Over 3100 attendees gathered in Sydney for StartCon and the Australasian Startup Awards 2016

SYDNEY, November 28, 2016: The 26th and 27th of November was a jam-packed weekend in the Royal Randwick Racecourse, Sydney as more than 3,100 attendees arrived at StartCon 2016 to listen to keynotes from the biggest contingent of Silicon Valley Internet marketing superstars and more.

StartCon 2016 Main Stage at Royal Randwick Racecourse
StartCon 2016 Main Stage at Royal Randwick Racecourse

Among those who graced the StartCon main stage from Silicon Valley were Andrew Chen, Head of Rider Growth at Uber; Elena Verna, SVP of Growth at SurveyMonkey; Sean Ellis, founder of Growth Hackers; Nate Moch, VP of Product Teams & Growth at Zillow; and Chandini Ammineni, Distribution Partner at 500 Startups.

Tech industry heavyweights also gave a keynote including NASA’s Director of Advanced Explorations Systems, Jason Crusan; Bloomberg’s Global Tech Media Specialist, Christopher Lowe; Alibaba Group’s ANZ Managing Director, Maggie Zhou; and Freelancer.com’s very own CEO, Matt Barrie. 

At the exhibitors area were over 85 local and international tech companies including Escrow.com, Microsoft, IBM, Salesforce, Warrior Forum, as well as startups like WipeHero, Genesis Augmented, Sparrow Flights, NowVr and Neumann Space. 

The Australasian Startup Award Trophies align with this year's 'Bonfire of the Unicorns' theme
The Australasian Startup Award Trophies align with this year’s ‘Bonfire of the Unicorns’ theme

The Australasian Startup Awards

Recognising and celebrating Australia’s amazing startups, founders, investors and media, and sponsored by the University of Technology Sydney, StartCon hosted The first annual Australasian Startup Awards. Over 200 nominations in 14 categories and an overall winner were reviewed, and winners were determined by public voting, with over 63,000 votes in total.

Here is the complete list of winners:

Startup of the Year Winner: Snooper

Technology Company of the Year Winner: XeroOther nominees: Canva, Envato, Atlassian, Campaign Monitor

E-Commerce Company of the Year Winner: VinomofoOther nominees: The Iconic, Kogan, Showpo, Mon Purse

Best Mobile App of the Year Winner: PocketBookOther nominees: Commbank, Clipp, Pocket Cast, Domain

Startup Founder of the Year Winner: Christy Laurence, PlannOther nominees: Liz Kaelin – Caitre’d, James Jansson – Tapview, Kym Huynh – Weteachme, Jess Ruhfus – Collabosaurus

Startup Investor of the Year Winner: Blackbird VenturesOther nominees: Mike Cannon Brookes, PAN Group Australia, Elaine Stead

Startup Journalist of the Year Winner: Yolanda Redrup, Australian Financial ReviewOther nominees: Michael Bailey – Australian Financial Review, Frank Chung – news.com.au, Gina Baldassarre – Startup Daily, Paul Colgan – Business Insider

Startup Incubator or Accelerator of the Year Winner: IncubateOther nominees: Muru-D, Slingshot, Accelerator, Startmate

Best Bootstrapped Startup Winner: PlannOther nominees: AirBuddy, Going Expert, Vouchify, Knokal

Best Startup for Social Good: UpriseOther nominees: CancerAid, Zottie Dottie, Foodnest, Genomix

Best Student Run Startup Winner: WipeHeroOther nominees: The Student Tutor Network, Project Huni, The Sorting Hat, KeyHub

Best Fintech Startup Winner: BrickxOther Nominees: CoverGenius, Cashrewards, Estate Baron, Simply Wall St

Best Mobile App Startup Winner: SnooperOther nominees: Brauz, Fit for Battle, Clinivid, Sparrow Flights

Best E-Commerce Startup Winner: The Wine GalleryOther nominees: HART : LDN Home Decor, Spare Workspace, Tapview, WeTeachMe

Best SaaS Startup Winner: Health EngineOther nominees: Collabosaurus, iRecruit Australia, Small Builders, Link4 Australia

StartCon in Partnership with Startup World Cup Pitch Competition

Australia’s biggest pitch competition was hosted in StartCon in partnership with Startup World Cup. The partnership opens up opportunities for Australian startups and entrepreneurs to gain access to Silicon Valley, global VCs and international tech leaders.

Pitch Competition Winners, Uprise, are presented with their trophy and prize
Pitch Competition Winners, Uprise, are presented with their trophy and prize

Mental health startup Uprise founded by Dr. Jay Spence won Australia’s biggest pitch competition, another big event hosted by StartCon in partnership with Startup World Cup.

Uprise took home prizes valued at USD 120,000 and gets an all expenses paid trip to San Francisco to represent Australia in Startup World Cup Grand Finale on the 24th of March, 2017.

In the grand finale, 15 other startups from all over the world gets the chance to win USD 1,000,000 prize in investment.

“StartCon is all about empowering and equipping Australia’s startup community and entrepreneurs. That is why we’re hosting big awards and pitch competitions on top of bringing in nothing but the best tech industry speakers from all over the world into our main stage,” says Matt Barrie, Freelancer.com CEO.

“Seeing all this potential in the community drives the StartCon team to make this a bigger and better event in 2017.”

Note to Editor:

Full list of speakers here.

StartCon 2016 schedule here. 

About StartCon

The StartCon community has been supported by Freelancer.com since 2011. Around 5,000 tech startup professionals, investors and ecosystem participants have already experienced StartCon events. Mark Bouris, the Wizard of Oz, Executive Chairman of Yellow Brick Road and Kim Dotcom, the most wanted man on the Internet and founder of Megaupload.com, headlined the event in 2015.

The SydStart conference (later rebranded to StartCo), held on October 29th-30th, 2015 at Sydney’s Town Hall, attracted over 2000 attendees. The conference was designed to enrich Australia’s technology and entrepreneurship sector by providing a forum for entrepreneurs and startups to learn from leading technology founders.

In 2016, StartCon has endeavoured to bring high quality events at the Freelancer.com offices in Sydney CBD. This has included a Fireside Chat with Vero CEO and Founder Chris Hexton. For further details see www.startcon.com.

About Freelancer ®

Eight-time Webby award-winning Freelancer.com is the world’s largest freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace by total number of users and projects posted. More than 21 million registered users have posted over 10 million jobs and contests to date in over 900 areas as diverse as website development, logo design, marketing, copywriting, astrophysics, aerospace engineering and manufacturing. Freelancer owns StartCon, Australia’s largest startup conference, expo and entrepreneur community established in 2009, and Escrow.com, the leading provider of secure online payments and online transaction management for consumers and businesses on the Internet. Freelancer Limited is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange under the ticker ASX:FLN.

For more information, please contact: media@startcon.com