The document discusses the economic and trade relationships between the UK (London), Australia, and New Zealand, particularly in the technology sector. It notes that the UK is a top trading partner for both Australia and New Zealand and that London is used as a beachhead for companies from both countries to expand into European and US markets. It highlights several Australian and New Zealand tech companies that have found success expanding to London. The document also discusses London's growing role as a destination for tech investment and expansion for Australian and New Zealand companies due to its large market, talent, and position as a tech hub.

1. TECH LONDON ADVOCATES AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND
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TECH LONDON ADVOCATES
AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND

2. TECH LONDON ADVOCATES AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND
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Since the first British settlers arrived on the continent’s shores, ties between Australia, New Zealand and the UK
have been indelible, built on the trade of products from wool to meat. Today’s Australian and New Zealand exports
and trading partners are far more diverse but the UK is still Australia’s 7th largest trading partner and New Zealand’s
5th. While established sectors still dominate, Australia and New Zealand’s bourgeoning tech sectors are playing an
increasing role with companies from both countries using London as their beachhead to the UK, European and US
markets. In the other direction, London-based tech companies, investors and professionals are looking to digital hubs in
cities from Melbourne to Wellington for their next big opportunity.
AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND IN THE UK
£24 BILLION IN TRADE
160,000 CITIZENS 200 TECH FIRMS 1 LANGUAGE
2000 COMPANIES

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THE UK, LONDON AND
AUSTRALIA
According to government data, bilateral
trade between the UK and Australia is
worth approximately $21.1 billion with the
service sector making up an increasing part
of the mix. From a tech perspective the
UK-Australian relationship is even more
critical. According to Australia’s Business
Survey (AIBS), Australian business leaders
believe the UK is the most important global
market for Australian software and media
companies, with numerous Australian tech
companies seeing London as their first step.
Telecommunications has also been identified
as one of the fastest growing Australian
export sectors to the UK.
Specific verticals are also building their own
links with London. The UK and Australian
Governments have already announced the
creation of a “fintech bridge” enabling
financial technology businesses from both
markets to access, engage and operate with
each other. The scheme is backed by both
the UK FCA and the Australian Securities and
Investments Commission (ASIC).
Approximately 1500 Australian companies
are active in the UK while most of the top
Australian investment groups including
Macquirie, AMCOR, Lend Lease, Myne
Nickless, ANZ, and Commonwealth Bank all
have a significant presence in London. Real
estate, financial services, FMCG, and retail
may still make up the core investments but
several Australian investors are also turning
to London’s tech sector with Commonwealth
Bank planning to expand its series of
Innovation Labs to the city, focussing on block
chain technology.
THE UK, LONDON AND
NEW ZEALAND
Compared to UK-Australia trade, the
UK-New Zealand numbers are smaller
but still significant. Bilateral trade stands
at approximately $2.7 billion. And New
Zealand’s expanding tech brands such as
Xero, Vend, eRoad, Orion Health and Wynyard
are driving a tech boom in the country,
especially in Wellington where demand for
skilled staff in the sector has reached such
a level that the Government has put out a
call for foreign tech professionals from hubs
like London to make the move to across the
Pacific.
From a London perspective the New Zealand
tech surge is also being felt, especially in
retail technology. The New Zealand retail
tech sector has grown 14 per cent over the
last six years and is now the country’s third
largest export with London being one of the
key foreign markets.
WHY LONDON
The capital has seen an incredible rise in digital firms being launched and based in and around Silicon Roundabout.
According to Tech City, between 2010 and 2013 alone there was a 92% increase in new digital companies
incorporated in Inner London. The European Digital City Index ranks London as its top city for tech start-ups and
tech scale-ups.
“LONDON OFFERS
CREDIBILITY, RESOURCES,
AND A HUGE MARKET”
Heartstyles is a global consulting firm that
measures and transforms organisational
culture, people and leadership. The web-
based platform is used by businesses in
over 20 markets including Australia, New
Zealand, South Africa and the US. The
Sydney company moved to London in 2015.
For Heartstyles founder, Stephen Klemich,
London offered both practical and
commercial benefits for his company:
“London is an easy place to start a business
and it gives you immediate access to
a huge market. But it also brings huge
credibility. For an Australian business,
saying you have a presence in the London
market, that your product has been a
success there, is a very valuable thing.”
For Stephen London also brings a network
and resources, “we deliberately moved in
to shared office space in London and it’s
been a really good experience. It has given
us access to a strong network and allowed
us to bed in to London quickly. Furthermore,
the access to tech and human resources
in the city is massive. If you are a growing
business this is vital.”

