10 Aussie digital entrepreneurs with stars and stripes in their eyes
Tuesday, 22 April 2008
Last Updated: Tuesday, 22 April 2008
By Brad Howarth
Some of our best home-grown digital entrepreneurs are global players. Here are 10 stand-outs.
The US market for information technology and digital media is an order of magnitude larger than Australia, and each year attracts a few dozen Australian entrepreneurs willing to chance their hand in this highly competitive market.
Some struggle to gain a foothold, others fail altogether. And every year a handful of Australians prevail, and go on to thrive.
If the comparative size of the US market is enormous, so too are the risks and difficulties in getting established there. But then so too are the rewards.
Over the last year SmartCompany has highlighted the success of many of Australia’s best and emerging entrepreneurs in the information technology and digital media sectors. The following is a listing of 10 who have survived and prospered in the US, sometimes the second time around.
They are helping to lay the groundwork for a new batch of market debutants.
1. Simon Arkell: Amazing Technologies
Simon Arkell’s transition to the US was probably not made easier by his experience as a two-time Olympian and Commonwealth champion pole-volter in the early 1990s. But his background in investment banking and four years working with early and mid-stage IT companies at the boutique investment banking firm Gramercy Venture Advisors definitely would have helped.
In 1998 he co-founded, spun off and successfully funded the US-based web application tools company Versifi, which was sold to a Belgian firm in 2001 for close to $US50 million. Now he is president of Amazing Technologies, a highly-acquisitive supplier of enterprise software systems with 2007 revenue of $US45 million.
2. Simon Anderson: Authenticlick and Ocean Avenue Ventures
A corporate and commercial lawyer by training, Anderson’s entre into the US came as a general partner for the venture capital firm Allen & Buckeridge during the dot-com boom.
From there he joined Affinity Internet, a provider of web hosting ecommerce and online marketing services that was sold to Hostway Corporation in April 2007.
His next venture was as vice president of strategy and business development at Authenticlick, which provides web traffic information. His latest venture however is as the managing director of Ocean Avenue Ventures, a private investment and consulting firm focusing on internet software, digital media and web analytics.
A would-be actor, Anderson even found time to make an appearance in the comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm alongside Seinfeld creator Larry David.
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