The digital dozen: Our next wave of entrepreneurs
Tuesday, 6 November 2007
Last Updated: Wednesday, 7 November 2007
By Brad Howarth
Each year the technology sector produces a handful of new companies with the potential to go on to make it big in Australian and global markets.
SmartCompany looks at the people behind Australia’s promising tech start-ups and profiles a clean dozen of Australia’s most promising digital entrepreneurs who haven’t yet hit the headlines.
Martin Wells, founder at Tangler
Martin Wells’ career took him from computer programming to founding one of Australia’s first internet service providers and on to software development (including writing a book on building computer games) before he launched his current company, Tangler, in 2005. Tangler creates software for managing real-time discussion forums on websites, enabling people to participate in multiple conversations across sites. Wells recently relocated to Silicon Valley to grow the business. He has since raised $US2 million in seed funding and began cutting deals with more than 100 companies to get Tangler’s software deployed on their sites.
Michael Malone, founder and managing director at iiNet
Michael Malone founded the internet service provider iiNet with a group of friends in his Perth garage in 1993. Since then it has grown into a publicly-listed company with revenues of more than $200 million. Through aggressive pricing and a string of acquisitions, including industry stalwart OzEmail in February 2005, iiNet is now the third largest ISP in Australia. Malone has been a strong contributor to the internet industry, having been the president of the WA Internet Association and chairman of the .au Domain Administration, and a founder of Electronic Frontiers Australia, a not-for-profit group representing internet users concerned with rights and freedoms.
Con Nikolouzakis, co-founder and chief executive officer of Exinda Networks
It was during his lengthy career working as a chief architect in network security and infrastructure at Goldman Sachs JBWere and Verizon Business that led Con Nikolouzakis to the idea of forming Exinda Networks, a company that develops technology for the acceleration of software applications across wide area networks. At 32 he is already regarded as one of the world’s leading experts on data traffic management and performance, and with Exinda has raised $US6 million in funding from US venture investors in March of this year.
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