Why Wollongong is the place to launch a start-up - even if a survey says otherwise

Australian accounting software company Reckon ranked Wollongong well down the list when it came to starting a business, with rivals such as Newcastle and Sydney beating out the Illawarra's business hub.

Geelong was ranked number one across the 18 data points, while Wollongong fell down on its cost of living and business landscape scores.

However, these factors did not deter Sheridan Gho, a UOW alum who returned to Wollongong after launching her start-up Cenofex in the United States.

Ms Gho said the attraction of Wollongong for the company that is developing a medical device which assesses a patient's lymphodema was access to Sydney, where the bulk of activity in her field occurs, combined with the lifestyle in Wollongong.

"I live in Port Kembla and I'm five minutes from stunning beaches," she said. "It's small enough that you have a business and start-up community that wants to be connected and supportive, but then outside of that you have a whole village of people that are willing to support you."

Having grown her business along with co-founder Michael Weaver since returning to Wollongong six years ago, the company joined iAccelerate in the Activate program at the end of last year.

"What iAccelerate has contributed has been having a space in the Illawarra, but also we utilise their workshops as a mini lab space," Ms Gho said.

Surrounding themselves with people at similar stages of the business journey as well as those with experience supporting start-ups have been invaluable.

Cenofex is one of 69 start-ups and scale-ups that have walked through the iAccelerate doors in 2023.

The incubator, which has been operating at the University of Wollongong's Innovation Campus since 2016, has now injected $132.5 million into the local economy through wages and contractor payment since 2016, while attracting $105.3 million in investment, according to its 2023 impact report.

For Cenofex, Ms Gho said the access to researchers through the connection to the University of Wollongong as well as tapping into a small but concentrated medical device brains trust has paid dividends as the company goes into early clinical trials.

"We've started a research project, a pilot, with UOW and we're hoping that will build into a bigger project that will collect evidence to support our device."

Having experienced start-up culture elsewhere in Australia and the United States, Ms Gho said Cenofex was benefiting from Wollongong's enviable lifestyle and deep knowledge base - despite what a national survey might say.

"The next step is to continue gathering clinical evidence, research evidence that will support the claims of our device," she said, "building strong research partnerships in Wollongong and then broader collaborations."

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