Which Aussie companies are unicorns in 2024?

In this article

• What's a 'unicorn' business?
• Which Aussie companies are unicorns?
• Could you be the next unicorn?

Australia is special for many reasons, but one suprise is the quick rise of "unicorn" companies. These businesses have big values, big dreams, and have shown they can do amazing things fast.

From great finance tech to a strong pet care business, these companies aren't just doing well, they've changing how things work and setting new standard around the world.

We'll look at Australia's current unicorn startups, seeing how they got so big and the clever ways they've joined the billion-dollar club.

Unicorn businesses (like the magical horses) are pretty rare and get a lot of attention. Often funded by big investors and usually tech-based, a unicorn is a startup that is:

1. Not listed on the stock market; and
2. Worth over USD$1 billion.

Also, to get investors excited enough to become a unicorn, a startup has to be really good at solving a problem that customers have.

Here are eight Aussie unicorns that have reached the top of startup success, showing others in their fields how it's done and inspiring new business owners:

https://www.canva.com/

Worth: USD $26 billion.

If you haven't used Canva to make a presentation, logo, resume or social media post, you're in the minority.

Canva made graphic design easy for everyone - letting anyone quickly use templates, images, fonts, and other tools to create great content without needing advanced design skills.

Started in 2013, Canva has been hugely successful and now works in almost 200 countries and over 100 languages. Users have made billions of designs since it began.

Canva's story shows how important it is for startups to keep trying. As Founder Melanie Perkins told Fortune, the company was turned down by 100 investors before finally getting support and growing into the powerhouse it is today.

https://www.airwallex.com/au

Worth: USD $5.5 billion

Airwallex (that's us!) is changing how businesses handle money around the world. Like many other unicorns, Airwallex started by fixing a problem that no one else was solving.

In 2015, our four founders had a coffee shop in Melbourne and were hit with a big fees when buying supplies from overseas. They thought there must be a better way.

Now, almost 10 years later, Airwallex is an Australian unicorn helping thousands of businesses by making it easier to pay bills, manage spending, exchange money, and send money globally, among other things.

Even as it's grown worldwide, Airwallex's focus on using Australian's exciting startup scene and its skilled fintech workers has been key to the company's success.

https://www.immutable.com/

Worth: USD $2.5 billion

Regular gaming has billions of fans, but players have never really owned the digital items they get while playing. 

Immutable is leading the way in Web3 gaming, giving both game makers and players new tools like blockchain that let people truly own their digital items.

Immutable's Co-Founder Robbie Ferguson has some great advice for growing your business. As he told Airtree, this includes staying focused by writting weekly checklist and tackling big problems first before smaller issues. 

He also thinks that touch economic times can be the best for trying new ideas. "A tough market is the best time to build something people really want, rather than having fake demand. It's really good for building a strong company," he said.

https://www.go1.com/

Worth: USD $2 billion

Go1 has found a great spot in job training, giving businesses a way to help workers learn new skills and follow rules by bringing together content from over 25 providers.

With more than 70 tech partners, Go1 makes it easy for its 17,000 customers around the world to add learning to the systems their teams already use, matching learners with the best material for their needs from a huge library of courses.

Co-Founder Vu Tran has lots of good advice for startups on getting to know their customers using public information and jokingly suggests not trying to sneak extra time off work. Every day is a chance to learn and grow!

https://safetyculture.com/

Worth: USD $1.76 billion

SafetyCulture's main idea is that getting employees involved in decisions is important for creating a good safety culture. 

To help workplaces do this, it turns policies and procedures into digital forms, automates checks and audits, and makes tasks, training and team communication easier.

Founder Luke Annear told Startup News "After seeing how much people use smartphones, I wanted to make a solution for workplace safety to help stop accidents before they happen."

SafetyCulture's growing customer base comes from many industries like manufacturing, construction, healthcare, sports, entertainment and hospitality. Its iAuditor app has changed the old paper-based processes in these industries to digital ones, and has become one of the most popular safety and quality check apps in the world, used more than 50,000 times each day.

https://www.cultureamp.com/

Worth: USD 1.5 billion

Started in 2009, Culture Amp provides tools and insights for employee engagement, performance and development that businesses need to make a better experience for their workers. It now has about 2,500 customers in 50 countries, and a team of over 400 in Melbourne, San Francisco, New York and London.

As founder Didier Elizinger told SmartCompany, "What matters is how many people believe in you, not how many people don't. If no one understands your idea, that might be telling. But if even a few people say they'd use it, it doesn't matter if many think it's silly," he says. 

Didier also suggests: be open about failures, talk a lot with your team and (fitting for an employee experience business) know when to stop working.

https://linktr.ee/ 

Worth: USD $1.3 billion

Linktree started when brothers Alex and Anthony Zaccaria, with co-founder Nick Humphreys, were running a music angency, using Instagram for artist news.

"We felt limited by only beging able to share one link," Alex says, "We saw that musicians were more than just their latest song. They had tickets to sell, festivals to promote, products to offer."

Showing how important it is for startups to focus and act fast to make their first product, he notes "We built the first version of Linktree in less than a day."  This created the now-famous tool that lets Instagram users turn their bio link into a gateway for multiple pages, boosting their social media impact.

Linktree is now used by almost 25 million creators, artists and brands worldwide. Though it began as a "link in bio" tool, it's also become a big e-commerce player that drives over $6 billion a year in sales through its platform.

https://www.petcircle.com.au/

Worth: USD$1 billion

Recently, pet owners have been spending more on their pets, wanting more convenience than supermarkets or regular pet stores could give. 

Also, old-style vet services and insurance weren't meeting pet owners' needs well.

Co-founder and CEO Michael Frizell said Pet Circle has grown a lot since starting its mission to "change how people care for pets, by making a system that connects our customers to 24/7 vet help and offers the biggest and best range of pet products and services in Australia." 

Besides selling pet food and supplies online, Pet Circle offers subscription pet care services, including VetChat and online vet visits.

If you're inspired to follow these Australian success stories with your business, you're not alone. You might be looking for the next big idea or already working on it.

GO! Make it happens.