Richest 250: NSW tech leaders Canva, Atlassian and WiseTech surge up The List

Australia’s biggest tech names are based in Sydney, and four of them are worth a combined $65bn alone this year as their fortunes rise.

Move over Silicon Valley. Sydney has the hottest tech scene around, with Australia’s youngest and most successful software and online magnates dominating the ranks of the country’s rich.

There are four tech billionaires alone aged between 34 and 42 from Sydney in the top 10 of the 2022 edition of The List – Australia’s Richest 250, published Friday in The Australian in a special edition magazine.

The fab four, Atlassian’s Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar and Canva married duo Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht are worth more than $65bn combined thanks to the stunning success of their respective firms.

Cannon-Brookes, who started Atlassian with Farquhar twenty years ago after the pair met at the University of NSW, is the wealthiest in the state with an estimated $26.2bn fortune.

Atlassian goes from strength to strength as a global firm, which the firm run from Sydney, and its success has allowed Cannon-Brookes to buy a string of assets ranging from a piece of NRL club South Sydney and NBA team Utah Jazz, to more than $200m worth of Sydney mansions.

Cannon-Brookes has been voluble about green energy but is also putting his money where his mouth is. From maggots to mushrooms, solar power to batteries and driverless vehicles, he has for several years been putting his own money into various green investments both big and small.

Atlassian

He launched a bid for AGL with Brookfield in February, which was turned down. More recently he and mining billionaire Andrew Forrest led a $210m funding round of solar power exporter Sun Cable.

Farquhar’s estimated wealth of $25.99bn is just shy of his business partner, though the pair also live next to each other in giant Point Piper mansions. . He has other property investments in and around Sydney, and also has tens of millions invested in various start-ups and technology companies via his Skip Capital. Farquhar has also mentored start-up success stories such as SafetyCulture and CultureAmp, which have both become $1 billion “unicorns”.

The most valuable Australian start-up now though is Canva, the online graphics firm now worth a whopping $55bn.

It is a far cry from when Perkins and Obrecht started Canva though. They were once rejected by more than 100 prospective investors, but so ambitious were the couple that Perkins learned kitesurfing to impress one potential venture capitalist.

Richard White is the other tech baron among the five richest in NSW. His wealth reaches $7.24bn, mostly from his shares in logistics software firm WiseTech.

Richard White in his Bexley home, where electric guitars are one of his passions. Picture: Jonathan Ng.

White has ambitions for the next group of budding tech entrepreneurs though, putting $50m into his new foundation to help teach the next generation via High School tech programs.

“I have benefited greatly from the development of my digital skills and knowledge, and made more money than I ever thought anyone could reasonably make in a lifetime,” White tells The List.

“So why not take the things that I have been rewarded with and give back something in the process?”

Harry Triguboff is still going strong in property though, with his Meriton Apartments business profitable enough for the “high-rise king” to have a $20.8bn fortune.

Mining magnate Gina Rinehart tops the The List this year with a fortune of more than $30bn.

The full 2022 edition of The List – Australia’s Richest 250 is published on Friday in The Australian