Unicorn hunt: Why Australia’s fertile ground for $1 billion start-ups
Australia is among the world’s top nations for creating unicorn start-ups with the average time to a $1 billion valuation at about seven years, according to a UK survey.
Go1 founders Chris Eigeland, Vu Tran, Chris Hood and Andrew Barnes
It took Afterpay six years to go from the $25 million IPO, led by Wilsons, to its $39 billion buyout by Square announced this week.
Queensland-based Go1 got its start in 2015 and is now valued at more than $1 billion – the point at which a company is referred to as a unicorn.
Brisbane’s Octopus Deploy along with companies like Canva and Airwallex also fit the unicorn descriptor and there is believed to be only about 750 in the world.
According to the survey by comparison site, Money.co.uk, Australia was the fourth best country in terms of the time it takes to reach the $1 billion level.
But where the nation falls down is in the number of companies that have achieved that level. The survey found only six that fit the bill, although there have been at least 20 that have been reported in rich lists.
In comparison, the start-ups in the US took the same amount of time but there were 378 listed by the survey that made the unicorn level.
China led the list in terms of speed. It took five years, 10 months on average to reach a $1 billion valuation, followed by Hong Kong. Japanese unicorns took six years, one month.
