7 in 2009 as a provider of social media intelligence and advisory services when he was not long out of university, along with business partners Peter Fraser and Greg Daniel.
Today it is a global powerhouse, with clients including the world’s largest provider of risk management services, Aon, along with numerous other blue chip organisations, and the company expects to triple in size this year.
Griffin’s expertise is well recognised, and he is a frequent commentator on social media issues, and was called on to provide support to the Treasurer of New South Wales in both the 2007 and 2011 NSW elections.
Jordan GrivesCompany: Fonebox Group
Age: 22
At just 22 Jordan Grives has built his company Foenbox Group into a full telecommunications service provider with revenue of just over $2 million.
Grives got his start immediately after leaving high school in 2006 when he went to work for his parents’ company Voiceworks, which provided ‘advertising on hold’ services with a turnover of $400,000 a year.
He has since grown that business to employ 11 staff and a much broader range of services including fixed line business and residential telephony and data access services, as well as in-store advertising solutions and a call routing service that connect callers with their nearest store by postcode.
Fonebox is now selling into New Zealand, and revenue is predicted to double this year. Grives intends to stretch out to the UK and North America in 2012 and his future strategy includes taking on investors and acquisitions.
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