.png)
The one where eChai and City of Melbourne hosted global founders at The Couch
Victoria, Australia
eChai Melbourne
eChai's Melbourne chapter, and the India to Australia founder bridge. Dormant now, ready to re-activate.
Melbourne is Australia's biomedical capital and a fintech and marketplace powerhouse. This is the map: who's building, who's funding it, where founders meet, and the Indian founder diaspora eChai plugs into. The eChai chapter here is dormant, so this page is an invitation to help restart it.
No dated events on the calendar right now. See eChai's events →
Meanwhile, across eChai
Mina Radhakrishnan & Ruwin Perera 🇮🇳
🚩 Founded in SYDNEY in 2016 by husband-and-wife team Mina Radhakrishnan (🇮🇳 Indian-origin; ex-Uber's first head of product) and Ruwin Perera, with a major Melbourne office. Full-service tech-driven residenti...
Preetham Akula
Founded 2022 by Preetham Akula, Akula Tech builds AI-powered 'smart' satellites; its Nexus-01 runs an onboard AI engine processing hyperspectral data in orbit into real-time insights for defence, emergency r...
Marc Hermann, Anshul Jain, Sam Kothari & Dr Steven Lu
Founded 2023, Everlab is a preventative-health / longevity platform using AI to turn whole-body testing into personalised health assessments and care plans. Raised A$65M Series A led by Airtree (participants...
Vinay Samuel & Michael Cimino
Founded 2013 in a Melbourne garage by Indian-origin founder Vinay Samuel (ex-Teradata, Greenplum, HP), Zetaris is an analytical data-virtualization / 'networked data lakehouse' platform that queries distribu...
Nick Molnar, Anthony Eisen
The company that defined global BNPL, founded 2014 with its head office at 406 Collins St, Melbourne (the two founders were Sydney neighbours, but Afterpay Ltd was Melbourne-HQ and ASX-listed). Offers intere...
Holger Arians, Domenic Carosa
Founded 2014 in Melbourne (originally BTC Corporation Holdings), a fiat-to-crypto payments/on-ramp infrastructure provider for crypto exchanges across Australia, North America and Europe. In January 2021 bec...
Rael Ross, Walter Rapoport
Melbourne B2B transaction-funding fintech founded ~2015, offering embedded invoice and trade finance to SMEs (advance against outstanding invoices in as little as 24 hours). Bootstrapped by the co-founders, ...
Joseph Healy, David Hornery
Australia's first challenger bank purpose-built for SME lending, founded 2016 by ex-NAB bankers Joseph Healy and David Hornery. Won a full banking licence in 2019 and hit unicorn status in 2020. Became the f...
(led by Ahmed Fahour; ex-GE Capital ANZ carve-out)
Melbourne-HQ consumer-finance group (personal/car loans, credit cards, interest-free retail finance), Australia's biggest non-bank consumer lender, spun out of GE Capital's ANZ business. Listed on the ASX (L...
Peter Cook
Melbourne digital-banking-and-payments company founded by Peter Cook (roots in 1990s prepaid mobile top-ups). Provides card issuing, cross-border and payment-processing infrastructure for banks and fintechs;...
Myles Redward, Piers Redward
Melbourne BNPL founded 2016 by brothers Myles and Piers Redward, targeting higher-value considered purchases (A$1,000–A$20,000) such as home improvement and lifestyle — differentiating it from small-basket B...
Andrew Ward
Founded 2012 in Melbourne by ex-CBA private-wealth director Andrew Ward, a flat-fee ($9.50) share-trading platform with a social portfolio-construction network. Listed on the ASX (SWF) in 2017. Acquired by S...
Jack Zhang, Max Li, Lucy Liu, Xijing Dai, Ken Xi
Founded 2015 in Melbourne after the founders' coffee-shop venture exposed how costly cross-border payments were for small business. Now a global payments-and-financial-infrastructure platform (accounts, FX, ...
