Harbouring a new start-up scene

Meanwhile, the number of female-run businesses is on the up, growing 7% since 2006, compared to just a 1.9% rise in male founders. More than a third of the 650,000 small businesses across NSW are now run by women.

With the rapid economic development of the western suburbs, a new NSW government that has promised to sort out the transport mess, and increasingly popular start-up events such as Launch48 and Tech23, there is every indication that Sydney’s powerhouse days are far from behind it.

Sydney’s Silicon Valley

Macquarie Park, in Ryde, has been dubbed ‘Australia’s Silicon Valley’ housing businesses in the communications, medical research, pharmaceutical and IT&T sectors.

A $557 million “special economic zone” has been proposed for western Sydney, but local start-up experts feel that there are still gaps to be filled.

“Moving forward, there isn’t a central area for early stage tech, spread between Surry Hills, Redfern to North Ryde,” says Phaedon Stough, managing partner of Mitchell Lake and organiser of Innovation Bay, a series of start-up pitching dinners.

“This needs to change or evolve: There needs to be a strong precinct for early stage companies to share space and network with like-minded folk.”

Strengths

• Home to a large proportion of the best-known businesses in Australia, including Microsoft, eBay, Vodafone and Coca-Cola.
• Access to programs such as PushStart, Innovation Bay and Startmate.
• Home to a large VC community and other backers such as the Sydney Angels network.
• Well-established as an international trading hub, with strong links to US and Asian markets.
• Lifestyle is consistently lauded as among the best in the world.

Weaknesses

• Transport congestion is so bad that it has been blamed for a dip in GDP.
• Renting office or factory space in Sydney can be prohibitively expensive.
• Still needs a sense of start-up community and identity.

Notable start-ups

• Atlassian
• Freelancer.com
• Spreets
• Google Maps