Leigh Jasper wins Pearcey Victorian Entrepreneur award

The Pearcey Foundation has awarded Leigh Jasper the 2026 Pearcey Victorian Entrepreneur Award, recognising his record as a technology founder and investor.

Jasper is best known as co-founder and former Chief Executive Officer of Aconex, the construction software business Oracle acquired for AUD $1.6 billion, and more recently as co-founder and co-Chief Executive Officer of Firmable. He is also co-founder and Chair of SecondQuarter Ventures and Chair of Glitch Capital.

The award was presented in Melbourne by Professor Ed Hovy, Executive Director of Melbourne Connect. The event also featured the 2026 Pearcey Oration, delivered by Macquarie Technology Group co-founder Aidan Tudehope on Australia's need to develop sovereign artificial intelligence.

Jasper's career has centred on building and backing software companies from Melbourne. He co-founded Aconex in 2000 with Rob Phillpot after leaving McKinsey & Company during the dot-com downturn.

Aconex initially set out to create an online procurement exchange for the construction sector. When that model failed to gain traction, the company shifted to software for managing drawings and correspondence across construction projects.

Over time, Aconex expanded internationally and listed on the ASX in 2014. By the time Oracle bought the company in 2017, Aconex had about 900 staff across 50 cities and was managing more than USD $1 trillion of construction projects, according to the Pearcey Foundation.

After the sale, Jasper moved into venture investing and ecosystem roles. He went on to build SecondQuarter Ventures, which focuses on venture secondaries, and later returned to company building with Firmable in 2023.

Firmable, described as an AI-native sales platform, reached a valuation of almost AUD $100 million after raising about AUD $14 million in a funding round by March this year. Jasper has also joined his original Aconex co-founder and other founders to launch Glitch Capital, a AUD $50 million fund aimed at supporting Australian start-ups.

The Pearcey Foundation assesses nominees against three criteria: entrepreneurial risk, real-world impact and the ability to inspire others. In Jasper's case, it pointed to his decision to leave a blue-chip advisory role to start Aconex, his return to founding with Firmable after a major exit, and his mentoring and funding of other founders.

Jordan Green, Chair of the Pearcey Foundation, linked the award to Jasper's record across two ventures.

"This year the Pearcey Foundation recognises a Victorian entrepreneur who spent almost two decades convincing the world that an unglamorous problem - construction paperwork - was worth putting on the Internet, then, just to prove it wasn't luck, Leigh is back building again with Firmable," said Green.

From Rutherglen

Jasper grew up in Rutherglen, where his family ran a car business and service station. He later attended Scotch College in Melbourne, spent a year on exchange in Switzerland, and completed a first-class honours degree in mechanical and manufacturing engineering, a Bachelor of Science in mathematics and a diploma in French at the University of Melbourne.

His account of building Aconex has often focused on persistence through an unglamorous business problem and a difficult market environment. In the company's early days, the founders raised AUD $1.6 million from family and friends and changed course when customers asked for a better way to manage project documents rather than a procurement marketplace.

The company's path to scale was not straightforward. Jasper has previously described Aconex's stock market listing as "brutal" and the eventual sale to Oracle as "bittersweet", reflecting both the shareholder return and the end of the company he had spent much of his career building.

Second act

Since returning to start-up life, Jasper has spoken publicly about the demands of beginning again. His latest business, Firmable, operates in the crowded sales software market, and he has said the first months of selling the product were among the hardest of his professional life.

The Pearcey Foundation cast that return as central to its decision. Rather than stepping back after the Aconex exit, Jasper moved into venture investing, chaired Victoria's start-up agency for almost six years, served on boards and returned to an operating role with a new company.

In his acceptance remarks, Jasper placed the award in the context of the teams around him and the wider local technology sector.

"Firmable is showing that we can be leaders in AI from here in Melbourne. This award recognises so many great people at Aconex and our growing team at Firmable. We've got an exciting AI opportunity ahead and have already started building out our global teams in Singapore and San Francisco. I feel very honoured to receive this award in a state and country with so many incredible technology founders and leaders," said Jasper.