The company that now sends hundreds of thousands of job requests to Australian tradies began in a garage, as a plain directory of trade businesses.
Two friends started it in Sydney in 2004: David Vitek and Roby Sharon-Zipser. One report describes them as childhood friends. Nothing about the first idea was grand. It was a listing book, moved online, for plumbers, sparkies and builders.
Before listing, the company raised about A$50 million from venture firms including KTM Capital, Right Click Capital and Kresta Capital.
That was also the problem. A directory makes money when someone pays to be listed, and a tradie who is listed but never called has little reason to renew. For years the founders ran a business that looked like the internet but behaved like the yellow pages.
The turn came in 2011. They pivoted into an online marketplace. Instead of waiting to be browsed, the platform took the job a homeowner wanted done, matched it with tradies, and charged the tradie for the work sent their way. Homeowners got quotes without ringing round. Tradies got customers without door-knocking. Revenue became something a tradie wanted to keep paying for.
Money followed in stages. Before listing, the company raised about A$50 million from venture firms including KTM Capital, Right Click Capital and Kresta Capital. Then in November 2020, in the thick of a pandemic renovation boom, hipages listed on the ASX, raising A$100.4 million at A$2.45 a share and opening at a valuation around A$318 million.
Public life has been less smooth than the pitch. In the 2025 financial year revenue grew 10 percent to A$83.1 million and EBITDA before significant items rose 20 percent to A$19.6 million, yet net profit fell by about a third, to roughly A$2.4 million, as the company moved its platform and kept investing. Sharon-Zipser still leads the business as CEO and co-founder.
The takeaway for a founder is that the first version of an idea is often the wrong business model for the right customer. Hipages had the customer from day one, the tradie. It took seven years and a pivot to find what that customer would actually pay for.