With LaunchVic now dissolved into Breakthrough Victoria, it feels like the right moment to revisit the themes I explored in Melbourne’s innovation crisis is about culture – and what comes next and take a more personal look at what went wrong, what could have been built instead and perhaps what can come next.
When LaunchVic arrived in March 2016, the timing felt right. Victoria needed a dedicated agency to accelerate our startup ecosystem, especially as the State was securing global names like Slack, Zendesk and Square.
At that time, I was delivering my sixth Pause Fest and had personally welcomed the minister and LaunchVic leadership into the fold. There was genuine optimism.
For those unfamiliar, Pause Fest is my second business and over a decade it evolved into Australia’s flagship innovation festival. It served the entire ecosystem: startups, corporates, creatives, technologists, brands, academics, global leaders. It mirrored the interdisciplinary DNA of MIT Media Lab, where creativity, engineering, design and business collide to spark breakthroughs.
We hosted 80,000 attendees, 1,200 speakers and in earned global media annually, reached 235 million people. Across three days and a full city activation week, Pause Fest positioned Melbourne as a global innovation hub. And yet, behind the scenes, it was largely run by myself, supported by volunteers and a seasonal team.
After five years refining the festival’s product–market fit, Pause Fest was ready to scale with multi-year partnerships and a permanent team. LaunchVic’s arrival seemed like a promising complement, an agency that could help coordinate, not consume, the momentum already forming across Melbourne’s innovation scene.
No culture = no future
That same year, Melbourne was thriving with independent events: General Assembly, Pivot Summit, Above All Human, and others. These weren’t competitors, they were the connective tissue of a healthy ecosystem.
Queensland understands this – Bigsound just announced $20.15 million in economic impact.
South Australia backs Southstart. The highest rated state, by Startup Muster 2025.
NSW invested in SXSW Sydney.
WA backs West Tech Fest.
Meanwhile, Victoria turned its back on its own cultural infrastructure.
Instead of supporting established platforms, LaunchVic redirected the momentum inward. Their strategy consolidated influence, reshaped the narrative and created a single gate through which almost all government innovation funding flowed.
In effect, the agency became the sole arbiter of what counted as “innovation,” and independent events were left outside the frame.
Pause Fest experienced this directly. At one point, LaunchVic explored a model that would have absorbed the festival under an umbrella event. When I questioned them, funding was silently removed.
With LaunchVic sitting on the only meaningful pool of public money in the startup sector, its decisions inevitably shaped the landscape. Victoria became a state with rich grant programs but no large-scale cultural engine. The energy, visibility and communal identity that define global tech cities simply evaporated.
VicGov attempted its own Digital Innovation Festival, but it never became industry-led or community-owned. It ended quietly. Even LaunchVic’s flagship gala, adapted from Melbourne Accelerator Program, felt more like political theatre than true ecosystem engagement.
Building community
I’m not ignoring the fact that Pause Fest did receive some support from LaunchVic and VicGov in the early years. But it was only a fraction of what a major innovation festival required.
LaunchVic covered about 10% of direct costs and VicGov around 2%, not counting the $2 million in annual in-kind support we generated ourselves. I was often told I received the most, which makes me think about what others received and what never had the chance to grow.
To be fair, LaunchVic did real work that mattered. But the strategic choice to exclude or deprioritise events created a structural weakness, specifically post-pandemic and with no other department supporting innovation and local events. Melbourne lost its nerve system.
Ecosystems are built on gatherings, the places where stories are shared, where talent collides, where identity forms. Without events, we were left with programs, handouts, reports and a directory, but no centre of gravity.
Grassroots efforts like Aussie Founders Club are rebuilding some of that connective tissue now, but this is happening after a hard reset, and it could have been an add-on.
The question of investment effectiveness also deserves a spotlight. LaunchVic spent $160M over its lifespan; unlocking more than $1.5 billion in private sector capital. However, Sydney’s ecosystem is still roughly three times larger than Victoria’s. On nearly every other metric, Sydney outperforms Melbourne by at least twofold.
As Victoria resets its innovation strategy, this is the moment to understand what was lost, and what must be rebuilt, who’s rebuilding it and how.
The average tenure of a CEO is seven to eight years. Beyond that, organisations often reflect the limits and blind spots of their leadership. LaunchVic reached that point, and instead of evolving, it was scrapped as part of broader public sector reforms.
Time to show up
What Victoria needs now is fresh leadership, not just in government, but across the sector.
Leadership that shows up at events, listens and collaborates.
Starting a business is brutally difficult. Supporting a community requires presence, curiosity and humility, not slogans urging people to “quit their job and start a startup.”
This is the moment to rebuild Melbourne’s broader innovation identity on openness, creativity, collaboration and opportunity, the foundations of every world-class ecosystem.
Perhaps it begins with a new industry-led association backed by our unicorns.
Perhaps it grows through places like Cremorne Digital Hub, The Startup Network or a university.
Perhaps it emerges from a new coalition of leaders who understand that gatherings drive pipeline, talent, influence, cultural momentum and next gen of inventions.
Perhaps that leader is out there.
In 15 years of building the ecosystem, I haven’t found them yet.
But this reset is the best chance we’ve had in a decade.
And Melbourne is absolutely worth rebuilding!
- George Hedon is the founder of Pause Fest & Awards, a community builder, designer and enabler of awesome.
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