3139 rounds · 1984 startups · 3630 investors
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ARENA is providing $11 million for two remote Northern Territory microgrid projects, at Borroloola and Ltyentye Apurte, co-developed with First Nations community organisations.
Also RenewEconomy·RenewEconomy
ARENA's Battery Breakthrough Initiative backs its first two recipients: PowerPlus Energy gains $2.32 million to expand Victorian pack assembly, while Firebird Metals receives $2 million toward a Perth battery-materials plant.
ARENA awards Li-S Energy $7.86 million to advance lithium-sulfur battery production studies toward a proposed large-scale cell facility.
Boresight, a defence tech firm whose drones support counter-drone training, has lodged an ASX float to fund manufacturing expansion at home and in the United States.
Weekly roundup noting AirTrunk's completed purchase of India-based Lumina CloudInfra, alongside items on Heidi Health's ARR milestone, Techboard's analysis of unannounced 2025 funding rounds, and Microsoft's planned Australian AI investment.
Also TechCrunch Australia
Profile of Astraea Technologies, an Australian space-medicine venture testing how radiation degrades medicines, now seeking a $5m seed round at a $12m pre-money valuation ahead of 2026 and 2028 flight tests.
ARENA is giving PLS Group up to $38.1 million for a West Australian lithium processing demonstration plant that will trial Calix's electric-kiln technology to cut calcination emissions.
Weekly roundup of three Series A raises: chipmaker Syenta (US$26m), insights platform Ideally and battery recycler Renewable Metals, detailing leads, amounts and each company's earlier funding.
Also Startup Daily
Brisbane defence and space VC Beaten Zone Venture Partners appoints Robin Levison and Charlie McGillis to its BZVF1 investment committee, joining existing members Steve Baxter, Heather Richman and Sean Singleton.
Aura Ventures portfolio company Haast has closed a US$12 million Series A, with Peak XV Partners leading and DST Global Partners, Airtree and Black Sheep Capital joining, funding product development and international expansion.
ARENA grants $8.3 million for a First Nations-led solar and battery microgrid at Borroloola in the Northern Territory, with nearly $3 million more for a proposed microgrid at Ltyentye Apurte.
Also RenewEconomy
Business lender Banjo Loans has named Simon Beckett, a seasoned finance executive, to chair its board, succeeding long-serving Rick Sawers as it pursues expansion beyond its startup roots.
Actor Hugh Jackman has signed on as Humanitix's first Head of Impact, the Sydney not-for-profit ticketing social enterprise having donated almost $21 million to charity and targeting $100 million by 2031.
Chip startup Syenta raised a Series A led by Playground Global with the National Reconstruction Fund to commercialise its packaging technology and expand into the US; ex-Intel chief Pat Gelsinger joins its board.
Grant Arnott's Click Frenzy and Power Retail have entered liquidation and receivership, drawing warm public messages from e-commerce peers; Tanarra Capital, which invested in 2016, no longer holds a stake.
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LaunchVic has unveiled the newest group of founders and startups entering its Basecamp program, which coaches them on hiring and team building; deep tech venture Space CoLAB is among the seventeen Victorian participants.
Google Cloud has committed US$750 million to a new partner fund for agentic AI resources and incentives, unveiled at Cloud Next; the piece also recalls Google's March acquisition of security firm Wiz.
Research platform Ideally has secured a Series A round with Shearwater Capital leading, earmarked for US expansion, and unveiled a new product, Ideally Canvas.
Syenta, an ANU spinout in Sydney, has secured $36 million in Series A funding to commercialise its chip packaging technology; Playground Global and the National Reconstruction Fund led, and Pat Gelsinger joins the board.
Perth accelerator Plus Eight, run by Spacecubed, marks ten years and invites applications for its tenth intake, promising participant startups seed funding, mentoring and a San Francisco visit.
Canberra has awarded initial contracts worth $21.3 million and $10.4 million to two counter-drone companies under a defence accelerator program, with billions more set aside for drone technology across the coming decade.
Germany's Mehler Systems has signed an agreement to take a major stake in Queensland ballistic protection maker Craig International Ballistics, pending foreign investment approval, gaining Asia-Pacific reach and Australian Defence Force relationships.
Interview with Canva co-founder Melanie Perkins on the release of Canva AI 2.0, its agentic and memory features, and Anthropic's Claude Design launch, which builds on the two companies' partnership.
Lendi Group has elevated Christopher Parker to its executive team as Chief Operations Officer, tasking him with operations spanning Australia and the Philippines as the fintech platform scales.
Portfolio company Tuned Global has launched a Service Manipulation Detection tool that spots fraudulent streaming such as bot-driven plays, keeping manipulated numbers out of royalty payouts and charts.
PowerPlus Energy, a Victorian battery maker, has received a government grant to help automate and expand its local production capacity.
