‘Tyranny of distance’: WA startup scene gets $1.1m boost despite VC funding drought

WA will pour another $1.1 million into West Tech Fest as fresh venture capital figures show WA-founded startups still account for just 2 per cent of national deals and remain absent from Australia’s biggest raises. The State Government will provide the funding over four years through the New Industries and Innovation Fund to support the State’s flagship startup festival — WA’s main annual showcase for founders, investors and technology companies. The commitment is the longest in the festival’s 15-year history and comes as WA tries to lift its profile in a national startup market still heavily dominated by the east coast. Of 390 Australian startup deals in 2025, which together raised $5.4 billion, only 2 per cent were from WA, according to Cut Through Venture. That was the same share as 2024 and 2022, and down from 4 per cent in 2023. Co-founded and organised by Curtin University, West Tech Fest will move to Fremantle this year, where WA’s five port authorities will run a “Port Pitch” competition for startups with ideas to improve port efficiency, safety and security. The funding also lands as other States retreat from major innovation events. Sydney’s SXSW, once promoted as Australia’s “festival of festivals”, was scrapped in January, three years into a five-year State government contract. Curtin director of entrepreneurship and West Tech Fest director Danelle Cross said the funding gave the festival room to plan rather than scramble for support each year. “While other jurisdictions have pulled back from in-person innovation events, Western Australia is stepping up,” she said. “This is the longest funding commitment in the festival’s history, giving it the certainty to raise WA’s profile on the global stage.” West Tech Fest has attracted more than 5000 attendees a year since launching in 2010, with one in five coming from outside WA. In 2025, founders made up 35 per cent of attendees. The festival has at times done more than showcase talent. Seaweed-based plastics company Uluu traces its public debut to a West Tech Fest stage around 2019, when co-founder Julia Reisser was pulled from the audience to pitch. Last year, Uluu returned to the festival after completing a $16 million Series A raise, introducing its German lead investor to the WA ecosystem. “That was really the beginning of Uluu,” Ms Cross said. “You can see how those connections build over time.” But WA’s challenge is that stories like Uluu remain the exception in a national funding market where the biggest cheques are still being written elsewhere. Australian startups attracted $1.8 billion in the March quarter, up 63 per cent on the same period last year and the second-strongest start to a year on record, behind only 2022. Queensland-based Gilmour Space Technologies led the quarter with a $217 million Series E raise in January. Sydney firms Advanced Navigation and Neara raised $158 million and $90 million respectively. All three crossed the $1 billion valuation mark, making them unicorns. None of the quarter’s top deals came from WA and Ms Cross acknowledged it remained harder for WA companies to raise capital. “The tyranny of distance does play a role,” she said. “That is why events like West Tech Fest are so important. “They bring national and international investors into WA, create introductions and give those investors the chance to see the talent and depth of what is being built here.”

‘Tyranny of distance’: WA startup scene gets $1.1m boost despite VC funding drought

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