National Australia Bank (NAB) has now become a major supporter of Australia’s largest startup space, home to 176 startups.

Executive General Manager NAB Labs, Jon Davey, said the partnership is an important step for NAB to learn and partner with organisations to help to deliver innovative solutions for customers.

“We see the digital environment changing significantly, and much of this change is being driven by smaller companies and startups,” Mr Davey said.

“It’s important for NAB to partner with companies that we can learn from, to help us meet evolving business and technology trends.

“Ultimately, this will help us to deliver better customer experiences.”

Fishburners General Manager, Murray Hurps, said the partnership provided exciting opportunities for startups and NAB to provide solutions together.

“Fishburners exists solely to create more Australian startups, and NAB aligns perfectly with our goal,” Mr Hurps said.

“NAB aims to deliver the best possible experience for their customers, and is taking a refreshing and laudable approach by supporting startups who are developing these better experiences.

“I’ve seen a lot of innovation programs, and many companies could learn a lot from NAB’s approach. They’ll be welcomed into our team of category leading partners including Google, News Corp, Optus, PwC, Dropbox, Amazon, Xero, Cisco and BigAir.”

Earlier this year, NAB announced it is establishing NAB Ventures, a $50 million fund to further accelerate the bank’s focus on customer-led innovation.

“We want our NAB team to be among the best global thinkers in the innovation space and give our customers access to the best ideas,” Mr Davey said.