Forbes Australia picks out three Aussie entrepreneurs who are making waves in the startup space right now.
This story was featured in Issue 15 of Forbes Autralia. Tap here to secure your copy.
Clutch Glue
A sweaty night out at Sydney’s Chinese Laundry nightclub took a frustrating turn for Annabel Hay when fashion tape failed to keep her outfit in place. Unable to withstand the heat, her outfit fell into disarray, throwing her night into chaos.
Frustrated, the then-18-year-old university student was convinced there had to be a better alternative. “I woke up the next morning thinking, surely someone’s already thought of this,” says Hay.
“But when I realised no one had, I thought, if we can get men to the moon, I can invent glue”. Determined to bring her idea to life, Hay took on a full-time job while studying at university, setting aside $160,000 over six years to develop a sweat-resistant, water-soluble adhesive that would hold clothes securely in place without damaging fabric or skin.
With the patent for her product secured, Clutch Glue launched in December 2022 as a first-of-its-kind solution to wardrobe malfunctions.
The turning point came just three months later when a TikTok of Clutch Glue went viral, amassing over 9 million views and generating enough sales to break even. Now in its second year of operation, Clutch Glue has secured major partnerships with Priceline, Woolworths, and CVS and recently completed a $2 million pre-seed funding round led by Blackbird Ventures at a $10 million valuation.
“I believe they can get to $100m+ in revenue quickly, and there is a real chance of greatness,” says the Blackbird investor committee. “The single reason to invest is Annabel, a star who will achieve great things.”
XRecruiter
The outbreak of COVID-19 prompted Blake Thompson and Declan Kluver, founders of rival recruitment agencies, to rethink their approach to the industry. As they began sharing ideas and collaborating to navigate the challenges of the pandemic, they saw their recruitment agencies flourish.
“We were two competing recruitment agencies working on the same street, and for a couple of years, we didn’t talk”, says Kluver. “It wasn’t until we started chatting, building business relationships, and learning from each other’s strengths that we both began to excel”.
Inspired by this new-found approach’s success, the duo founded XRecruiter, a platform designed to help recruiters start and scale their recruitment agencies with comprehensive back-end support. Collaboration is central to XRecruiter’s philosophy, with its distinctive approach empowering recruiters to build their brands while benefiting from a supportive community. “It’s all right to have competitors”, says Kluver.
“They’re there anyway, so you might as well be friends with them”. Since its launch in 2022, the business has achieved remarkable growth, with its most recent financial year reaching $16 million in revenue. Now backed by a team of 30 and on track to generate over $50 million in revenue this financial year, XRecruiter is setting its sights on expansion into the US.
Great Wrap
Architect Julia Kay and winemaker Jordy Kay were alarmed by the plastic waste generated during their jobs. “We were both trying hard to minimise the footprint of our work – by making organic wine and working with sustainable materials – but certain materials in both supply chains were impossible to avoid, one being traditional pallet wrap”, says Julia.
“We knew that it wasn’t just our industries but all businesses and supply chains globally, and we couldn’t believe there wasn’t already a compostable alternative on the market”. In 2019, the duo decided to take matters into their own hands and launched Great Wrap, a material science company dedicated to ending the world’s reliance on traditional plastics.
The B Corp Certified business has since launched Australia’s first compostable stretch wrap, with its product range comprising compostable cling wrap for households and compostable hand and machine pallet wraps for businesses.
To date, the Melbourne-based company has diverted over 15 million metres of traditional stretch wrap from landfills and has secured $24 million in a Series A funding round, with an additional $5 million in follow-up capital.
“Plastic waste is a huge problem behind the curtain of almost every product-driven business”, says Who Gives a Crap Founder and CEO Simon Griffiths, who is among Great Wrap’s investors. “This product allows Australians to work towards a more sustainable lifestyle by making a simple compostable switch.”
More from Forbes Australia
