Aaron Hickmann's Vailo South Australia lights firm, national Good Design winner, dimmed by receivership in 2025
Named South Australia’s top young entrepreneur in 2021, Aaron Hickmann is pictured with his Vailo Zenith Gen-V award-winning sports field LED lighting, designed and made by his Adelaide company.
Images courtesy Vailo
Aaron Hickmann’s South Australian lighting company Vailo, the naming rights sponsor Adelaide 500 V8 supercar race from 2022 when it won the prestigious Australian Good Design Award in product design and innovation, was placed in receivership in 2025.
ASIC (Australian Securities and Investments Commission) documents revealed that Vailo was in receivership for an apparent default on repayments to a major bank. Korda Mentha was appointed receiver to secure and take control of the company’s assets to have the debt repaid.
Under investigation for alleged tax fraud, Hickmann lost control of large Adelaide Hills and McLaren Vale vineyards through separate companies in 2024 over debt disputes. Vailo also was being sued for more than $23 million by a Chinese-backed property investment firm over claims another Hickmann subsidiary company had defaulted on lease payments.
Vailo low-energy lighting company and its founder Hickmann were shining bright in the fast lane to fame in South Australia in 2022. Hickmann was named South Australia’s top young entrepreneur in the annual 40 Under 40 awards run by InDaily in 2021 and won the William Buck entrepreneurial award as an outstanding lateral business thinker and risk taker. Vailo won the naming rights for the 2022 Adelaide 500 V8 supercar race and won the prestigious Australian Good Design Award in product design and innovation for its Vailo Zenith Gen-V prestigious sports field lighting.
In 2022, Vailo applied its award-winning lighting to Adelaide's Norwood Oval, cutting its energy use by 80% and replacing advertising panels with LED (low-emitting diode) one, powered by solar panels and batteries. Also that year, Hickmann was in the United States of America, hunting new markets, accompanying the Adelaide 36ers (with “Vailo” on their jersey) when they stunned the basketball world by beating National Basketball Association’s Phoenix Suns. Vailo also partnered with Adelaide United Football Club and Illuminate Adelaide and had a contract to supply LED lighting for a new drag strip at The Bend Motorsport Park in Tailem Bend.
A serial entrepreneur, Hickmann started his first business as a 15-year-old at Glenunga International High School selling PlayStation memory cards, while he also worked part time at McDonalds. After school, he floated about; ran an eBay store, worked at Blockbuster video and Glenelg’s Beachouse amusement arcade. Within a year, he applied unsuccessfully for more than 100 full-time jobs before considering – but not pursuing – a bachelor of science at Flinders University, leading to a master of optometry.
Instead, Hickmann's first full-time job, at Beacon Lighting, delivered a big moment when he quit over the manager rejecting his idea to sell LED products. Another big moment was when he took his cousins to see the Adelaide 36ers play the Cairns Taipans at Findon stadium. That inspired the contract that saw him transfer the stadium to LED lighting.
Vailo's lighting clients from then included the Canberra Centre and Colonnades Shopping Centre. Partners included Hawthorn Football Club (lighting and LED signage), Adelaide Crows and Adelaide Giants. Vailo became official LED lighting partner to Sport SA, Vicsport, Sports NSW, Football SA and Baseball Australia. Hickmann said he had links with “best of breed” lighting entrepreneurs and innovators from Silicon Valley to Germany and Japan.
He started Vailo at inner-city Kent Town in 2012 and began transitioning from importer to manufacturer and planned to export Australian-designed and -made LED lighting product with its flagship stadium light: the Zenith Gen-V. Hickman was also looking to the United States where the market for stadia and sports grounds lighting was 50 times greater than Australia's.
Hickman’s next venture was to be moving to a new base on inner-city Greenhill Road, Wayville, to be six times larger than the Kent Town plant where Vailo’s lights were made. The move had not been made by 2025.
