Awesome Melbourne Tech Startups

Posted: December 27th, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: General | Tags: , , , , , , , | 47 Comments »

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There are a lot of really great things happening in the Australian startup scene and particularly in Melbourne. I thought I’d create a list of some of the more interesting, young and web-based startups. Some are bigger than others but it’s sometimes hard to know where to draw the line.

99Designs – Crowd-sourced design.

Aconex – Project management software for the construction industry

Adioso – Airfare search engine

AgileBench – Agile project management

Assess’d – Competency based recruitment testing

Corkboard – Email based file sharing

Creately – Online diagramming and design

BaseEstate – Real estate search engine

BinaryPlex – Twitter analytics and data mining. See Tribalytic

Docoloco – Local business reviews.

DPhoto – Simple online photo sharing and backup.

Edublogs – Blogging platform for students and teachers.

Event Arc – Automated ticketing and online registration for events

Intelimail – Email marketing

I Vote For Art – Online art community and marketplace

JebHunt - Job application manager

Jodoro – Collaborative modelling tool.

Merspi – Social learning tool for VCE students

MyTVR – Online television recording/viewing

Nodecity – Non-profit wireless networks

Orgnition – Non-profit organisation management.

QMCODES – Mobile marketing

Red Bubble - Online art community and marketplace

Rentoid – Rental industry aggregator

Retail Me Not – Discount store aggregator

Service Central – Australias #1 online services marketplace.

SimpleSponsorship – Sponsorship management

Skitch – Screenshot and collaboration tool

Smart Energy Groups – Energy awareness communities.

Stateless Systems – makers of RetailMeNot, BugMeNot etc

StoreCrowd – Discount store aggregator

Suburb View – Real Estate search tool

Tribalytic – Twitter analytics to filter the noise and focus on the topics.

XHTMLised – PSD to XHTML service

Yabble – Local business reviews

These are just some of the awesome startups coming out of Melbourne. I’m sure there are plenty more on their way and some that I’ve missed.

Who else should I add?

Ned

UPDATE: 8/04/2010 Added DPhoto, Smart Energy Groups and EventArc

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47 Comments on “Awesome Melbourne Tech Startups”

  1. 1 Craig said at 5:20 am on December 28th, 2009:

    You might be interested in http://www.baseestate.com. Real Estate search engine, we do most of our business in the US but are based in Melbourne. And a brand new design should be out in the coming weeks so watch out for it!

  2. 2 Ned said at 5:41 am on December 28th, 2009:

    Thanks Craig, have added. Seems to be a few Melbourne guys in a similar space. Have you made it to any of the networking events, the Hive, Hacker News meetup etc?

  3. 3 Craig said at 6:54 pm on December 28th, 2009:

    Hi Ned. I haven’t been to any meetup’s yet. Would like to but with busy work and family it is hard to get out!

  4. 4 Stuart said at 5:17 pm on December 29th, 2009:

    Hey Ned, awesome list. Some really innovative stuff happening in Melbourne at the moment.

    Feel free to add us ;)

    Stu

  5. 5 Ned said at 5:54 pm on December 29th, 2009:

    Updated!

  6. 6 Sam Granleese said at 9:41 pm on December 29th, 2009:

    Hi Ned – Great list! Here’s some to add off the top of my head:

    99 Designs.com – crowdsourced design

    Right Angle Studio – of Threethousand.com.au TwoThousand, et al fame

    Cheers,

    SG

  7. 7 Alon Tamir said at 10:31 pm on December 29th, 2009:

    Hi Ned,

    Our clients are also mostly based in the US, but we’re here in Melbourne…www.intelemail.com

    Great list!

  8. 8 Kate Kendall said at 10:32 pm on December 29th, 2009:

    What about QMCODES founded by @antonymd?

  9. 9 Kate Kendall said at 10:43 pm on December 29th, 2009:

    Sorry me again. :-)

    Two more fantastic (female) startups:

    @SourceBottle – http://www.sourcebottle.com.au

    @LoveBento – http://www.lovebento.com.au

  10. 10 Ned said at 11:43 pm on December 29th, 2009:

    99 Designs and QMCODES – natural additions to this list, surprised I forgot them actually!

    I’m not so sure if Right Angle Publishing, Love Bento or Source Bottle fit into this particular list though. They all seem more media companies (or startups) than tech.

    Melbourne media companies is another list entirely!

  11. 11 Kate Kendall said at 12:36 am on December 30th, 2009:

    I think you’re definitely right about RAP and Love Bento if you want to exclude media companies (or content providers) Ned, but Source Bottle is different. It’s more of a facilitation tool (like Red Bubble, Orginition, Rentoid, 99Designs, etc.). It’s a platform which allows users to do an exchange of sorts. There isn’t any media involved in the traditional sense – it’s just confusing as half of the users just happen to be in the media.