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London’s infrastructure, its access to talent, and its position as a tech market all put it well ahead of its European
rivals. Coexisting side-by-side with Europe’s financial centre is also proving hugely valuable.
London’s tech firms raised close to £2 billion in funding last year. And of the UK’s 17 tech ‘unicorns’
13 were based in London. That’s more than in Germany and Sweden combined.
According to Jonathan Jeffries, co-founder
of Onestack, the Melbourne based start-up
accelerator, London is a “no brainer” for
Australian and New Zealand tech firms
looking to expand. Jeffries believes that both
from a practical perspective and a market
perspective, London is a huge opportunity
for these businesses yet it remains largely
untapped.
“If you are looking beyond Australia and New
Zealand, London is the perfect first step.
The market in London alone is half the size
of the entire Australian market. Being able
to set up shop and roll-out your product in
one, clearly defined, huge market which has
so many similarities to your own is a huge
opportunity.”
There are also clear synergies between
the demand in London and the wider UK
market and the emerging tech specialisms in
Australia and New Zealand. Med and health
tech; big data; the internet of things; and
enterprise software all face a very low bar to
market entry in the UK and an easy transition
to use by UK customers.
CULTURE
HISTORY
TECH
SYNERGIES
LANGUAGE WORKFORCE
MARKET
BUSINESS
THE LONDON
LINK

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WHY AUSTRALIA AND
NEW ZEALAND
While many Australian and New Zealand
tech businesses eye the London market as
their next step in expanding their business,
more and more eyes are equally turning the
other way. Australia and New Zealand have
two of the fastest growing tech sectors in the
world. And, crucially, they have two of the
largest, most mature tech consumer markets
as well. Underpinning this growth are stable
economies, clear regulatory environments and
a business culture mirroring London’s.
All of this makes the two countries a natural
focus for many London based tech firms
growing beyond Europe. London-based
virtual reality app, Timelooper, is a prime
example. The company’s app allows users
to visually relive historical moments through
their smartphone when visiting tourist sites
ranging from London Bridge to New York’s
Times Square. The company recently opened
its first base in Brisbane. Nick Larson,
Timelooper’s Head of Platform, says that
Australia was a clear next step for several
reasons.
First, “the support the state government gave
was hugely helpful, allowing us house our
first employee and establish a presence.”
Second, “the market in Australia is a good
fit for our product. Unlike other markets,
Australian consumers already understand
VR and have the personal tech infrastructure
to use it. The barrier to sale is much lower.”
These sentiments, both on the ease of doing
business and the value of the local market,
are repeated time and again when speaking
to London based tech firms looking at
Australia and New Zealand.
“WE ALWAYS WANTED
TO BE A GLOBAL
BUSINESS...LONDON
WAS THE OBVIOUS
PLACE TO START”
Founded in New Zealand in 2006, Xero is
one of the fastest growing Software as
a Service companies in the world. They
provide cloud accounting software to over
700,000 subscribers and are the market
leader in the UK, Australia and New
Zealand.
From day one Wellington based Xero
wanted to be a global business. After
writing their first lines of code in 2006 the
business rapidly proved their product in
their home market before expanding to
Australia. For the senior management team,
London was an obvious next step.
Gary Turner, co-founder and managing
director of Xero in the UK says that
“London was the obvious choice. The
UK’s accounting practices, regulation,
and structure are very similar to Australia
and New Zealand. Our software could
be plugged in and used by UK customers
almost instantly.”
As well as compatibility, Gary also
highlighted the sheer size of the UK market
which can be accessed via London “if you
go to the US there are geographical and
regulatory issues which limit how quickly
you can scale. You need an office on the
East and West coast to service those
separate markets and you have to deal with
differing state-level accounting regulation.
In the UK you can get instant, seamless
access to an entire market. From London
you can not only access the thousands of
companies based in the City but you can
also expand across the country from your
London base without the geographical or
regulatory hurdles seen elsewhere.”
Gary also sees the timezone issue as a
positive as much as a negative; “in some
ways it’s a double edged sword. You do
need to be prepared for conference calls
early in the morning or late at night but the
time difference can also be an advantage
to your business. For Xero we found that
having teams in London and Wellington
meant that we were essentially a 24-
hour business. If a client in London had a
critically urgent issue, we knew that as
we went home we could hand over to the
Wellington team who could pick up the
issue as they arrived at the office. By the
time the London client woke up, their issue
had already been addressed.”

