Victorian Startup Ecosystem Outperforms Growth Expectations

An updated report from Deloitte Access Economics has found the Victorian startup ecosystem has out-performed growth expectations from those forecast in its 2020 report.

Commissioned by Victoria’s Startup Agency, LaunchVic, ‘Scaling up: Growing the economic opportunity for Victoria’s startup ecosystem’ report highlights that Victoria’s entire ecosystem value has almost doubled since the last report in 2020 up from $50 billion to $91 billion.

It also shows that despite Victoria’s population falling for the first time in almost 30 years, the Victorian startup ecosystem experienced a rapid expansion of its startup workforce, which increased from 37,000 in 2020 to 52,000 FTE jobs in 2022.

LaunchVic CEO Dr Kate Cornick said startups accounted for a significant share of productivity growth and had become a critical ingredient to an economy’s performance providing huge potential for Victoria.

“In a period of just two years we have seen startup jobs grow by 20 per cent annually and in fact double from those recorded between 2018 and 2020,” she said.

“The fundamentals are in place for strong ecosystem growth in Victoria but to keep this momentum going and build on this rapid growth to date, continued investment is essential.”

For the report, Deloitte explored what Victoria’s economy could look like if its startup ecosystem resembled international benchmarks of Singapore and Tel Aviv. It showed that associated growth in startup density and scaleup success rates will have significant impacts on productivity, employment, and the broader Victorian economy over the next 20 years.

By 2042, if Victoria’s startup density grows to the level of Singapore, Victoria’s GSP could be $6.9 billion higher, or $10.2 billion higher if it grows to the density of Tel Aviv. This amounts to an increase in GSP of between $26.9 billion and $35.8 billion in net present value (NPV) terms over the modelled period.

This level of growth will create between 19,400 and 30,200 additional FTE jobs (cumulatively) by 2042, or between 8,150 and 12,350 additional jobs annually over the modelled period.

To view the full report visit launchvic.org/impact report