Seven years in, this Dickson-based tech company is mingling with royals

Seven years after he and Lauren Eickhorst founded their own company in little old Canberra, Samuel Spencer was invited to share a room with the King and Queen.

Aristotle Metadata was the sole company from Canberra invited to participate in the 2024 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa.

Yep, the very event that drew King Charles and Queen Camilla to this part of the world for their mid-October royal tour that also took in Sydney and Canberra.

“I did get a chance to see Their Majesties as part of the royal processions that were over there, so it really was quite a privilege and honour to be there,” Samuel says.

Aristotle Metadata is a software services company that provides data management solutions to help organisations run more effectively.

As Samuel explains: “When you think about a newspaper, you think about readership as a measure of your impact, but readership is really difficult to measure, but when you look at the data, it might be hits on a web page, time spent on the site, how far they’ve read – that all becomes important.”

Aristotle largely works in the government and health sectors, including for Services Australia and the Closing the Gap program, and in an international deal brokered recently, even the Ireland Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (DHLGH), helping them measure their progress in providing homes to Ukrainian refugees.

Samuel can’t say much yet, but they’re also about to land two more clients in Western Europe “soon”.

He says the company can be traced back to his mum’s laundromat in Gloucester, NSW, where he picked up the “entrepreneurial spirit”.

After starting in the Australian Bureau of Statistics office in Perth, developing software, he bought a one-way ticket to Canberra in 2010 with an eye to “making my fortune”.

“I got to go to some international conferences and started to see the data challenges we were facing here in Australia weren’t unique,” he says.

“I wanted to fix that, and my solution was to produce a software tool that helps people understand data because it isn’t just numbers. There’s a story behind it.”

He says Canberra is the perfect base, and not just for its proximity to government.

“Our office looks out over Dickson Square, and the recent revitalisation of the area has been a real key factor for us from a staffing perspective. I can also see probably 10 to 20 clients from our windows. I think we’re in one of the best cities to work in.”

Aristotle scored the invitation to the CHOGM meeting after taking home a ‘Technology Platform’ award from the Australian Information Industry Association’s ‘iAwards’ ceremony in June.

“Attendance at CHOGM was critical, not only for our public service credentials but also for the ability for us to network and meet with members in the private sector facing the same challenges,” Samuel says.

“I also chaired a panel on data accessibility as part of my role there, and being able to be there and talk with industry peers and get that recognition from the entire Commonwealth was a huge personal success.”

Ultimately, he wants Aristotle Metadata to become the biggest employer in Canberra.

“It’s a bold dream, but you don’t start a company with small dreams.”