    Anyway just Kate’s two cents! :-)

  12. 12 Guy said at 2:00 pm on December 30th, 2009:

    http://www.statelesssystems.com

    great list thanks!

  13. 13 Becx said at 6:53 pm on December 31st, 2009:

    Loving the list. You might like to add nearbynerd.com.au – a circa 2009 QLD-based site connecting untechy people with PC crash/lost files/other meltdown with ‘nerds’ in their area by postcode. I already found an IT engineering grad 10 mins from home at 10% of my usual tech’s fee after hours. He saved my bacon!

  14. 14 Michael said at 10:06 am on January 9th, 2010:

    Hi Ned

    I am a founder at an ad analytics startup (http://myadengine.com), funded by a Singapore incubator (Garag3).

    We are in Melb this week (10 – 16 Jan) and would love to meet some local startups just out of curiosity – are there any meetups or groups you can recommend?

    Cheers

    Michael

  15. 15 Ned said at 5:15 pm on January 9th, 2010:

    Hi Michael,

    I just shot you an email but the best place to go this week is the Silicon Beach drinks on Wednesday night. It’s a weekly tech/startup meetup at Little Creatures on Brunswick Street, Fitzroy from 6pm.

    See you then!

    Ned

  16. 16 Ned said at 5:33 pm on January 9th, 2010:

    @becx I’ll have to have a think about starting an “Awesome Brisbane Tech Startups” page :P

  17. 17 Matthew Kwan said at 7:38 pm on January 16th, 2010:

    Hi Ned.

    Vivatel probably meets your criteria (http://www.vivatel.com.au). We’re not web-based, but definitely a Melbourne tech startup.

  18. 18 58 Companies, Organizations and Programs Driving the New Orleans Startup Movement | Taylor Davidson (@tdavidson) said at 4:23 am on January 27th, 2010:

    [...] Ross Hill sent me Ned Dwyer’s list of Melbourne, Australia tech startups. What other posts about the companies driving their startup ecosystems are out [...]

  19. 19 James Spittal said at 10:41 pm on January 28th, 2010:

    Hey Ned,

    Merspi (http://merspi.com) might qualify for your list.

    Cheers

    James

  20. 20 Ned said at 10:45 pm on January 28th, 2010:

    Of course! Have updated the list now :)

  21. 21 Hi Ned said at 10:47 pm on January 30th, 2010:

    Hi Ned,

    I’m moving in to Melbourne in 2 weeks and I am the owner and creator of a startup called Smokin’ Tops (smokintops.com). I was hoping to be on your list because I think it would fit in.

    Cheers

    Matt

  22. 22 Julian said at 3:43 am on March 24th, 2010:

    Do the Wednesday night meetups still happen? Have been working on my startup for a while, always looking for others to bounce ideas off.

  23. 23 Ned said at 1:03 am on March 25th, 2010:

    Wednesday nights are definitely still on though I personally haven’t been down in a few weeks. Might make an effort to get back into it this week actually :)

    Ned

  24. 24 phil said at 9:22 pm on April 3rd, 2010:

    where’s that image from?

  25. 25 Melbourne puts together a kick-ass list of startups said at 4:30 am on April 8th, 2010:

    [...] to a heads-up from @rosshill I checked out a list of “Awesome Melbourne Tech Startups” composed by Ned Dwyer, today, and was really pleased with what I [...]

  26. 26 Scott Handsaker said at 4:38 am on April 8th, 2010:

    Hi Ned,

    Eventarc fits the bill mate. http://www.eventarc.com.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  27. 27 Henry Dawson said at 5:16 am on April 8th, 2010:

    Great list. I had no idea…

    DPHOTO is in Melbourne too. Photo sharing and backup (www.dphoto.com)

  28. 28 Ned said at 6:00 am on April 8th, 2010:

    Thanks Scott and Henry, I’ve added both EventArc and DPHOTO to the list.

    Surprised I missed EventArc actually, I’ve been a big fan of you guys for a while :)

    Ned

  29. 29 Simon Gilligan said at 2:14 pm on April 8th, 2010:

    Hi Ned, I’l love to see APPLEBOX up there (http://applebox.com.au). We’ve put an iTunes interface onto your local DVD store, dropped the shelves and you’ve got Retail 2.0. Shazzam!

  30. 30 Girl Startup said at 11:21 pm on April 8th, 2010:

    I thought Skitch was a NZ startup?

  31. 31 Brad Down said at 9:55 pm on April 14th, 2010:

    That is a freaky looking pic of Melbourne. Who did that?