Also RenewEconomy·Dealroom
Edify Energy has shelved its Townsville green hydrogen plant for want of buyers, pivoting to solar and storage builds; governments are separately seeking repayment of hydrogen subsidies, including from Fortescue's closed Gladstone plant.
Battery recycler Renewable Metals has banked a $12 million Series A, led by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, to build a Kewdale demonstration plant; its seed round totalled $16.1 million across two tranches.
Latrobe Magnesium has secured $10 million in equity commitments to advance its magnesium demonstration plant, while a planned $6 million entitlement offer and larger commercial-scale funding remain unresolved.
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Australia's clean energy finance agency led an oversubscribed $12 million Series A in a Western Australian battery recycling startup, joining existing and new investors to fund prototype operations and first commercial plant design.
Also @AuManufacturing·SmartCompany·Startup Daily·SmartCompany·Startup Daily·SmartCompany·Startup Daily·Startup Daily·RenewEconomy·RenewEconomy·esgwise.org·esgtoday.com·nationaltribune.com.au·Dealroom·evmagz.com·battery-tech.net
Battery recycler Renewable Metals closed an oversubscribed $12 million Series A led by CEFC to fund round-the-clock prototype operations and engineering design for its first commercial-scale recycling plant in New South Wales.
Fortnightly digest of local startup news: funding totalling $89.9m, acquisitions by SafetyCulture, Canva and CleanPeak Energy, CEO changes at Droneshield and Swyftx, and Zeller's move into the UK.
Expedia Group's Australian travel deals site lastminute.com.au closes in June 2026 after 25 years, with bookings sent to its parent's platform; the piece recounts its ownership through travel.com.au, Wotif and Expedia.
Sydney-based CleanPeak Energy has agreed to buy Sustainable Energy Infrastructure's 27-project portfolio of solar and battery assets; the piece also recalls KKR's $550 million backing and CleanPeak's earlier purchase of Photon Energy's Australian assets.
A OneVentures post announcing the sale of digital health group Eucalyptus to an unnamed New York stock exchange-listed healthcare company for 1.6 billion dollars, set against pharmaceutical appetite for local biotech facing patent expiries.
Airwallex co-founder Jack Zhang recounts turning down Stripe's billion-dollar buyout, describes building a licensed global payments network, and argues the Melbourne fintech can now challenge Stripe directly.
A promotional essay by Hyper Startup Studio arguing that crowded markets still offer openings through differentiation, execution and validation, and pitching its Accelerate Process for shaping ideas into fundable companies.
Supply chain AI startup Loop has raised a $95 million Series C led by Valor Equity Partners and its Atreides AI fund, with other investors participating, to deepen product capabilities and grow engineering teams.
Also unite.ai
Rivian founder RJ Scaringe's new industrial AI robotics venture, Mind Robotics, reports $500 million in funding, with its robots set to debut inside Rivian's own factories.
With Intelligence's annual report says global infrastructure fundraising jumped in 2025 to $224 billion across 71 funds, led by GIP, EQT and Brookfield, with capital concentrating among the largest, longest-established managers.
Bloomberg-sourced report says Sequoia's incoming co-leaders have gathered roughly seven billion dollars for a new vehicle backing large, often AI, companies; the piece also covers leadership changes and Wiz's sale to Alphabet.
Sequoia Capital has closed about $7 billion for a fund backing late-stage AI companies in the US and Europe, the first big fundraise since Alfred Lin and Pat Grady took over as co-stewards.
Blackbird partner Rick Baker recalls backing Canva's founders in 2013 and argues its 2026 AI launch extends that founding purpose to a new frontier.
Capral Aluminium has landed Arena grant funding of as much as $3.45 million to swap a 40-year-old gas furnace at its Queensland extrusion plant for an electric system, meeting half the project's cost.
Also RenewEconomy
Phonely, a University of Melbourne spin-out now in San Francisco, has raised a US$16 million Series A with Base10 Partners leading and Y Combinator plus three customers joining.
Blackbird partner Tom Humphrey argues AI panic overstates the threat to software firms, sketching four stages from bolting on models to training them, and pointing to Canva's acquisitions and Springboards' new model as proof.
Also Crikey·Startup Daily·Startup Daily·Startup Daily·SmartCompany·Startup Daily·Startup Daily·Startup Daily
Folklore Ventures introduces Florencia Quinteros as its new Head of Operations, covering her background at Australian Ethical Super and healthtech scaleup TMRW, her operational approach, and her views on the Australian startup ecosystem.
Virescent Ventures announces it co-led DryFlow Magnetics' $10m seed round with Orion Industrial Ventures and Taronga Group, funding a demonstrator for the startup's dry ore-beneficiation technology.
Adelaide magnetic-technology venture DryFlow Magnetics, freshly backed by a $10 million seed round, will trial its waterless ore-extraction system at Peak Iron's Hawks Nest site, targeting premium iron for green steel.