a2 Milk sold into China through thousands of individual travellers it had no contract with. When borders closed, the channel vanished overnight – and the company could not see it coming.
Startup · Topic
Australia Company Stories — Page 2
Expert guides, analysis and tool comparisons on Australia Company Stories from the kurums.com Startup desk — written for business decision-makers and updated as the market moves.
- 55 guides
- 11 subtopics
- Updated Aug 1, 2026
Mining & Resources 5
Property & Construction 5
Agribusiness, Wine & Food Exports 5
Tech Startups & Unicorns 5
Telecom, Media & Digital 5
Airlines, Transport & Infrastructure 5
Superannuation & Investment 5
Retail & Consumer 5
Energy, LNG & Utilities 5
Banking & Financial Services 5
Healthcare & Biotech 5
All guides · page 2
Australian Beef: A Record Year and the Value of Not Depending on One Market
A record 1,545,784 tonnes exported in 2025 across four large markets, none above 30%. Why beef absorbed the same Chinese trade shock that nearly broke the wine industry.
Treasury Wine Estates: What Happens When One Market Is Your Whole Business
China’s tariffs removed Penfolds’ best market overnight. When they lifted in 2024, the recovery disappointed – and by December 2025 Treasury Wine shares hit an eleven-year low. Why reopening is not recovering.
Why a Country of 27 Million Keeps Producing Global Tech Companies
Every constraint that should have stopped Australia building software companies became a selection mechanism. Why a small market, long distances and scarce capital produced unusually disciplined businesses.
Airwallex: Building a Global Payments Company From Melbourne
Airwallex raised at around US$11 billion in May 2026 with roughly US$1.5 billion in ARR. How a Melbourne startup built regulated payments infrastructure across dozens of jurisdictions.
Afterpay and the End of the BNPL Regulatory Gap
Afterpay listed at A$100 million and sold to Block for around US$29 billion by operating outside consumer credit law. From June 2025 that gap closed – and the sector changed shape.
Canva: How a Rejected Founder Built a US$42 Billion Design Company
Melanie Perkins was rejected by more than a hundred investors. Canva now has 150 million users and around US$4 billion in ARR. The product decision that made it possible, and the AI threat to it.
Atlassian: The Sydney Software Company That Sold Without Salespeople
Atlassian priced Jira low enough that engineers could buy it without procurement, and grew to US$5.22 billion in revenue. Why product-led growth worked, and why it eventually was not enough.
REA Group and Seek: How Australian Publishers Built World-Class Marketplaces
Australian newspapers deliberately cannibalised their print classifieds to build digital ones – and produced two of the world’s best marketplaces. Why the number one platform captures nearly everything.
Australian Media’s Great Unwinding: Selling the Assets That Funded Journalism
Nine sold Domain for A$1.4 billion, News Corp sold Foxtel for A$3.4 billion, and newsrooms shrank. Where Australian media money went and what the News Bargaining Incentive tries to fix.
The NBN: Australia’s Biggest Infrastructure Project and Its Most Expensive Compromise
Australia built a wholesale-only broadband monopoly, then swapped fibre for copper to save money, and is now paying to put the fibre back. The structural reform worked; the execution is the lesson.
Optus: Three Failures in Three Years and What They Cost
A data breach, a national outage and a firewall upgrade that broke emergency calls for 13 hours. How Optus’s failures reshaped Australian privacy law and telecommunications regulation.