Discover the Top 10 Fast-Growing Melbourne Startups

10 Top Melbourne Startups

1. NXTGEN Industries – Inspection & Monitoring Robots
2. Kenko. – Automated Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM)
3. Ten Carbon Chemistry – Water-based Fatty Acid Formulation
4. Prophet – Predictive Analytics
5. Brightspace – Building Monitoring
6. Alt.Leather – Plant-based Leather
7. NanoCube Health – Pancreatic Cancer Diagnosis
8. Project Flock – Bike Lights
9. Jane’s Weather – Customized Weather Forecasts
10. Agtuary – Know Your Environment (KYE) Platform

How did we choose these 10 startups in Melbourne?

We rely on innovation data from StartUs Insights’ Discovery Platform, which tracks 4.7 million startups, scaleups, and tech companies worldwide. We filtered by location, founding year, technology readiness, and employee count, reducing the pool to 2129 startups in Melbourne. From this pool, we identified 10 standout startups by analyzing funding information and our proprietary popularity metric, Signal Strength. Signal Strength evaluates a company’s influence within the global innovation ecosystem. Let’s take a look!

1. NXTGEN Industries

• Founding Year: 2019
• Industry: Railway
• Technology: Inspection & Monitoring Robots

NXTGEN Industries offers monitoring robots and autonomous systems. Its solutions, such as the Autonomous Rail Infrastructure Inspection System (ARIIS), utilize high-resolution imaging, GPS, and laser measurement tools to conduct inspections of infrastructure like train tracks. These robots perform autonomous data capture and real-time processing to identify defects and enhance safety. NXTGEN’s solutions increase operational efficiency, reduce labor costs, and support proactive maintenance by minimizing human intervention and improving reliability in infrastructure projects.

2. Kenko.

• Founding Year: 2022
• Industry: Healthcare
• Technology: Automated RPM

Kenko. provides an RPM platform that assists clinicians in overseeing patient health remotely. The platform utilizes a mobile app integrated with third-party bluetooth medical devices to collect health data such as blood pressure, oxygen levels, and electrocardiogram (ECG) readings. Further, Kenko.’s AI-driven system automates routine patient engagement to reduce the workload on clinicians while enhancing patient care, minimizing in-person visits, lowering healthcare costs, and improving efficiency.

3. Ten Carbon Chemistry

• Founding Year: 2022
• Industry: Pharma, Healthcare, Food
• Technology: Water-based Fatty Acid Formulation

Ten Carbon Chemistry offers Doxall, water-based fatty acid formulations that use the biocidal properties of antimicrobial fatty acids to create antimicrobial, antiviral, and antifungal products. These formulations utilize naturally occurring ingredients to ensure a low toxicity profile and environmental safety. Further, the company’s products eliminate harmful chemical additives and reduce exposure to toxic chemicals while combating antimicrobial resistance and enhancing public health. These products find applications in food safety, agriculture, healthcare, and industrial applications.

4. Prophet

• Founding Year: 2019
• Industry: Sales & Marketing
• Technology: Predictive Analytics

Prophet develops a platform that uses predictive analytics technology to offer real-time insights into consumer purchase behavior. It integrates data from sources, including macroeconomic variables, media spending, and organizational performance, to provide predictions about marketing effectiveness. Prophet optimizes the marketing strategies and maximizes return on investment. It enables businesses to run custom scenarios and understand the impact of various marketing channels, from digital to offline.

5. Brightspace

• Founding Year: 2020
• Industry: PropTech, Energy
• Technology: Building Monitoring

Brightspace offers intelligent building monitoring systems that optimize energy efficiency and enhance indoor environmental quality. The company’s products such as OCC-010 Occupant Tracker, EVM-005 Environmental Monitor, and GWB-002 Gateway Integrator use edge AI technology to provide real-time occupancy and environmental sensing. The ARB-011 Aerobright Filtration and STB-001 Steribright Filtration integrate with existing heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems to adjust airflow, air quality, and lighting based on real-time data. This autonomous operation ensures optimal environmental conditions and reduces energy consumption by customizing system performance to actual usage patterns.

