Innovation Victoria: where founders start, scale and succeed

Today Innovation Victoria opened its doors for the first time, bringing together the support, investment and connections needed to strengthen Victoria’s innovation ecosystem.

By combining the capabilities and activities of Breakthrough Victoria and LaunchVic, Innovation Victoria creates a single, connected organisation focused on helping more ideas turn into successful companies that can scale, compete globally and contribute to Victoria’s future economy.

It creates a clearer ‘front door’ for founders, researchers, investors and partners — making it easier to navigate support from first idea through to growth, commercialisation and scale. The focus is on giving founders access to the tools, programs, advice, networks and investment they need to move forward, while strengthening connections across the ecosystem and attracting more capital into Victoria.

This change builds on a decade of momentum created by the former LaunchVic and Breakthrough Victoria entities.

Over the past 10 years, LaunchVic has helped transform Victoria’s startup ecosystem into one of the fastest growing in the world. Victoria is now home to more than 4,400 startups — more than four times the number when LaunchVic began — with the ecosystem’s value growing nearly 20-fold from $7 billion to $139 billion. Melbourne has also broken into the world’s top 30 startup ecosystems, reflecting the growing strength and global recognition of Victoria’s founder community.

Breakthrough Victoria has added another important layer to that progress by backing the ideas, research and companies with the patient capital and expertise to grow. In five years, it has made more than 100 investment commitments, committed more than $500 million, attracted $1.5 billion in co-investment and delivered $86.7 million in capital returns.

That growth is being felt across the broader economy. New research from dandolopartners shows employment in the startup sector has grown at an average annual rate of 12.9 per cent between 2015 and 2025, compared with 2.5 per cent across Victoria. The local innovation ecosystem is also becoming more diverse, with 45 per cent of startups now having a woman founder and 39 per cent having at least one culturally diverse founder on their team.

Together, these results show the strength of the foundations Innovation Victoria now brings together: a larger and more diverse startup ecosystem, stronger founder capability, deeper investment pathways, more capital being attracted into the state, and a clearer opportunity to help Victorian ideas move from early promise to global scale.

The Innovation Victoria board will be led by Chair Geoff Tarrant, and Deputy Chair Monique Conheady. Geoff and Monique were previously on the boards of LaunchVic and Breakthrough Victoria, respectively.

Geoff has deep experience as a technology entrepreneur and investor, including as co-founder and executive chair of Payapps, a construction tech company acquired by Autodesk in 2024. Prior to Payapps, Geoff held senior local and global roles with Deutsche Bank across corporate finance and capital markets. 

Monique brings strong experience across clean economy, sustainability, governance and investment, with leadership roles across mature and startup organisations including Melbourne Water, Energy Safe Victoria, EPA Victoria, Wavemaker Impact, Hysata, JET Charge, DC Power Co and as the co-founder of pioneering carshare startup Flexicar.

Rod Bristow will lead Innovation Victoria as CEO. He combines an entrepreneurial background with a strong focus on strategy, capital deployment and innovation ecosystem development. Rod’s leadership is grounded in a clear belief that Victoria will compete globally, and he brings the networks, commercial instinct and long-term perspective needed to help founders, researchers and investors turn world class ideas into enduring impact for the state’s innovation economy.

Innovation Victoria will continue to back founders, support research commercialisation, attract investment and help build the companies and industries that will shape Victoria’s future economy.

This is the next chapter in a story that is already well underway: stronger foundations, clearer pathways and more support for Victorian ideas to start, scale and succeed.

Quote attributable to Innovation Victoria CEO Rod Bristow

“Victoria already has one of the fastest-growing startup ecosystems in the world. Innovation Victoria is about building on a great legacy and taking that to the next level. We’re aligning the right capability, capital and connections so more local ideas can scale faster, attract investment and compete globally.”

Quote attributable to Innovation Victoria Chair Geoff Tarrant

"This marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for Victoria's innovation ecosystem, bringing together the support, capital and networks needed to help innovation thrive."