After the collapse of Milkrun and the loss of his father, Koala co-founder Dany Milham has returned to lead the furniture brand through record growth, a stalled IPO and a hard-won second act.
Koala co-founder and CEO Dany Milham says returning to the company has been grounding after a turbulent few years that saw him care for his dying father, very publicly launch and bomb a startup, and then step back into the business that started it all.
“Koala’s always been my life’s work,” Milham told Capital Brief. “It’s the one business I could do forever.”
Milham left Koala in 2019 after his father was diagnosed with stage-four cancer. He spent a year in Byron Bay caring for him before launching Milkrun, the high-speed grocery delivery service that became one of the most hyped Australian start-ups of the pandemic era. It was also one of the most publicly scrutinised when it shut down in 2023 — a week before his father’s death.
“It was a crazy time,” Milham said. “I was running between hospitals and hubs, doing media interviews in the car. It was chaos.”
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