6. Alt.Leather

• Founding Year: 2022
• Industry: Textiles
• Technology: Plant-based Leather

Alt.Leather creates biobased leather using waste and regenerative plants for the fashion, footwear, furniture, and automotive industries. The company converts agricultural biomass and plant-based ingredients into high-performance materials. It also ensures zero use of petroleum plastics, animal products, or harmful chemicals such as polyurethane (PU), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and acrylic coatings with its recyclable and compostable products. This reduces environmental footprint while maintaining product quality and durability.

7. NanoCube Health

• Founding Year: 2023
• Industry: Healthcare
• Technology: Pancreatic Cancer Diagnosis

NanoCube Health develops Duobots, nanorobotic devices that enhance the diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic cancer. These autonomous, programmable nano-scale robots navigate the human body to detect pancreatic cancer at its earliest stages. It uses AI to monitor and target cancer cells in real time while providing anti-cancer drugs directly to the affected areas. This targeting minimizes side effects and increases treatment efficacy to improve patient outcomes.

8. Project Flock

• Founding Year: 2020
• Industry: Mobility
• Technology: Bike Lights

Project Flock offers Flock Light, a bike light that uses biomotion lighting technology to enhance cyclist visibility by illuminating the rider’s moving legs. It uses the natural human ability to recognize motion and features lighting patterns that adapt to various environments by offering visibility in all conditions. It attaches and detaches using a flexible mounting system compatible with different seatpost types. These lights ensure cyclists stay visible and safe during their rides with long-lasting battery life and USB-C recharging to promote better road safety.

9. Jane’s Weather

• Founding Year: 2021
• Industry: Agriculture, Construction
• Technology: Customized Weather Forecasts

Jane’s Weather offers customized weather forecasts by using global weather models to provide insights for industries, including agriculture and construction. The company tailors its forecasts to suit specific local conditions using machine learning (ML) and AI. It predicts factors like frost risk, evapotranspiration, and growing degree days for farmers. For construction sites, the platform offers customized forecasts for rain, high winds, and temperature fluctuations for better planning and safety compliance. Thus, Jane’s Weather enhances operational efficiency and supports better decision-making by optimizing resource management and mitigating weather-related risks.

10. Agtuary

• Founding Year: 2020
• Industry: Agriculture
• Technology: KYE Platform

Agtuary provides the KYE platform for farms and landowners that measures, monitors, and reports environmental metrics such as climate risks, sustainability, and emissions. The platform leverages satellite, climate, and on-farm data to provide insights into land use, production, profitability, and natural capital. Further, the company manages emissions, assesses climate change impacts, and ensures compliance with ESG standards by offering tools for real-time tracking and long-term planning. The platform’s data integration supports decision-making across agriculture, finance, and food supply chains, improving the sustainability and resilience of farms.

Explore the Melbourne Startup Ecosystem

The ecosystem of tech companies in Melbourne comprises 2129 companies with an average of 13 employees, indicating a strong foundation of small, agile teams driving innovation. Notably, the ecosystem spans key industries such as finance, healthcare, retail, construction, and food & beverages, reflecting its diverse capacity to tackle challenges across sectors.

The presence of top investors, including RMIT Activator, Antler, Investible, Skalata, and CSIRO Kick Start, highlights support for early-stage ventures to provide critical resources and funding. Funding concentrates on seed, pre-seed, accelerator, and Series A stages that emphasize the ecosystem’s focus on nurturing nascent ideas into scalable business models. This environment offers corporates an opportunity to collaborate with Melbourne-based tech companies on innovation, particularly in leveraging cross-industry insights and early access to cutting-edge technologies.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. For personalized insights into the local or global startup ecosystem, depending on your needs, get in touch with us. We can provide tailored information and analysis to help you navigate the vibrant startup landscape.