The anchor of Melbourne venture capital — co-founded in 2012 by SEEK co-founder Paul Bassat with Barry Brott, Justin Liberman and Tony Holt, and headquartered in Melbourne. Manages more than A$2.5B across early-to-growth technology in Au...
Melbourne-founded (2013) seed-stage firm led by Paul Naphtali and Jim Cassidy, backing ANZ founders in B2B SaaS, AI, climate, health and frontier tech. Screens ~2,000 startups a year and invests in roughly five, typically leading rounds ...
Melbourne seed-stage firm founded in 2018 by Rohan Workman (inaugural director of the Melbourne Accelerator Program) and Maxine Lee. Distinctive for pairing capital with deep hands-on operational coaching, arguably more than any other Au...
Australia's first 100% impact-dedicated venture fund, based in Melbourne and led by managing partner Will Richardson (formerly the venture arm of Impact Investment Group). Backs scalable startups blending financial returns with measurabl...
SYDNEY-HQ (Surry Hills) but with a substantial Melbourne office in Fitzroy. Australia/NZ's largest VC with A$7B+ under management, founded 2012 by Niki Scevak and Rick Baker. Seed-and-early specialist; first backed Canva in 2013 (stake n...
SYDNEY-HQ. One of Australia's top early-stage VCs, backing ANZ founders from seed onward. 100+ portfolio featuring the region's breakout companies — Canva, Go1, Employment Hero, Pet Circle, Immutable and Linktree. Active across Melbourne...
Melbourne-based (Carlton HQ) accelerator/incubator for early-stage food, agriculture and agtech startups, founded 2017. Supports founders from idea to scalable, investable global business with mentors, networks and funding pathways, runn...
Geelong- and Ballarat-based accelerator/incubator founded 2016, and one of LaunchVic's largest grant recipients ($1.25m). Its pre-accelerator supports underrepresented regional founders across seven Local Government Areas (Greater Geelon...
Australia's leading health and biomedical precinct, clustered north of the CBD across Parkville, Carlton and North Melbourne. Comprises 40+ hospitals, medical research institutes, biotech firms and universities within a ~3km radius — anc...
Independent not-for-profit medical research institute launched 2014 (successor to the Ludwig Institute Melbourne branch), embedded within the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre at Austin Health. A global leader in immunotherap...
University of Melbourne's flagship accelerator, founded 2012 and now a centre of entrepreneurship within the Melbourne Entrepreneurial Centre. Its intensive ~5-month program gives each team $20,000 equity-free funding, desk space, and ac...
Australia's oldest and best-known early-stage accelerator (since 2010), having backed 350+ startups. Established a permanent Victorian office and dedicated Melbourne accelerator with $580,000+ of LaunchVic funding, running programs for V...
Melbourne arm of Stone & Chalk, one of Australia's largest innovation communities supporting emerging-tech startups, scaleups, corporates and government. Housed in an 1890s converted railway shed at 121 King Street near Southern Cross st...
Australia's first and largest tech and innovation hub, opened 2011 and named after its original home in the historic York Butter Factory building. A curated premium coworking and corporate-innovation community, now positioned as the Aust...
Melbourne's original community-led coworking space, founded 2008 in the heritage-listed Australian Knitting Mills building in Richmond, opposite Richmond station and adjacent to the Cremorne 'Silicon Yarra' tech cluster. Offers hot desks...
Design-led, sustainability-focused coworking operator started 2016 in Collingwood as a founder side-hustle, now with multiple Melbourne locations (Collingwood Wellington St and Gipps St, South Melbourne, plus a Collins Street CBD site). ...
Global flexible-workspace provider with four Melbourne CBD locations — 222 Exhibition Street, 152 Elizabeth Street (cnr Bourke St), 120 Spencer Street (opposite Southern Cross Station) and 114 William Street. Offers open coworking, dedic...
