Company
Every published round Apple took part in, and every parcel of existing shares it bought off another holder. Deals we hold but haven't published yet are not counted.
Companies Apple has backed in a published round, and companies whose existing shares it bought off another holder.
| Company | What it does | First invested | Rounds | Led |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No portfolio companies recorded yet. | ||||
Fund closes reported for Apple, as distinct from the investments it has made.
Companies Apple has backed that another company then bought. An exit for the holding, not a deal Apple did.
| Company | Bought by | Kind | Announced | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No portfolio company of Apple is recorded as having been acquired. | ||||
Companies Apple acquired or merged with, per published coverage. Buying a company is not investing in one: nothing here counts in the deals column.
| Company | Kind | Announced | Price | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Platoon | Acquisition | undated | - | Australian FinTech, SmartCompany |
| Name | Role | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| Ruoming Pang | AI Models Lead (former) | siliconrepublic.com |
| Tim Cook | CEO | SmartCompany, Forbes Australia, Breakthrough Victoria (12 Jul 2024), Breakthrough Victoria (12 Jul 2024), The Guardian Australia - Technology |
| Dr James Wilson | Engineer (former) | Startup Daily (5 Aug 2025), Startup Daily (4 Mar 2025), Square Peg Capital |
| Patrick Nappa | Engineer (former) | SmartCompany |
| Tim Howard | Executive (former) | Startup Daily |
| Tony Fadell | Executive (former) | Dealroom |
| Steve Jobs | Founder | Dealroom, Tidal Ventures, Blackbird Ventures |
| Steve Wozniak | Founder | Tidal Ventures, Startup Daily, SmartCompany |
Stories naming Apple. Where several outlets covered the same round, they are bundled under whichever ran the fullest account.
Melbourne oncology startup Skopos Bio has raised a seed round from Tenmile, Tin Alley Ventures and Yosemite to advance radioactive cancer therapy toward human trials.
Dealroom reports Australian battery materials startup Sicona acquired Louisiana-based Advano, taking its New Orleans facility, and recalls Advano's earlier $45 million raise backed by Tony Fadell and Peter Thiel.
Dela, a Sydney payments startup founded by Meg van der Velde, has banked slightly more than A$1m from an unidentified backer to build out its buyer-protection app for peer-to-peer second-hand sales.
Also SmartCompany·Dealroom
Skalata Ventures unveils its October 2021 seed intake of 13 startups, among them Ardacious and Strength By Numbers, and notes alumnus Preezie recently secured a $5.5 million Series A.
ANNA's Australian operation obtained its financial services licence and rolled out Apple Pay, Google Pay and Mastercard checkout alongside ASIC and ATO integrations, letting small firms manage payments and tax in one place.
Sierra, the enterprise AI agent firm started by Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor, has banked a $950 million Series E with Tiger Global and Google Ventures at the helm, plus Benchmark, Sequoia and Greenoaks.
Also TechCrunch Australia·aivy.com.au·cmswire.com·theaiworld.org·faq.com.tw·groundy.com
Turing Post interviews Hugging Face's co-founder and CEO on open-source AI, arguing open models empower a far larger builder community, discussing robotics hardware sales, cybersecurity arguments, and lobbying against open source in the US.
Design company Canva has bought US marketing AI startup Mango.AI and UK animation platform Cavalry, its fifth acquisition in two years, adding their founders and a chief algorithms officer to its team.
Also Startup Daily·Startup Daily·SmartCompany·SmartCompany·Startup Daily·Startup Daily
IT services firm Entag has bought Rubicon 8, creating a combined 145-person business backed by Anchorage Capital Partners, with both companies recently recognised at the Telstra Partner Awards.
Femtech startup Ovum has started clinical trials of its AI women's health journal at two Sydney hospitals, with $40,000 in fresh backing from Soul Pattinson following a $1.7 million pre-seed round.
Opinion by F5 Collective's leaders arguing investors should back women-led consumer companies, citing the MCoBeauty, Rhode and Touchland deals as proof consumer exits now beat tech.
Vively, founded by triathlete Tim Veron after reversing his pre-diabetes, raised $1.6 million seed funding led by Archangel Ventures with Bupa Ventures, and has partnered with Bupa to make continuous glucose monitoring more affordable.
Christie Jenkins, an elite athlete and Blackbird investor, is the new managing director of Techstars Sydney, which has opened applications for its 13-week accelerator program running September to December.
Galileo Ventures argues Australia risks missing the AI revolution, proposes a five-pillar national investment strategy, and announces Fund II to back AI founders, citing its Fund I portfolio and Airtrunk's sale as evidence.
Antler in Australia has started its thirteenth residency, gathering upwards of ninety founders in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to build ventures and pitch for pre-seed backing.
Breakthrough Victoria's acting CEO reviews 2024: launching the BV Fellowship, investing in JigSpace and Quantum Brilliance, hosting a Founders Day, and recruiting a permanent CEO.
Also Breakthrough Victoria·Aura Ventures·Aura Group portfolio·Startup Daily·SmartCompany·Forbes Australia·SmartCompany·Startup Daily
A rundown of Gartner's ten technology trends to watch in 2025, spanning agentic AI, governance platforms, disinformation security, quantum-safe cryptography, spatial computing, robotics and neurological enhancement, with Australian startup Synchron cited.
