It’s been an interesting year for Aussie startups, with some big wins as well as some lows across the sector as economic turmoil continues. This duality was firmly captured by our most-read startup stories of the year.
Our top startup story was an op-ed humbly written by me (thank you for the support), taking aim at Elon Musk for treating Twitter like an early-stage startup. In the three months I’ve been at SmartCompany this was one of my favourite pieces to write.
Unfortunately, a solid 40% of stories in our top 10 were about Australian startups that either shuttered or were engaging in redundancies.
The abundance of these stories throughout the year has been a clear reflection of the 2022 market downturn. While it doesn’t give us any pleasure reporting on these things — after all, there are real people behind the company names — it’s what we signed up for.
Fortunately, there were some glimmers of hope, particularly in the back half of the year. You still enjoy a good funding story, which we saw with Milkrun and Instant earlier in the year.
But it became difficult to keep up once the VC money began flowing again, so we brought back our weekly funding roundups.
While things had been quite dry compared to 2021, Q4 has seen more cash flow into the startup sector. And it seems you love reading about these wins. One of the roundups ended up in our top 10 list and these articles are among our top performers every week.
It also made this gaming nerd immensely happy to see your interest in a small Melbourne studio banking $1 million in sales in its first week. Gaming is a huge sector and there’s a lot of growth and export opportunities for Australia. Mark my words.
Check out our most-read startup stories right here:
The 10 most-read startup stories on SmartCompany in 2022
- Hey Elon, stop treating Twitter like an early-stage startup but with zero benefits
- The next e-commerce unicorn? One-click checkout startup bags $2.2 million in pre-seed funding
- Aussie classic 4WD startup becomes biggest global EV conversion manufacturer
- Zip-owned personal finance app Pocketbook to close
- Australian-founded startup Fast will cease operations, just a year after raising $131 million
- Australian startup layoffs continue as Mr Yum reduces headcount by 17%
- Koala founder Dany Milham banks $75 million for new grocery venture Milkrun
- Envato confirms redundancies are underway with as many as 100 roles on the line
- Six Aussie startups that raised more than $54 million this week
- Cult of the Lamb sold 1 million copies in its first week. Here’s why the founders are determined not to grow too fast
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