3211 rounds · 2034 startups · 3748 investors
Person Invested in this round Raised it Closed a fund Mentioned
Amount confirmed Amount is an estimate
Agtech firm Inform Ag has banked $7 million in a Series A round with Rural Funds Group at the helm, its first outside backing after 12 years bootstrapping, plus two board additions.
Also SmartCompany
Australian SME lender Shift has wrapped a Series D round led by returning backer Peak XV, after completing a large securitisation in May.
Also SmartCompany
Payments firm GoCardless has released an integration bringing its bank payment tools into Salesforce via the AppExchange marketplace, aimed at energy, financial services, property and government customers.
Queensland smart-grid company Elexsys Energy, trading as Planet Ark Power, won federal and state grants and partial Series B backing before being wound up on a tax office application.
Zeller has released Zeller Terminal 2, a combined payments and point-of-sale device built by its Melbourne team, bundled with a free POS app and sold for $199 via its website.
Tactical watercraft maker The Whiskey Project Group has banked new investment in a round headed by Ellerston Capital alongside Bondi Partners' 1941 Fund; sum undisclosed, while its boat-building chief chases US contracts and growth.
Brisbane flow battery maker Redflow has entered voluntary administration after failing to attract matching private investment, with Deloitte appointed; the article also recalls Tritium's sale to Exicom and a small earlier Redflow equity raise.
Weekly round-up noting two Australian raises: LoveHeart AI's $2.3m seed round for its early-childhood educator documentation platform, and Metakosmos's $2m pre-seed for spacesuit development, alongside recalled government grants.
Renascor's graphite purification trials reached battery-grade purity, supporting its Adelaide demonstration plant, which carries a $5 million Australian government critical minerals grant; plant commissioning is set for early next year.
BindiMaps partners with Australia Post to pilot wayfinding tech for vision-impaired customers in three stores; its hyperlocal system was partly backed by a $1m NSW government grant.
Three local drone makers won defence accelerator contracts worth $2.2 million apiece to finish prototypes and build 100 uncrewed aerial systems, while the Ghost Shark underwater drone reached America for trans-Pacific testing.
Also @AuManufacturing
Sitemate, an Australian construction-industry software firm, has bought asset-tracking startup Nomad Fleet for $2 million. The profile also recalls the $5.2 million seed round Blackbird led in 2022.
LoveHeart AI, an early childhood education technology startup, has secured $2.3 million in Seed funding from OIF Ventures and Skalata to grow its AI assistant that reduces educators' paperwork.
Also SmartCompany·SmartCompany
Terrain Solar has handed its Marulan solar and battery project to Ratch Australia after commercial close, with AGL Energy set to acquire Terrain under a deal announced days earlier.
Briefs roundup: Forbidden Foods is acquiring oat milk maker Oat Milk Goodness alongside a $650,000 raise, Orbital Corporation wins a $1 million WA grant, and Sam Roberts becomes Professionals Australia's CEO.
Weekly roundup detailing five raises across Australian and New Zealand startups — Hapana, Kinoxis Therapeutics, Appetise, Bike Matrix and Aglow — worth a combined $38.5 million, naming lead investors and planned expansion for each.
Perth consortium AROSE has unveiled Roo-ver, its Trailblazer-funded moon rover prototype, at Parliament House; the Australian-built machine will study the lunar surface carrying a NASA instrument.
Drone firm Blueflite is developing hydrogen tanks for UAVs in Darwin alongside Charles Darwin University and H3 Dynamics, backed by NT government support and co-investment from the Advanced Manufacturing Ecosystem Fund.
Advice piece in which two founders who competed in a SmartCompany pitch competition share lessons on pitch deck content, using analogies, demonstrating traction, and rehearsing answers before a live investor pitch.
NextDC has opened D1, its Darwin data centre, built alongside Vocus and the NT government, with Aussie Broadband, GSL Networks and NetVault among foundational partners in the facility's Digital Development Program.
Linktree has bought Plann, a Sydney-based startup whose tool schedules and auto-posts social content; Plann's team, including founder Christy Laurence, joins Linktree, which will add scheduling to its link-in-bio platform.
Also Startup Daily
Folklore Ventures introduces Chris Comino as its new investor relations lead in a Q&A covering his three decades in asset management and what drew him to venture capital.
SmartCompany reports childcare-equipped co-working startup BubbaDesk has signed design software company Canva as its first corporate partner, a year after a $500,000 friends-and-family raise, with a Series B round underway.
Roundup of Australian manufacturing news: IDT Australia wins a Sanofi mRNA contract, Amplia collects an R&D tax refund, OptiGrid enters EnergyLab's accelerator, plus a ship launch, hydrogen towers, road works and a job listing.
Precision fermentation firm Cauldron wins an Australian government grant for its continuous fermentation platform and appoints David Weiner chief technology officer, alongside mentions of fellow grant recipients and its Horizons Ventures-led Series A.
