Founder  

Silk Road Telecommunication

  

The AustralAsia Bridge

to China and Silicon Valley

November 7

 Aussie Startups Looking Up To China

  

Mike Cannon-Brookes, co-founder of enterprise software company Atlassian, is a role model for future Australian entrepreneurs looking to scale their businesses and expand internationally. Not too many new businesses raise their first round of funding after eight years of starting up, and at $60 million from heavyweight investor Accel Partners of Silicon Valley.

Now topping $100 million in sales internationally, Atlassian, formed in 2002, has been growing by 38 percent annually for the past five years mostly through word-of-mouth referrals, and has chalked up 44 straight quarters of profits, Cannon-Brookes tells me in his central Sydney office.  Next could be a public listing.

  

The budding startup scene in Australia needs plenty more examples of successful local entrepreneurial companies like Atlassian rather than looking to Silicon Valley or China as its models. But there aren't too many well-known Australian tech startups - at least not yet.

Australia is better known for the Outback, the Great Barrier Reef and kangaroos rather than technology breakthroughs from inventive  startups.

Challenged by a shortage of venture capital and angel investment, the tech innovation community in Australia is now reawakening after the dot com era a decade ago flushed out several startup investors and their portfolio companies.

As Australia's mining boom slows, there is a growing need for new Australian companies of a different sort to gear up. A broader and deeper ecosystem for tech startups to scale could be a solution to drive the economy forward. Read Forbes post, AUSSIE.

Stay tuned for

Silicon Dragon Sydney!  

  

  

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Yet Wellington's unique entrepreneurial spirit was on show.

Read Forbes post, SHAKING.

  

  

  

(and why I have not seen any cows all week in New Zealand)

 

After the

big shake-up

in Wellington a few days ago, I arrived in Auckland, the so-called city of sails. It was rainy so there wasn't much sailing in the harbor but instead traffic jams in the LA-like sprawl of New Zealand's largest city, home to a hustling population

of 1.5 million and yes, startups

and small businesses that are angling to go international. While New Zealand's startup scene is young, a few of the more inventive and creative businesses are breaking through in spite of a limited venture capital market yet energized angel investment community. 

Can-do Kiwis have a tradition for ingenuity - a trait in common with China's tech entrepreneurs who had to start from scratch.

 

EXPLORATIONS