Investor · 7 deals
Telecommunications company
Every published round Telstra 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 Telstra has backed in a published round, and companies whose existing shares it bought off another holder.
| Company | What it does | First invested | Rounds | Led |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Farmbot | Farmland remote water and asset monitoring platform for livestock farms | 8 Dec 2022, Series A | 2 | 1 |
| Farmbot Monitoring Solutions | Oct 2021, Series A | 1 | 1 | |
| Silicon Quantum Computing | startup founded by Michelle Simmons | May 2017, Seed | 3 | 0 |
| Zetifi | Farm communications startup | 9 Dec 2022, Series A | 1 | 1 |
Fund closes reported for Telstra, as distinct from the investments it has made.
Companies Telstra has backed that another company then bought. An exit for the holding, not a deal Telstra did.
Stories naming Telstra. Where several outlets covered the same round, they are bundled under whichever ran the fullest account.
Analysis tracing Oliver Curtis from an insider trading prison term to his central role in Firmus's planned $7.2 billion Australian sharemarket listing, with Blackstone and Nvidia among its existing backers.
Weekly roundup recording a dozen raises and acquisitions, Firmus's scheduled float, a new $50m venture fund, a founder share sale, grant winners, an accelerator intake, and an AI agent's government breach.
Also Dynamic Business·DealStreetAsia·This Week in Australian Startups·Dealroom·ABC News Technology
Firmus Technologies is courting investors ahead of a possible IPO on the ASX, with reports suggesting up to $7 billion, but no prospectus is lodged and the company declined to confirm any figures.
Australia's national hearing services provider has bought Earworx, a nurse-led ear wax removal clinic group founded in Tasmania, adding ear wax removal to its integrated care offering.
Workforce platform Expert360 is being bought by AI hiring firm Swipejobs at a reported $16 million value, while its founder and earliest backers are set to receive nothing for their stakes.
Also Startup Daily
Sydney quantum computing company Diraq will station an eight-qubit prototype machine inside an Equinix facility from October, a step toward moving the technology from lab to market.
Victorian agtech firm Smart Paddock has raised a $1.7m seed round co-led by Breakthrough Victoria and Telstra's muru-D, with Skalata, Twynam and Little Group also investing; Telstra executive Jon Young Flores joins the board.
Agtech firm AirAgri has released a WhatsApp channel for on-farm safety and biosecurity reporting, timed to National Biosecurity Week and enabled by Telstra's satellite-to-mobile expansion, with founder James Diamond explaining the adoption rationale.
Activeport, an Australian network automation firm, has locked in a A$3.634m equity placement. Fund manager Antipodes Partners and Scobie Ward joined as backers; MWP Partners followed on. Antipodes now holds about 5.1% voting power.
Devoli has hired Kent Plummer from Aussie Broadband as channel manager for Australia, tasking him with helping the provider's MSP partners simplify how they run connectivity.
The National Reconstruction Fund has put another $40m into Sydney quantum chip maker Silicon Quantum Computing, following its $20m investment three months earlier, part of a larger round still underway.
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
Research platform Ideally has secured a Series A round with Shearwater Capital leading, earmarked for US expansion, and unveiled a new product, Ideally Canvas.
Payments company Airwallex has brought in a new independent chair for its Australian board and added a former New Zealand prime minister as a director; he already leads its NZ board.
Airwallex has appointed Elana Rubin AM to chair its Australian board and former New Zealand prime minister Sir Bill English as a director there, with both roles starting immediately; their other board roles are listed.
Weekly roundup detailing eight trans-Tasman raises totalling A$373.3 million, headlined by Halter's Series E, spanning quantum computing, biomanufacturing, robotics, adtech and agtech, plus a recalled $2 billion founder exit.
Also Startup Daily
Australia's National Reconstruction Fund has put $20 million into quantum chip maker Silicon Quantum Computing via a SAFE note, weeks after backing Diraq; a larger raise remains unannounced.
The National Reconstruction Fund has put $20 million into Sydney quantum chip maker Silicon Quantum Computing via a SAFE note, following its smaller-than-planned 2023 Series A and a similar NRF bet on Diraq.
Australian-founded AI vulnerability platform Nullify, now San Francisco-based, has closed a second seed round led by SYN Ventures with returning backer Black Nova; SYN's Glenn Chisholm joins its board.
