Procore

🇦🇺 This Week in Australian Startups #173, 9th August 2026

Weekly roundup: Firmus completes its $2.85b round; Procore acquires DroneDeploy; Atlassian rebounds while Canva cuts guidance; plus fresh raises for Zabidou, BioScout, Vexev, Enrola, Spacetalk and others.

Also Dealroom·RenewEconomy·RenewEconomy

Building an AI Company with Antler: Prefactor and the Infrastructure Behind AI Agents

Profile of Prefactor, whose co-founders Matt Doughty and Simon Russell twice pivoted from authentication into AI agent governance, recalling Antler's late-2024 backing and a September 2025 pre-seed raise.

From SaaS to SaiS: A River of Inquiry into how AI is unlocking vertical SaaS

A Blackbird partner argues AI has revived vertical software by turning hard-to-sell customers into product-led buyers, noting the firm recently backed three such startups and recalling Aconex's sale to Oracle.

Also buildxact.com

Disrupting systems of record: The generative AI opportunity

Square Peg's analysis argues generative AI enables startups to attack the databases companies run on, drawing lessons from cloud-era winners and citing its portfolio company Partly as a new-category example.