Canva, Freelancer, Atlassian, 99Designs, Envato and the visionaries who started them

These start-up founders are the poster children for the new economy. They stand for a new way of working, and ambition.

Mike Cannon-Brookes, of Atlassian.

These start-up founders are the poster children for innovation and the new economy.

They stand for a new culture, global vision and unbounded aspiration. Reading their stories, you understand how ambidextrous they are: they combine art with science. They are tech savvy and they work extraordinarily hard. Founding a start-up is not for the faint-hearted. Several have done it before and are serial entrepreneurs. This is a good thing — experience accumulates into wisdom and can be shared by the next generation.

Melanie Perkins, Co-Founder and CEO, Canva: Melanie Perkins, one of three founders of Canva, is the new “It” girl of the Australian start-up scene. Hailed by the Webby Awards as “the easiest-to-use design program in the world”, Canva has five million users in 179 countries. Canva recently closed a series-A funding round led by US-based Felicis Ventures, which netted $27 million. The funding campaign attracted movie stars Owen Wilson and Woody Harrelson as investors. “Canva is on fire … This could be a game-changer,” Wilson says. “Five million users in just over two years, the numbers speak for themselves. Great investment and a top-notch team.”

Canva was created by Perkins and her partner, Cliff Obrecht, with Cameron Adams, while she was studying digital media at UWA. It launched in 2012 and secured $3 million in seed funding within a year. This is not Perkins’ first venture. She founded Fusion Books (the largest yearbook provider in Australia) when she was just 19 years old. Perkins’ advice to young people interested in starting businesses is to “network not just locally, but on the global playing field. Technology gives us so many advantages to stay connected and meet new people”.

Matt Barrie, CEO, Freelancer: Matt Barrie is an entrepreneur, technologist and lecturer. Freelancer, which he founded in 2009, is the world’s largest freelance and crowdsourcing marketplace, connecting 17 million employers with freelancers in 247 countries. In 2013 he rejected a $434 million offer for the company. Barrie was an early innovator in freelance crowdsourcing and was founder and CEO of Sensory Networks, acquired by Intel, which creates pattern-matching and acceleration software. He teaches cryptography and technology entrepreneurship at the University of Sydney.

Ken Kroeger, CEO and MD, Seeing Machines: Ken Kroeger leads Seeing Machines, which supplies Caterpillar and Samsung with fatigue and distraction-monitoring safety devices which keep drivers safe. Seeing Machines was spun from a robotics laboratory at the Australian National University, when researchers (Timothy Edwards, Sebastian Rougeaux, Alex Zalinsky and Jochen Heinzmann) trying to give robots the ability to see instead gave computers the ability to know what humans were seeing. The company records tens of thousands of fatigue incidents a month — drivers nodding off — and is working with Boeing on pilot-training technology.

James Chin Moody, Co-founder and CEO, Sendle: Sendle is a technology company that has disrupted package delivery in Australia by tapping into existing infrastructure and unlocking the power of delivery networks. James Chin Moody is co-founder of Sendle and his vision has been a game changer for small businesses in Australia — the mainstay of Sendle’s client base. Sendle is entirely carbon neutral and Chin Moody is a leading thinker on the interface between sustainability and innovation. He founded Sendle after trying to find a courier service for TuShare, his swapping marketplace that he closed to focus on Sendle.

Scott Farquhar & Mike Cannon-Brookes Co-founders and CEOs, Atlassian: Atlassian, now an enterprise software company that employs 1200 people, had humble beginnings as a bootstrap start-up. Joint founders Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes are the darlings of the Australian technology scene, but weary of being celebrated as a start-up success story. Indeed, the company is incorporated in the UK and will soon be listed in the US. Both men are critics of Australia’s failure to support a robust technology industry by teaching coding in schools, for example. If Australia wants more successes like Atlassian, Farquhar says, there is a “long list of things to improve”.

Mark Harbottle, Co-founder, 99Designs: Mark Harbottle is co-founder of 99Designs, the internet’s largest crowdsourced design website. The site connects creatives to global clients, challenging traditional boundaries of space and work. Harbottle noticed the disruptive potential of the internet as a developer during the dotcom boom. He is now a serial entrepreneur but is sceptical of the view that start-ups are all about big ideas and risks: “Pick something you’re passionate about and give it a crack.” Harbottle is also an investor and helped lead a $2.59 million funding round for secure-payments platform PromisePay alongside Westpac-backed fund Reinventure.

Collis Ta’eed, Co-founder and CEO, Envato: Collis Ta’eed founded the world’s most popular marketplace for designers and developers in 2006 with his wife, Cyan, in her parents’ garage. As a web designer, Ta’eed was selling Flash files on iStockPhoto for $400 per month, and identified a need for a community-driven marketplace for digital assets. Headquartered in Melbourne, Envato is now the leading ecosystem for designers and developers, with over six million users in 200 countries. “We’re proudly Australian,” Ta’eed, who never considered relocating to Silicon Valley, has said. Envato has returned more than $300 million to its creative contributors to date.