Why new Fishburners CEO Martin Karafilis wants to champion regional startups

After six months with interim-CEO Alan Jones at the helm, Fishburners has named Martin Karafilis as the new leader to take the startup hub into the future. And it looks like part of that will be in regional Australia.

Karafilis has a wealth of experience in the Australian startup space. He was previously co-founded and COO of Sydney-based tech company, Tiliter. He is also a partner at angel investment firm, KOA Ventures.

Fishburners wants to support regional startups

The Australian startup landscape has changed dramatically since Fishburners launched in 2011.

Since then it has been at the heart of thousands of local startups. And that was integral to the communities growth and survival, as this was a time when a lot of talent was heading overseas to cities like San Francisco to have a better chance of succeeding and scaling.

Ten years and a pandemic later, the startup world is different and its strength in Australia has evolved. And Fishburners plans to be right there alongside it as that evolution continues.

“It’s an obvious fact that the way we work, access to talent pools and how each startup is scaling their products has changed completely,” Karafilis told SmartCompany.

“Once upon a time you needed an office in the middle of a city. All of a sudden, in the blink of an eye, anybody can work anywhere.

“Startups and entrepreneurs can be located in the middle of New South Wales, the middle of Australia and elsewhere on the globe.”

One of Karafilis’ main goals is to expand Fishburners into other Australian states. While it did open a hub in Brisbane in 2016, it was closed in 2020 due to COVID-19.

Fishburners also has its sites set internationally, beyond Fishburners China.

The success of the startups that have been born from Fishburners in Sydney has shown that there is a strong demand for the kind of support and resources the company provides.

He wants to bring that to founders and startups in other locations, particularly in regional Australia, so they can thrive.

“Making sure that we can get more regional founders and entrepreneurs involved in the ecosystem is really important,” Karafilis said.

“We’re starting to see a lot more startup founders that aren’t based in the CBD of Sydney anymore. How do we become more engaged with those founders and help them out? We’re positioned in a really great spot to help those kinds of entrepreneurs.”

The Australian startup scene has matured

The Australian startup scene has also matured significantly since Fishburners was founded.

In the past, many of these scrappy new businesses were started from scratch by entrepreneurs with little experience or support.

However, the last five years have seen a shift towards experienced people and founders using their success and knowledge to support the growth of new businesses. And it’s made an impact.

“We’ve seen a real influx of people who have entered the ecosystem that have come from really successful businesses. That has done absolutely amazing things for the ecosystem,” Karafilis said.

“We have more and more angel investors and people that are joining larger funds. So we get a lot more focus on early-stage businesses because we’ve seen this work, we’ve seen the pattern happen before.”

Karafilis also points to Australia’s resilience as a key element to our unique startup culture, as well as why it continues to strengthen and grow, even during uncertain economic times when capital dries up.

“In Australia, capital has been pretty tight since forever. There’s a lot of businesses that have learned to be financially conscious in the way they work through their startups and make sure that their unit economics make sense,” Karafilis said.

“I think this kind of environment suits a lot of Australian startups, to be honest.”