Australian neurotech firm Synchron reported year-long trial results showing its brain implant was safe in six US patients, including one who used Amazon's Alexa by thought alone, keeping it ahead of Musk's Neuralink.
Weekly roundup of four Australian raises: HammerTech $105m led by Riverwood Capital, JigSpace $13m led by Breakthrough Victoria, ExoFlare's $5.3m seed, and Go Locum's $350,000 seed led by Paspalis.
Profile of JigSpace recalling its Melbourne origins, its 2016 stint at Adam Draper's accelerator with initial backing, and Breakthrough Victoria's investment keeping the 3D software firm in Victoria with job growth plans.
Breakthrough Victoria heads a $13 million investment into augmented reality company JigSpace, with Aura Ventures, Anorak Ventures and returning backers taking part; the Melbourne firm plans US offices and team growth.
Breakthrough Victoria led a $13m raise for AR platform JigSpace, investing via convertible note alongside Aura Ventures, Anorak Ventures and returning backers, with Victorian job growth expected.
Also Aura Ventures·Breakthrough Victoria·Aura Group portfolio·Startup Daily·SmartCompany·Forbes Australia·SmartCompany·Startup Daily
Defender AM's quarterly letter reports the Defender Global Fund's Q2 2024 performance, a fresh Lyka Pet Food raise at a higher valuation, and the fund's profitable part-sale of its Lyka holding.
Also Defender AM portfolio·Defender AM portfolio·Shearwater Capital portfolio·Business News Australia
SpatialGPT, an AI construction startup incubated by InnovateGPT Group, has raised $5.1 million, led by former Microsoft executives; the incubator has also launched other AI ventures.
Also SmartCompany·SmartCompany·Startup Daily·SmartCompany·SmartCompany
Interview with entrepreneur Mick Dempsey recalling founding payments firm Ezidebit, its 2014 sale to Global Payments, his family office's early-stage tech investments, plus his new legal-tech venture EzyLegal.
Virescent Ventures partner Blair Pritchard reflects on Hysata, the Wollongong electrolyser spinout whose $172 million Series B he led, covering its technology, culture, customers and the green hydrogen market outlook.
Also SmartCompany·Startup Daily·@AuManufacturing·Forbes Australia·RenewEconomy·SmartCompany·@AuManufacturing·Startup Daily·SmartCompany·Startup Daily·AgFunderNews·@AuManufacturing·commbank.com.au·australianmanufacturing.com.au·Crunchbase News
Tidal Ventures managing partner Grant McCarthy and Guy Kawasaki compare notes on luck, timing, founder qualities, early-stage mistakes, AI adoption and pitching, drawing on careers spanning Apple, Canva, Yahoo and Tidal.
Ahead of its 50 Most Innovative Manufacturers awards breakfast, @AuManufacturing names Advanced Navigation chief executive Xavier Orr as keynote speaker, recounting his company's gyroscope manufacturing, Botany factory and underwater exploration work.
Profile of Melbourne robotics maker Andromeda Robotics, whose Abi companion robot for healthcare settings is nearing break-even on modest backing, challenging claims that hardware startups are too costly to build locally.
Defender's quarterly investor letter reports its global fund's Q1 2024 performance and public-market moves, and revisits its Series A backing of Lyka Pet Food, an Australian fresh pet food maker building a Victorian facility.
Also Defender AM portfolio·Shearwater Capital portfolio·Business News Australia
Defender's fund letter reports a 2% quarterly return, discusses listed trades including a semiconductor ETF position, and revisits its Series A investment in Australian pet-food maker Lyka Pet Food.
Tidal Ventures profiles team member Kieran O’Neill, who moved from KPMG and London banking through co-founding Hometime into the firm’s seed investing team in 2022.
Roundup of the week's Australian raises: Sitemate, Kashcade, Psychae Therapeutics, MediCann Health, Refilled and Upworth together banked $21.3 million across software, lending, psychedelic medicine, cannabis and drink dispensing.
Also Startup Daily·Startup Daily·SmartCompany·Forbes Australia
Podcast interview in which Advanced Navigation co-founder Xavier Orr discusses the company's new Botany factory, lunar landing sensors, a reported billion-dollar Series B valuation, and hiring in a tight skills market.
Blackbird interviews Blinq growth operations manager Travis James about his path from Apple and Uber to an early-stage Melbourne startup, including his time at Ento before its acquisition.
E-commerce firm Little Birdie has released a browser extension alerting shoppers to better prices, aiming to help small retailers compete; the Australian company launched in 2021 backed by a $30m Commonwealth Bank investment.
Profile of Cortical Labs founder Hon Weng Chong, whose dish-grown brain cells learned Pong, recalling a US$10 million raise led by Horizon Ventures and covering the CL1 commercial product.
Defender's quarterly fund letter reports Q2 returns, AI and resources holdings, and portfolio company Lyka's second up-round at a stated US$150 million valuation.
Also SmartCompany·SmartCompany·Techboard·Business News Australia·Forbes Australia
Ignition Lane's weekly wrap: Tiger Global's losses and past Australian bets, MilkRun and TradeSquare closures, Cyara's Spearline acquisition, a Co Ventures pre-seed fund, Square Peg's partner promotion and LaunchVic's 30×30 picks.
Customisable headphone maker Nura has been acqui-hired by medical device firm Masimo, with its team and technology folded into Denon; the Nura brand will be sunset once remaining inventory is sold.
Also TechCrunch Australia