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FROM NEW YORK
TO AUSTRALIA…
VIA LONDON
Paperless Post is an e-commerce
business focusing on design-driven online
and printed stationery. Founded in New
York in 2009 the company now has users
in more than 150 markets. Australia is
the company’s third biggest international
market and Paperless Post is expanding
rapidly across the country with close to 3
million Australian users already.
While Paperless Post is a US company
it specifically chose London as its
international hub, not just because of its
access to the UK and European markets but
because of its strong links to Australia and
New Zealand.
For the company, the cultural and
consumer synergies between London
and Australia/New Zealand were
key factors in choosing London for its
international headquarters. Caroline
Harding-Gelbard, Paperless Post’s London-
based Senior Director, International
Expansion, states that “we see strong
similarities in the way our British and
Australian users engage with our brand and
use our product. Much more so than, say,
the UK and mainland European markets.
We can be fairly confident that many of
the products or features we launch here
in the UK will also, with some further
adaptations, appeal to users in Australia
and New Zealand, and we find synergies
in conducting the localization work for
two regions out of one hub. Also the way
Australian and NZ consumers use tech is
really appealing to a consumer technology
business like ours. Our Australian/NZ
customers use our iOS apps more than
users in any other market, which provides
us with some really exciting possibilities”
For Caroline, the fact that London can
also deliver a relevant, skilled workforce
was another key selling point “we know
that in London we can get really well
qualified hires with deep experience of the
Australian market who can help us continue
to localize our Australian offering. But by
having them here in London (rather than
in Sydney or Melbourne) they are able to
collaborate more effectively with the rest of
the business in London and New York.”

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WHAT WE DO
CONNECT. PROMOTE. EDUCATE.
CONNECT
We drive meaningful,
high-quality engagement
between technology
participants in the
UK, Australia, and
New Zealand to build
and maintain a tech
community where
collaboration can thrive.
PROMOTE
We promote the
UK, Australia, and
New Zealand’s tech
sectors, and the
opportunities they
represent for aspiring
talent, professionals,
businesses, and
investors.
EDUCATE
Through events,
mentoring and
publications, we close
the knowledge gap and
the tyranny of distance to
create globally disruptive
and positive change to
the benefit of everyone
on this planet (and
further).
To mark the growing links between the tech industry in London, Australia and New Zealand, London Tech Advocates is
launching a new group aimed at promoting and supporting this relationship. You can find further information about the
group below and also get in contact at any point by emailing: hello@techausnz.com
WHO WE ARE &
WHY WE EXIST
Technology is driving a business
revolution, bringing the world closer
together. Given historical, cultural
and economic links between the UK,
Australia, and New Zealand, we see
clear structural linkages and the potential
to create global centers of technology
excellence.
To accomplish this, we believe the tech
industry and its advocates throughout
these great nations need a champion. A
champion of connection, collaboration,
equality and sharing. A champion of
quality over quantity; to help education
and learning across nations for growth.
We are that champion.
OUR STRENGTHS
8 Connect UK, Australian and New Zealand
based tech businesses, and help them to
scale across these three markets
8 Assist tech business and individuals to
transition between the UK, Australian
and New Zealand
8 A focal point for information about the
tech sector across the UK, Australian and
New Zealand
HOW WE WORK
8 A comprehensive event programme
including our Annual Conference
8 Introduction and matching programmes
8 Regular research & publications
8 Training and Mentor