Lockdown is finally over! We can go out and experience the beauty of the city once more. With everyone’s spirits high, market sentiment is strong, which helps boost the Australian tech industry's rapid growth even more.
After Canva’s latest funding round of $200 million, they’re now one of the world’s largest privately owned companies, valued at $40 billion! A round of this magnitude isn’t just good for Canva, it propels the entire Aussie tech scene forward on a global scale. It’ll be very interesting to see where the Sydney-based tech giant goes from here…
“With a 2,000-person team, Canva will use the fresh funding to double its workforce in the next year.”
Canva isn’t the only company that raised funding. Sustainable agritech startup Loam Bio recently raised $40 million from investors following a $10 million seed round in early 2020.
“The company aims to develop a product that would help farmers improve yields while also storing tradeable carbon.”
Investing in ‘clean’ companies seems to be popular this month, as Sydney-based venture firm Investible announces that it will raise $100 million for a ‘Climate Tech Fund’.
“The fund will use the same investment process as Investible’s sector-agnostic funds, but with climate-focused criteria. For example, it may look at how much emissions it can reduce, the founding team, opportunity size and how long it will take to develop and monetize its tech.”
With all this funding comes lots of growth, which introduces the need for tech talent to help companies keep up with this growth. However, Australia has faced a shortage of tech talent for years now. The closing of borders due to the pandemic just made things worse, as companies can’t bring on foreign talent. In comes the good news…
The newly-launched Technology Council of Australia recently released a roadmap that states it will deliver 1 million tech jobs by 2025.
“The biggest and most urgent risk to meeting our goal of one million people in tech sector jobs by 2025 is the acute labour shortages facing the sector. We must act now to ensure we can fill the new tech jobs we’re creating in Australia over the next four years.”
If all the above headlines and government initiatives aren’t enough to remind us that Australia is a hub of tech talent and opportunity, let’s see what Uber’s First Head of Product, Mina Radhakrishnan, has to say about it: “The Australian tech industry is nascent; it has incredible potential.”
Calling a $122 billion industry nascent is a huge compliment. We can’t wait to watch the Australian tech industry blossom and continue to grow to its full potential... to keep updated and explore the local tech scene in Sydney, check out the map.
Despite being in business for over two decades, Phocas’ product launch cadence is still very much like a hot new startup. Engineers get to learn something new every day while exploring new tech stacks while working to fix a lot of ‘world’s first’ problems and assessing the latest technology available to improve existing products and create new ones.
Whether you’re looking to switch roles, advance in your career, or just looking for a change of pace - this article is for you.
You don’t need to look further than the news to know that there’s a lot of pressure on employees in tech… Burnout, the great resignation, tech valuations… It’s a lot. And showing your team some love can make a big difference at times like these.