  32. 32 Danial Ahchow said at 4:22 am on April 17th, 2010:

    Service Central ( http://www.servicecentral.com.au )might fit the bill as well. We’re based in Collingwood, which seems to be a hot-spot for IT Start-Ups. Must have something to do with the cheap rent!

  33. 33 Ned said at 12:21 am on April 20th, 2010:

    @GirlStartup: Skitch are definitely Australian with the head of the company based in Melbourne. Other members of the team are in Canberra, Finland and Tasmania.

    @BradDown I found the image on Flickr using a Creative Commons search but can’t seem to replicate it. If you find out who owns it I really need to do proper attribution.

    @DanielAhchow nice one, I’ve added you guys to the list :)

  34. 34 Eric Bae said at 5:16 pm on April 27th, 2010:

    Hi Ned,

    Excellent list. How about “Freally.com”? It’s a new start-up based in Melbourne and Sydney by a small team.

    It allows people to give away unwanted items and others can receive them for free.

    Freally promotes recycling and green earth through people’s generosity!

  35. 35 Girl Startup said at 5:50 am on April 30th, 2010:

    Oh that’s great! I love skitch. Maybe, it’s because the voice-over guy that does the video tutorials for skitch, sounds like a New Zealander.

  36. 36 Interview with Ross Hill – Entrepreneur, organiser of The Hive Melbourne and Innovator! « Techfluff.tv said at 12:30 am on May 29th, 2010:

    [...] There is also a solid list of ‘Awesome Tech Melbourne Startups’ collated by Ned Dwyer here – which goes to show that the tech spirit in Melbourne is well and truly [...]

  37. 37 Melbourne tech scene interview with techfluff.tv said at 5:58 pm on May 30th, 2010:

    [...] I mentioned Ned’s great list of Awesome Melbourne Tech Startups. [...]

  38. 38 Andrew Birt said at 3:13 am on June 3rd, 2010:

    Hi Ned,

    Would Snowballer.com.au make the list yet?
    Cheers!

    AB

  39. 39 OWF^ Management said at 11:49 pm on June 4th, 2010:

    Ummm…. Check us out also, we’re 100% Australian Owned…

    1. FREE “TRUE” WEBMASTER TRAINING
    2. BETA finishes in 2011 and in 2012 we launch…

    Get in before end 2010 and you score a free lifetime membership… That’s if you don’t want to grovel later on and pay $149.00 per annum : Cheers, General AskiKa…

  40. 40 The word is out! » Blog Archive » TechfluffTV Assignment – Silicon Beach Series said at 9:09 am on August 6th, 2010:

    [...] showed me a blog post by Ned Dwyer which compiled a few dozen awesome Melbourne tech start-ups. She asked me to do a 2 sentence write [...]

  41. 41 Clifford Heath said at 9:04 am on September 6th, 2010:

    Don’t forget the *other* collaborative modelling startup, Data Constellation. This tech is truly ground-breaking, if I do say so myself. It’s backed up by the Constellation Query Language, available as an open source implementation as the Ruby gem “activefacts”.

  42. 42 Johnny said at 5:24 am on October 26th, 2010:

    Happy to see Melbourne as the latest Start-up Hub.

    I have http://www.thumbshub.com that automatically generates Free Website thumbnails based in Melbourne.

  43. 43 Quora said at 12:04 am on November 22nd, 2010:

    What are the top startups to follow in Australia?…

    This is a good listed, compiled by Ned Dwyer, of start ups in Melbourne: http://www.mynameisned.com/awesome-melbourne-tech-startups…

  44. 44 Startups: What are some of the recently established startups located in Australia and what do they do? - Quora said at 1:06 am on January 10th, 2011:

    [...] and Scott Farquhar.  (Source Wikipedia)Insert a dynamic date here  Michael Shimmins http://www.mynameisned.com/aweso… has a pretty good list.Insert a dynamic date [...]

  45. 45 What startups are based in Melbourne, Australia? - Quora said at 7:11 am on May 10th, 2011:

    [...] Williams, http://cultureamp.com Ned Dwyer has a great list here (if a little old – Dec 2009)http://www.mynameisned.com/aweso…I'd also add http://processamp.com to that this.This answer .Please specify the necessary [...]

  46. 46 The Death of Entrepreneurship at RMIT | Samuel Johns said at 2:26 am on December 31st, 2011:

    [...] 4) Get a job with an Awesome Melbourne Tech Startup [...]

  47. 47 David said at 8:39 pm on November 22nd, 2012:

    Looking at the list above, the startups all seem to be focussed on software development. Are there any groups or individuals developing physical products?

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