Melbourne's densest technology and SaaS cluster — dubbed 'Silicon Yarra' — where refurbished warehouses along the Church Street corridor house 700+ businesses and 10,000+ workers. Home or Australian base to Tesla, Uber, Disney, REA Group...
The largest grassroots startup community organisation in Victoria (also branded 'The Startup Network'). Best known for its long-running LIVE Pitch Nights where early-stage founders pitch to judges and a founder audience, plus themed nigh...
Victoria's government startup agency, established 2016, funding accelerators, investor programs and ecosystem initiatives (Alice Anderson women-led fund, AgTech fund). Victoria's ecosystem enterprise value ~AU$134B; state-record AU$2.4B ...
Melbourne chapter of the global Startup Grind network (120+ countries). Runs monthly fireside-chat interviews with notable founders/operators (e.g. Microsoft's Emily Rich), plus mixers and an annual conference. Format is a hosted 1:1 on-...
VERIFIED — the sole Australian chapter of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs), the global (largely South-Asian-rooted) entrepreneur network. Melbourne-based, comprising experienced Australian founders, some scaled to >AU$100M. Offers mentoring...
Australia's leading India-focused business chamber, founded 1986 (Hawke–Gandhi era). Chapters in six state capitals; the Victoria chapter drives trade, investment and people-to-people ties, leveraging the AI-ECTA trade agreement. Members...
Year-round India–Australia ecosystem connecting government, business, academia and community; best known for its annual IABCA Awards & Gala (since 2014, 1,500+ businesses/leaders recognised, 21,000+ network). Runs an alternating AU/India...
Adore Beauty
Melbourne's marquee woman founder. Kate Morris co-founded Adore Beauty in 1999 at age 21, running Australia's first beauty e-commerce site out of a Melbourne garage with a $12,000 loan. She grew it into a ma...
Airwallex
Chinese-Australian co-founder and President of Airwallex, Australia's fastest-growing fintech (valued ~US$6.2B at its May 2025 raise, IPO targeted for 2026). A University of Melbourne finance graduate, Liu h...
Carman's
Melbourne-born-and-raised founder who bought the small muesli business she worked in for $1,000 as an 18-year-old university student in 1992, building Carman's into a multi-million-dollar consumer-foods bran...
Australian South Asian Centre
Indian-Australian founder working at the intersection of culture, entrepreneurship and community. Co-founded the Australian South Asian Centre (ASAC) to build a connected community of South Asian women found...
Great Wrap
Co-founded (with Jordy Kay) Melbourne materials-science startup Great Wrap in 2020, making compostable cling wrap and industrial stretch film from potato/food waste; raised multiple rounds incl. Startmate, G...
Melbourne-founded women-led angel investor network (established by Susan Oliver & Carol Schwartz) investing in women-led businesses to close the gender investment gap. Provides capital, community, education ...
Melbourne's tech heartland, a compact inner-east pocket by the Yarra. Four Victorian unicorns (SEEK, REA Group, CAR Group, MYOB) sit here among 700+ businesses and ~10,000 workers, anchored by the Cremorne Digital Hub. Repurposed brick warehouses give it a gritty-creative loft feel; fintech Zeller and many VC-backed startups cluster in.
13 companies 2 coworking
Strong in SaaS, Marketplace
A short walk from the CBD, one of the world's densest life-science clusters: CSL's global HQ, the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, the Doherty Institute, the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and the University of Melbourne, the source of much of the city's biotech and medtech.
6 companies 2 investors 2 coworking
Strong in Biotech, immunotherapy
The central business district: corporate headquarters, coworking, government and the accelerators and pitch nights that draw founders from across the metro.
44 companies 1 investor 11 coworking
Strong in SaaS, Fintech
Answers about the Melbourne startup scene
What does the startup ecosystem in Melbourne look like?
