From Tech23 to a global stage

Many Australian founders aim to take their ideas beyond our shores, making their mark overseas. Below are just some of the Tech23 founders who are driving their companies to become major players on a global stage. 

Geoff McQueen (Tech23 2009) is the CEO of Accelo (formerly Hiive), a San Francisco-based startup that automates how professional service businesses run in the cloud. He is also the Executive Director of the Aussie Founders Network in the Bay Area. 

Didier Elzinga (Tech23 2009) of CultureAmp is expanding the company’s international presence to encompass offices in San Francisco and London, as well as in Melbourne and Sydney. CultureAmp has attracted significant investment, with Adobe coming on board only nine months after the company was founded in 2009. In July 2018, CultureAmp raised $US40 million in Series D; taking its total funding since 2009 to close to $100 million.

David Keane (Tech23 2009) has expanded Bigtincan, with the company’s global go-to-market headquarters now being based in Boston. Bigtincan also has offices in London, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Singapore and Glasgow, as well as a number of high-profile international partners. Maintaining its core operations in Sydney, Bigtincan commenced trading on the ASX in 2017.

Sandra Mau (Tech23 2013) is founder and CEO at TrademarkVision (formerly See-Out). The Data61 spin-out now has offices in Pittsburgh and Brisbane. Its proprietary image recognition technology is used globally by governments and trademark attorneys.

Terence Chau (Tech23 2012) remains with Austreme as its Executive Director. The AI logo recognition and brand protection platform is now headquartered in Hong Kong. Austreme was this year granted a patent for its brand discovery mechanism. 

Sean Hawami’s Plutora (Tech23 2016) is now based in Santa Clara, California. The company attracted an $18.5 million investment from Macquarie Capital in 2016, and maintains its R&D facility in Sydney alongside offices in the UK.

Thomas Maschmeyer (Tech23 2016), the Founding Chairman of University of Sydney spin-out Gelion, won the 2018 CSIRO Eureka Prize for Leadership in Innovation and Science. Through building scalable nanostructured batteries, Gelion has attracted international investment from the US, Germany and Israel. Significantly, in 2016, Gelion received $11 million from major UK solar energy company, Armstrong Energy.