Move over Bill Gates — there are some new kids on the tech start-ups block, and a growing number are coming from Queensland.

The latest data from Startup Muster, which conducts the largest survey of the Australian start-up ecosystem, said Queensland had overtaken Victoria in the percentage of tech start-ups and now sits second after New South Wales.

Investment wise venture capitalists are gravitating north, throwing buckets of money into innovative companies to try and nurture the next generation of tech-savvy entrepreneurs.

Like all good start-ups, GO1 started in a garage two-and-a-half-years ago.

GO1 chief executive officer Andrew Barnes said he and his mates "were the type of kids who loved building things".

They had now created a global online booking portal for training courses.

"We now have 76 staff — we have five officers around the world and we have trained over half-a-million learners globally," he said.

"Over the next three or four years [we're] looking at scaling that to 100 million."

Artificial intelligence used for medical developments

Meanwhile, in a small office nearby is Maxwell MRI, a start-up using artificial intelligence (AI) to help detect prostate cancer.

Maxwell MRI chief executive officer Matthew Brown said the great thing about AI is "that you get the power of the doctor and the power of the computer working together".

They are developing an MRI-like machine using algorithms, with far better accuracy than current diagnostic tests.

Maxwell MRI is using artificial intelligence to help detect prostate cancer. ( ABC News: Lexy Hamilton-Smith )

"It has the potential to be 10 per cent, 20 per cent, more accurate than what we can do today," Mr Brown said.

Their start-up has also attracted world-wide interest.

"We have early collaborations with the University College London Hospital in the UK and some early work going on with Veteran Affairs in the US as well," Mr Brown said.

"So yes, it has exploded — it is really good to see the clinical adoption and uptake of such a product that could be delivering better patient outcomes."

Winning the war against spam

Another Brisbane-based tech company that has gone global is FunCaptcha, which says it is winning the war against spam.

FunCaptcha chief executive officer Kevin Gosschalk said "we determine humans from machines on the internet".

"Our product is being used by Stub Hub to stop bots from automatically buying tickets," he said.

"Electronic Arts use our product to stop cheating and abuse within their games like FIFA.

"And Kik, which is a chat app — they use us to stop people from spamming and abusing other users."

The cyber security company has been cash-flow positive since early this year.

"We've been growing our revenue 20 per cent month on month for the last 18 months," Mr Gosschalk said.

Some start-ups on 'cusp of absolute greatness'

These kind of success stories were being replicated all over Queensland through innovation hubs like River City Labs, run by angel investor and internet pioneer Steve Baxter.

"We have some on the cusp of absolute greatness," Mr Baxter said.

"There is a lot of international markets looking at Australia but also looking at Queensland to see what companies are coming out of our region."

Steve Baxter speaks at River City Labs innovation hub event in Brisbane. ( Supplied: River City Labs )

Queensland Innovation Minister Leeanne Enoch said 92 per cent of the state's start-ups were generating export revenue.

Of the 226 in the south-east alone, 2,000 jobs had been created.

"We are also known as the most entrepreneurial state in the country," Ms Enoch said.

The State Government's $420 million Advance Queensland fund played a key role in giving the companies a leg-up to get them onto the world stage.

At one recent "pitch night" in Brisbane, $30 million was in the room from eager investors.

But Mr Baxter said those same investors had at least $1 billion of funds "on call".

"We have very little to prove now — we just have to pour fuel on the fire," Mr Baxter said.

Don't have to go to Silicon Valley

As a mentor, Mr Baxter encourages young start-ups to stay in Queensland.

"They do not have to go to Silicon Valley," Mr Baxter said.

"My vision is to look out at the Brisbane skyline and see a building that did not exist five years ago.

"It has 5,000 employees in there being paid $200,000 each to write some sort of weird software thing that we export to the rest of the world — that is success."

In FunCaptcha's office the "s" word is celebrated every time they get a new client, by firing off Nerf guns into a huge gong.

Dreaming big — but having some fun along the way.