For ambitious startups, location used to come with a fairly predictable playbook: build close to capital, talent and customers, usually in one of Australia’s major cities.
That equation is becoming less straightforward.
Wollongong’s vibrant startup scene, local infrastructure and enviable lifestyle are making the case for why founders no longer need to choose between ambition and quality of life.
Local roots, global impact: Green hydrogen startup Hysata
Hysata’s headquarters in Port Kembla sit right on the beach, around 15 minutes from Wollongong’s CBD, a setting that feels particularly apt for a company working to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels by enabling decarbonisation of heavy industry.
That ambition has already attracted serious backing. Hysata raised $172 million in its Series B round, the largest cleantech Series B in Australian history, just months after being named Startup of the Year at the 2023 Startup Daily Best in Tech Awards.
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In 2026, Hysata secured its first commercial export order for its record-efficiency electrolyser, a milestone CEO, founder and director Paul Barrett describes as the moment a “great tech company becomes a business”.
“We’re building an era-defining business for Australia,” Barrett tells Startup Daily. “Our technology positions us to be a category leader in electrolysis. We manufacture here and export to the world.”
Founded in 2021, Hysata was born out of groundbreaking University of Wollongong research into an ultra-efficient new way to produce green hydrogen through electrolysers.
“The technology was born out of the University of Wollongong, so certainly in the early days it made a tonne of sense to stay in the catchment zone of that university,” says Barrett. “They have great people, great equipment and great facilities.”
Hysata’s technology is now widely regarded as the world’s most efficient electrolyser, with the potential to bring down the cost of green hydrogen for major industrial sectors like steel, fertilisers, refining, shipping and aviation.
A culture built on problem-solving: Scaling with Scalapay
For Scalapay co-founder and CTO Johnny Mitrevski, Wollongong has helped shape one of the company’s biggest strengths: its engineering mindset.
The fintech unicorn is headquartered in Milan and has grown into one of Southern Europe’s biggest buy now, pay later players, but its core development team is based out of the University of Wollongong’s Innovation Campus.
Mitrevski, who was born and raised in the city, believes that strength is partly rooted in Wollongong’s DNA and its culture of practical problem-solving.
“Wollongong has an industrial heritage and the culture within Wollongong is quite pragmatic and practical,” he tells Startup Daily. “Engineering is something you do, not really something you theorise about.”
That practical mindset continues to shape Scalapay’s approach to engineering and is part of what Mitrevski sees as Wollongong’s advantage.
“We ship scalable and easy to maintain products, we don’t over-engineer,” says Mitrevski.
Right people, right place
As companies like Hysata and Scalapay grow, they are giving experienced talent more reasons to choose Wollongong.
“Anyone that comes to Wollongong, it’s pretty quick to see what the benefits are. Great public amenities, fantastic beaches, an amazing lifestyle,” says Mitrevski. “The university is world class and the healthcare system is world class. Everything that we have here is great, if not better, than what you’re going to get across Australia.”
The trend of experienced professionals making a sea change to Wollongong is only growing, with the wider Illawarra Shoalhaven region projected to add 130,000 new residents by 2041 and the Wollongong LGA targeting 20,500 net new jobs by 2035.
“We’re seeing that there’s fairly senior talent that’s coming to Wollongong, and they want to establish themselves in Wollongong,” Mitrevski says. “The ideal opportunity for them is to work for an established local company that is building a product with global reach.”
Hysata is seeing a similar effect. Among the company’s achievements, Barrett points to the team it has built as one of the most significant.
“The thing we’re proudest of is harder to put a number on, and that’s the team we’ve built,” he says. “And particularly the culture we’ve built.”
Hysata’s team has grown to more than 120 people, coming from more than 30 countries and approximately 35 per cent being women. Around 80 per cent of the staff are engineers, drawing on both its longstanding relationship with the University of Wollongong and that growing pool of local and international professionals choosing to settle in the city.
“We have a lot of ongoing R&D projects at the university supporting next-generation technology development,” explains Barrett. “It snowballs from there. You then start to bring team members in, team members lay down roots, and the company lays down roots.”
What the future holds
According to Barrett, Wollongong is increasingly well placed to support businesses with global ambitions.
“Wollongong is classed as regional, but almost anywhere else in the world, being an hour from an international airport wouldn’t be considered regional,” he says. “Vestas, one of our shareholders, built a global wind energy business from Aarhus in Denmark. It’s a great example of what’s possible. We’ve got a major port, strong industrial capability and a world-class facility, and we can build here for a global market.”
Mitrevski says Wollongong’s proximity to Sydney adds to the pool of financial services experience Scalapay can draw on, while allowing the company to keep its core development team in Wollongong.
“The developers we attract typically bring valuable experience in retail finance that aligns closely with the work we do in the payments sector,” he says.
For companies whose customers, investors and teams increasingly span borders, the divide between a capital city and a regional startup hub is becoming less clear.
As Barrett puts it: “Shareholders, and more importantly customers, are global.”
“We’ve really got to be global in how we approach that market. That’s why we’ve been globally focused from day one.”
Discover why more ambitious businesses are choosing Wollongong as a place to build and grow.