EIGHT.

Aftershock PC officially launched in Australia on 8 August 2018, led by Richard and a team of around five people. The business began in a small hole-in-the-wall shopfront at 298 St Kilda Road, next to a well-loved pub and pizza shop, entering a market already filled with companies that had been operating for ten or twenty years. The first five months were spent earning trust and shipping product at a pace nobody expected.

2019 was a year of steady growth. The team expanded from five to around eight people, the product range became more ambitious across both desktops and notebooks, and the brand began reaching beyond the showroom, into esports, universities and public events.

2020 became make-or-break. Aftershock entered the year still relatively unknown and only approaching its second anniversary. Then COVID-19 changed how Australians worked, studied, played and connected. Demand surged while global shortages made components brutally hard to source, and the company responded by rapidly expanding its team, its production capacity and its range.

Aftershock had outgrown its three small St Kilda Road shopfronts. Production, testing, sales and warehousing were spread across spaces that could no longer support the team or the volume of PCs being built. The move to 400 Dynon Road, West Melbourne gave the company a real headquarters, and 2021 was also the year its customisation capability changed completely, with a new website, a smarter configurator, and the official launch of Aftershock’s Ultra-labs.

The showroom reopened after Melbourne’s lockdowns, Ultra-labs took on larger one-of-one commissions, and major collaborations brought the team into fashion, gaming, sport, food and entertainment. Aftershock attended PAX AUS with its own booth for the first time. Then, one week later, the newly built West Melbourne headquarters was devastated by flooding, and the response from the team and the community became one of the most important stories in Aftershock’s history.

2024 was a year of major entertainment collaborations, new product families and increasingly ambitious ULTRA-LABS work. AFTERSHOCK expanded across gaming, film, sport, simulation, creators and professional technology, from the Australian Grand Prix to PAX AUS, blockbuster movie partnerships and emergency-service training.

2025 began with one of the worst starts imaginable and became another year of major launches, partnerships and creative growth. The team entered a new hardware generation, expanded its officially licensed PC ranges, and took its event presence further than ever.