Ed Craven’s Easygo to quit Collins St for larger ‘Silicon Yarra’ digs
The cryptocurrency gambling empire of billionaire Ed Craven has run out of space to put staff in the Melbourne CBD and will take over a new near-13,000-square-metre office building in the tech-focussed ‘Silicon Yarra’ suburb of Cremorne next year.
Easygo, the business co-founded by Craven and Bijan Tehrani that has grown from four local staff to 650 over the past decade, has given itself scope to expand to 1150 when it occupies the under-construction 120 Cremorne Street building that is due to complete in mid-2026.
The parent company of Stake.com and livestreaming site Kick – two in the stable of businesses that posted $260 million profit in FY24 – needed the space to continue the 70-100 per cent growth it had seen over the past three to four years, Craven said.
“We operate almost 25 different business units here in Melbourne, covering everything from customer operations to creative product technology, but the area in which we certainly see the largest amount of new starters or human resource scaling is in the technology sector,” he told The Australian Financial Review.
“We’re really doubling down on our ability to build and maintain the technology that’s required to service our growing businesses.”
Craven, the sole shareholder and bank-roller of Maincode, an artificial intelligence venture with ambitions to become Australia’s answer to OpenAI – the company behind ChatGPT – said only Easygo would be based in the new building.
“The work that Easygo is doing right now is very separate to that of Maincode,” he said. “My guess would be that these two businesses will remain separate.”
New build
Easygo, which currently occupies 9317 square metres across five floors at 287 Collins and two floors at the neighbouring 271 Collins building, will take up all 12,891 square metres of office space over nine floors at 120 Cremorne Street, a joint-venture development by INT.RE – previously called Icon Developments – and Zagame Property.
The Architectus-designed building has floor plates ranging from 700 square metres to 2200 square metres and with landscaped terraces on each level. Designed to meet 5 star green star and 5 star NABERS energy ratings, it also has more than 150 bicycle and e-bike parking spaces.
Colliers’ Matt Cosgrave and Ash Dean leased the LU Simon-built property, which has an end value of $250 million. Buildings in the suburb where industrial warehouses have given way into tech spaces nearby include the Seek head office at 60-88 Cremorne Street and Tesla at 650 Church Street.
Property Council of Australia figures show July’s near-7 per cent vacancy rate in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs – which include Cremorne – was about 10 percentage points lower than the Melbourne CBD.
Kicks and stakes
It’s a tricky time for Craven. Kick, the livestreaming site used by gamblers who commentate in real time while betting on the Stake.com platform, drew controversy earlier this year after a French influencer died after a 12-day-long stream in which he was allegedly subject to abuse.
The platform, with a more permissive moderation policy that attracts influencers banned from other platforms will also be subject to the federal government’s social media ban on under-16s due to come into effect last month. Amazon-owned rival Twitch won’t be subject to the ban.
Craven said he had “full faith” in the eSafety Commissioner federal government agency, which is implementing the ban.
“I’m sure they will slowly get the correct coverage across all websites which need to be monitored. They seem like a very fair body, and if there were any inconsistencies, I believe that they will be rectified,” he said.
“We’re ready for the rollout, and you know, we’re looking forward to seeing whether this is a positive change for the country or not.”
Craven said he hadn’t heard back from French police in relation to the French livestreamer’s death.
“We have no update on that front,” he said. “We work very closely with whichever government body it is to work through any situation where we can be helpful, and we are waiting on any communications from anybody at any time for any matter.”
Stake.com, a site that is illegal in Australia has a – sometimes troubled – partnership with rapper Drake, as the Canadian ambassador for the gambling site demonstrated this year when he was unhappy about allegedly being restricted from sharing product links and struggling to withdraw funds from the casino.
“I’ll fight these [Craven and Tehrani] at a Walmart, brother, let me know,” Drake said.
Craven said the comments were all tongue-in-cheek.
“There was never any threats of violence,” he said. “You can see by his public profile, he’s very invested in the relationship and continues to be an incredible ambassador and advocate for the brand. Just like any relationship, there’s highs and lows, but it’s all good.”
