New Startup Founders - Western Australian (WA) startup landscape facts you need to know
Welcome Founders!
From the team at Experia Growth, we wish all Founders every success in 2026!
To start the year, we’re going to look at some facts about the WA startup landscape that we get general nods of the head when we bring them up, but the impacts and implications of them aren’t immediately obvious. These particularly impact those Founders who are “Zero Day” - ie you’ve got a brilliant idea but haven’t really started turning it into a business.
So, for the WA Founders out there, let’s jump in:
WA doesn’t really have “Pre-Seed” institutional investors
Typically, many of the WA institutional investors will require you to have identified and done some testing of your potential market before they’ll fund you. In other states, pre-seed funders will provide funds to actually perform market testing, however that’s not the case in WA.
Chances are you’re going to be dealing with Tier 1 and Tier 2 customers very early in your journeys
WA’s industry base is heavily mining, oil and gas, agriculture or defence focussed. Because of our smaller population and economy, the ultimate customer requirements (think Rio Tinto, Woodside, BHP, defence etc) tend to flow down to their primary subcontractors who will then pass them to you. This means that you need to be prepared to deal with these requirements and to understand Tier 1 and Tier 2 expectations (not to mention defence requirements, which are a whole other matter!) - setting up your business to deal with these and manage the contracts is therefore critical to your success.
WA’s private investor groups are quite closed, so making sure you’re approaching the right group makes a huge difference to whether you’ll get funded
We’ve pointed out the need for you to network effectively before and it’s critically important here. If there aren’t genuine pre-seed institutional funders, you’re going to be looking for individual investors to kick start your business (assuming that you’re not in a position to bootstrap). Therefore, you need to have the right network and connect to the right investor groups who are willing to invest in your product market.
The Western Australian investor pipeline is fragmented, so getting funding for your growth transition from pre-seed, to seed to Series A and beyond requires careful planning and active networking.
If you’re not familiar with these terms, check out our glossary. Essentially, this means that you’ll have to put your startup in front of the right investors at each stage of your business growth because there isn’t a way for the investors to see what stage you’re at and when you’re “investor ready” for them.
Taken together, what this means for new Founders is that your success or survival in the first 12-18 months isn’t solely about how good your idea is, which sucks. Even if you survive that, you’ll need to have a robust plan to ensure that your customers keep buying and you attract the right investors. So, what do you need to do?
Be Realistic - technical genius isn’t enough
Let’s be honest here. Investors and advisors are well aware of “Founder’s Syndrome” - you may have heard of it and thought that it doesn’t apply to you. Essentially, if investors don’t believe you’re willing to adapt and learn and keep their interests in mind, they’re less willing to invest in you for a reasonable share.
Don’t get us wrong - we’re not saying you shouldn’t keep dilution to the lowest realistic level. We’re saying that your attitude can easily result in your idea going nowhere.
Be ready to hear “No” a lot.
It’s not necessarily because your idea is bad, you may simply not be pitching it properly, or to the right people. Don’t give up just because you got a couple of “No”s. As an aside, recognise that people often don’t like saying No outright - again be realistic about whether their “that”s interesting” is really an invite to follow up, or is really a no.
Get advice - and no, AI is not the best answer here
AI is a great way to educate yourself about a topic, and can certainly be used to identify the areas where expert advice is needed. But, unless you have the expertise to tell when the AI is wrong, don’t rely solely on it for critical agreements, intellectual property or business advice.
We’ve spent considerable time and effort looking at the WA startup landscape and we feel like Zero Day Founders don’t have the support they deserve. So, we’ve created LaunchFocus, a 12 month accelerator program designed purely for technically gifted Founders. We’ll be releasing more details on that shortly - watch this space!