Also SmartCompany·SmartCompany
Firmus Technologies introduces Daniel Kearney as its new chief technology officer; the question-and-answer piece covers his cloud and thermal research background and his views on immersion cooling for sustainable AI infrastructure.
Battery maker Li-S Energy has opened its Geelong pouch cell facility and won a $1.7 million federal Industry Growth Program grant for a lithium foil line; four other firms also received IGP grants.
Ed Husic named the first Industry Growth Program grant recipients, with biomanufacturing startup Cauldron Ferm receiving $4.3 million and four other startups funded for drone batteries, radiation monitoring, anti-phishing and berry-picking robotics.
Profile of a regional NSW frozen-meals producer that used a two-stage government grant to buy equipment, lift output and win supermarket and pharmacy listings across the country.
VentureOn Partners announces Ricky Sevta, previously a board member, as Deep Space's new CEO, while founders Luke and Michael shift to sales and customer success respectively.
Australian biotech Kinoxis Therapeutics raised $14.5 million in Series B backing from Uniseed, UniSuper and others to fund Phase 2 trials of KNX100 for dementia-related agitation, including a new Australian study.
Fitness membership software maker Hapana has secured a $17.3 million Series A backed by OIF Ventures and Bailador, earmarked for a second-generation platform and US and APAC growth.
First grants from the federal Industry Growth Program include battery developer Li-S Energy, announced as Minister Ed Husic opened its Geelong facility. The $392 million program feeds the National Reconstruction Fund.
Also RenewEconomy·@AuManufacturing·@AuManufacturing·RenewEconomy·RenewEconomy
Brisbane EV charger maker Tritium is being taken over by India's Exicom through a Dutch subsidiary, handing the buyer a US factory plus an Australian engineering centre.
LaunchVic case study on Ecotone Partners' Planet Fund, a climate investment vehicle launched with grant support and $20 million committed, aiming to fill a financing gap for climatetech founders.
Profile of doctor-led angel syndicate Australian Medical Angels covering LaunchVic grants, $300,000 toward a new venture fund, a clinician pre-accelerator, and investments including WeGuide and Coviu.
Roundup covering seven Australian companies' recent raises — Splend, Rich Data Co, Slice, InvestorHub, Eyeonic, Graceview and Monty Compost Co — from fleet electrification finance to AI compliance and compost-monitoring seed rounds.
Counter-drone laser developer AIM Defence won a Canadian military counter-drone contest, collecting a million-dollar prize, after the Australian Government earlier committed to buying one of its systems for evaluation.
Also Defence Connect
The Victorian government-backed venture fund's inaugural CEO Grant Dooley is resigning after nearly three years, with no replacement named; the fund's past backing of Neo-Bionica, Atmo Biosciences and RayGen is recalled.
Grant Dooley, Breakthrough Victoria's founding chief executive, will depart after roughly three years, staying briefly to aid the successor search. His tenure saw 27 portfolio companies and more than $350m committed.
Breakthrough Victoria says its inaugural CEO Grant Dooley is stepping down after almost three years and will help find a successor. The government-backed investor has backed 27 companies plus university platforms.
CloudWave announced a $75 million round to speed growth and broaden its cloud services; the page also lists recent raises by ProvanAI, ProducePay, Peaky, Boring Company, Watu, Render and Arcee AI.
FRV Australia proceeds with its Terang battery in Victoria after a $1.2 billion portfolio refinancing; the piece also recalls a state grant and the 2021 project purchase from Ace Energy.
Also RenewEconomy
Babcock Australasia has appointed aviation veteran Duncan Milne as managing director for aviation and critical services across Australia and New Zealand; he previously held senior roles at ALARP Solutions and Cobham Aviation Services.
RenewEconomy reports renewables retailer Maximum Energy, trading as Circular Energy, was suspended and wound up, its customers moved to big-three retailers; it also recalls earlier retailer collapses and Oxamii's seed backing.
Industry body AMGC publicises two past grant recipients that commercialised imaging technology: mDetect's muon system for tailings dam safety and EQ Resources' hyperspectral tungsten sorting, with grants of $248,191 and $600,000.
Cashrewards has bought Little Birdie, the deals startup backed by Commonwealth Bank that went quiet in May; the piece also recalls Cashrewards' 2017 Smart50 nod, 2020 ASX float, and later takeover by 1835i Ventures.
Also Startup Daily·SmartCompany·Startup Daily·Startup Daily·Startup Daily
AI decisioning firm Rich Data Co has landed $9 million from Acorn Capital, lifting its Series B to $37 million, as it pushes into North America after signing its first US bank customer.
Also SmartCompany
Remarkable has picked Australian and international startups for its 2024 disability technology accelerator intake, flagging AI as a theme and citing strong customer, revenue and jobs growth among last year's participants.