Melbourne is Australia's biomedical capital and a fintech and marketplace powerhouse. The Parkville precinct (CSL, WEHI, Doherty, Peter Mac) is one of the world's densest life-science clusters, Afterpay and Airwallex were both founded here, the 'Silicon Yarra' trio SEEK, REA Group and CAR Group anchor the marketplace-and-SaaS lineage, and gaming is a genuine local strength. The vertical pages above map who is building what.
Where do founders network in Melbourne?
At pitch nights, meetups and conferences. Startup Victoria runs long-standing LIVE pitch nights, Startup Grind Melbourne runs monthly fireside chats, and the fintech scene gathers at the Intersekt festival each September. eChai ran free, open founder meetups in Fitzroy through 2022 and 2023; that chapter is dormant now, and this page is an invitation to help re-activate it. TiE Melbourne is the natural partner for the restart.
Is eChai active in Melbourne?
Not right now. eChai ran meetups in Melbourne (at Chai Shai Fitzroy) through 2022 and 2023 as part of its India to Australia bridge, and the chapter has since gone dormant. If you are a founder or operator in Melbourne who wants to help restart it, that is exactly what this page is for. The re-activation would run alongside TiE Melbourne, the only Australian TiE chapter.
Which are the top biotech and life-science companies in Melbourne?
The Parkville precinct anchors it: CSL (headquartered here), plus listed and venture-backed names like Telix Pharmaceuticals, Mesoblast (the first FDA-approved MSC cell therapy), Neuren and the fast-growing Heidi Health. See the Biotech, Medtech and Healthtech vertical pages above for the full, filterable list.
Which fintech companies were founded in Melbourne?
Both Afterpay (now part of Block) and Airwallex, Australia's most valuable fintech, were founded in Melbourne, alongside Zeller, Judo and a real crypto cluster (CoinJar, CoinSpot, Zerocap, Banxa). The Fintech and Crypto vertical pages above list them by type.
Where is the startup hub in Melbourne?
Cremorne and Richmond, nicknamed 'Silicon Yarra', is the tech heartland: four Victorian unicorns and 700+ businesses in a compact inner-east pocket by the Yarra, anchored by the Cremorne Digital Hub. Parkville holds the biomedical cluster, and Clayton and Monash form a deeptech corridor in the south-east. The neighbourhoods section above maps them all.
Who are the Indian founders in Melbourne?
Indian-founded companies build here, including Everlab, Akula Tech, Zetaris and Caleb and Brown. The Diaspora tab above maps that cluster company by company, and lists the India-linked bodies, TiE Melbourne, AIBC Victoria, IABCA and the IIT alumni network, that eChai connects into.
Who are the active VCs and accelerators in Melbourne?
Square Peg (co-founded by SEEK's Paul Bassat) and Brandon Capital (Australasia's leading life-science VC) anchor the investor bench, alongside Breakthrough Victoria and cross-border India programs. Accelerators include the Melbourne Accelerator Program, MedTech Actuator, Startmate and YBF Ventures. The investors and incubators sections above list them by type.
What are the best startup events in Melbourne?
Startup Victoria's LIVE pitch nights and its Above All Human conference, Startup Grind Melbourne's monthly fireside chats, and the Intersekt fintech festival each September are the mainstays. eChai's own Melbourne cadence is dormant; helping re-activate it, alongside TiE Melbourne, is the invitation on this page.
How do I join the startup community in Melbourne as an Indian founder?
Start with the diaspora bodies above: TiE Melbourne (the only Australian TiE chapter), AIBC Victoria, IABCA and the IIT alumni network. eChai's Melbourne chapter is dormant and looking to re-activate, so if you want an India to Australia founder network in the city, getting involved in the restart is one of the most direct on-ramps.
Want to help re-activate eChai Melbourne?
eChai ran free, open founder meetups in Melbourne through 2022 and 2023, and the chapter is dormant now. If you are a founder or operator here who wants to help restart it, alongside TiE Melbourne and the India to Australia community, get in touch. No membership, no fee, just founders meeting founders.
See upcoming Melbourne events