Also Startup Daily
Roundup of six Australian funding deals: AutoGrab, Applied EV, Checkbox, Hometime, Factory and On the House, with amounts, investors, and Hometime's past acquisitions and raise history detailed.
Also Startup Daily
Australian legaltech firm Checkbox has raised a $35 million Series A led by Touring Capital to grow its AI platform for corporate legal teams, with four institutional backers joining.
Also Startup Daily·Forbes Australia·SmartCompany·Startup Daily
A Sydney quantum chipmaker says its new processor keeps improving in accuracy as more qubits are added, a milestone published in Nature, with DARPA benchmarking progress and systems used by Telstra and Australian Defence.
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.
Roundup of six Australian and New Zealand funding rounds, headlined by Heidi Health and Octopus Deploy, also covering Nexl, OpenSolar, Lucent and PAM, with past acquisitions of Stella AI, MagicBrief and Codefresh noted.
Australia's aviation regulator has granted Alauda Aeronautics an experimental certificate to fly its Airspeeder Mk4 racing eVTOL with a pilot aboard; Intel, Dell, AWS and Telstra back the series' computing and race-control systems.
Weekly roundup detailing five Australian raises: Vaxxas' Series D plus debt facility amid executive changes, Skutopia's growth round, Send Payments' backing and CEO change, Apate.ai's seed, and Coursebox's seed.
Also Startup Daily·SmartCompany·Australian FinTech·Dealroom·Startup Daily
Cross-border payments firm Send has landed a five-million-dollar round backed by iPartners and existing backers, and named payments veteran Matt Barr chief executive while co-founder Paul Billing steps back.
Also Startup Daily·Australian FinTech·Business News Australia
Fleet-logistics software firm Adiona Tech won the Sydney pitch competition and heads to the San Francisco finale vying for a US$1 million investment prize; Telstra and Third Sphere previously backed the company.
Regional NSW farm-connectivity startup Zetifi has received a $5 million federal Industry Growth Program grant toward a $10 million commercialisation plan for its smart antenna platform, working with Telstra, Nextivity and Icom.
ERP specialist Wild Tech has brought in Andrew Kirk, previously of Searce, as a senior business development manager to push its enterprise managed services and digital transformation work.
Aura Ventures argues agentic AI will reshape rather than replace SaaS, highlighting Haast's freshly completed six-million-dollar seed raise and early corporate customers as evidence AI-native enterprise software is gaining traction.
Blackbird's note explains why it led Lorikeet's nine-million-US-dollar round alongside co-investors, describing the startup's workflow-first approach to harder support tickets and its results with Eucalyptus.
Also Startup Daily·Startup Daily·SmartCompany·SmartCompany·Startup Daily
Profiles ten Australian women founders across prosthetics, sustainable materials, wellness, mental health and AI, including three recipients of a Xero award program and a Cartier fellowship.
Also SmartCompany
A fresh sale of existing shares has lifted Canva's valuation to about $48.7 billion from $38.5 billion in January, boosting the co-founders' wealth and edging the design software firm toward a possible public listing.
Also Fortune Term Sheet
Manufacturing news roundup: GreenHY2 and Atomo Diagnostics receive government grants, Seaport Therapeutics closes a US$225m Series B, Orthocell secures $17m, Genevo Marine opens a crowdfunding offer, and the ACCC clears Accolade's wine acquisition.
A news roundup covering a government-backed hydrogen project for Telstra, a climate tech fund's first close, new appointments at a South Australian agency and a feed company, plus export approvals and science prizes.
Also @AuManufacturing
Australian insurtech momentum examined: Honey Insurance's Series A and Cover Genius's raise led Q2 2024 funding, while an Airtree partner argues incumbents have left insurance open to technology-driven challengers.
Also SmartCompany
ASX-listed Spenda is acquiring payments fintech Limepay, rebranded April Solutions, in an all-scrip deal that could reach $8 million depending on revenue targets, delivering a long-delayed public listing.
Folklore Ventures Q&A with Strong Compute founder Ben Sand covering its enterprise AI compute offering, community events, grant programs, hiring and his take on how AI market assumptions have shifted.
Telstra Ventures has rebranded as Titanium Ventures, and the telco is exploring selling its stakes in the VC's funds as it tightens capital management. The firm has backed 99 startups since 2011.