The Braddon Founder Turning Canberra Into a Pacific Trade Hub

A Canberra startup has quietly built export revenues of $4.2 million in its first 18 months of trading, selling wool-fibre processing technology to manufacturers in Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and most recently the Philippines. Merino Loop, registered in the ACT and operating out of a converted warehouse in Braddon's light-industrial pocket near the corner of Lonsdale and Mort streets, is among a small cohort of Territory businesses turning the capital's reputation for policy expertise into actual commercial leverage overseas.

The timing matters. Australia's broader property market is cooling, Melbourne investors are retreating, and the federal budget has spooked domestic capital. Against that backdrop, export-led growth from small and medium enterprises has moved up the agenda at both Treasury and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The Albanese government's Indo-Pacific Economic Framework commitments, renewed as recently as May, have created preferential access arrangements that companies like Merino Loop are built to exploit.

Merino Loop's chief executive founded the company after a decade advising the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry on wool-industry standards. The company licenses a proprietary low-water dyeing process to garment manufacturers and charges a per-kilogram royalty on fibre processed using its method. That royalty-based model, unusual for an Australian agri-tech firm, means revenue scales with production volumes in partner factories rather than with the ACT's limited manufacturing base.

The company receives support through the ACT Government's Canberra Innovation Network, which operates its main hub at Civic's NewActon precinct on Edinburgh Avenue. Merino Loop went through the CBRIN Export Accelerator Program in the first quarter of 2025, a six-month structured cohort that connected it with Austrade advisers and trade commissioners in Tokyo and Seoul. The program's 2025 intake had 14 participants; Merino Loop was the only one with a wool-supply chain focus.

Numbers That Back the Case

Australia exported $2.1 billion worth of wool in the year to March 2026, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics trade figures published in May. Raw greasy wool still dominates, but value-added processing technology is a category DFAT has flagged for growth support under its Critical Minerals and Agricultural Technology Export Strategy. The ACT's total goods and services exports reached $1.8 billion in the same period, with professional and technical services accounting for roughly 60 per cent of that figure. Merino Loop sits at the intersection of both categories, its product is a service licence, but it is classified under the agricultural technology trade code.

Austrade's Canberra office, located in the Nishi building on NewActon's Benjamin Way, has been active in brokering introductions for the company. The Philippine deal, signed in late May, involved a Laguna province garment group that supplies three European fast-fashion labels. That single contract is worth an estimated $680,000 in royalties over its initial two-year term.

What Comes Next

The company is now in discussions with a Bangladeshi manufacturer, a market that would represent a significant step up in volume given Bangladesh's position as the world's second-largest garment exporter. A decision is expected by September. Merino Loop is also looking to hire two more technical licensing staff, with roles likely to be based in Canberra rather than offshore, partly because the ACT's proximity to federal agencies simplifies compliance work around export controls and intellectual property protection.

For other ACT businesses watching from the sidelines, the practical lesson is structural: the royalty model insulates Merino Loop from currency volatility in a way that straight goods exporters cannot easily replicate. The Australian dollar has traded between US$0.62 and US$0.67 for most of 2026, a range that has squeezed margins for commodity exporters. Royalties denominated in Australian dollars remove that exposure entirely.

The CBRIN Export Accelerator Program opens applications for its 2026 cohort on July 28. The program is free to ACT-registered businesses with fewer than 50 full-time employees and annual turnover below $10 million. Details are available through the Canberra Innovation Network office in NewActon.