Home topics start-up-entrepreneur Startup Startup Two in three Victorian startups are exporters James Harkness August 25, 2017 A new report into Victoria’s startup landscape reveals that a majority of ventures are revenue positive within the first two years but are not giving thought to an exit strategy. Commissioned by LaunchVic in collaboration with Startup Victoria and dandolopartners the report – titled Mapping Victoria’s Ecosystem – defines a startup as any business with high impact potential that uses disruptive innovation and addresses scalable markets. Of the 1600 plus firms that responded to the survey, 1137 met this definition. Kate Cornick, CEO of LaunchVic said “We have never before had such a large sample size of Victorian startups, making the report an important asset for the sector. It is a useful tool for key decision makers in terms of better understanding the makeup of the Victorian startup ecosystem and how best to support it.” Key findings Three ‘unicorns’ have emerged in Victoria, more than any other state in Australia – namely, REA Group ($8.7bn), SEEK ($5.9bn) and com.au ($2.8bn). The state has a sophisticated and diverse mix of startups across a variety of industries, but results demonstrate particular strength in Health, Enterprise & Corporate Services, and Media & Entertainment. Significantly, startups and scaleups in the health sector create a disproportionately large number of jobs for the number of companies operating in the sector. Startups are successfully executing monetisation strategies early in their journey, with 60% revenue positive in their first year, rising