A veteran startup detecting faults in powerlines to prevent bushfires has raised $50 million from US and local venture funds. IND Technology was cofounded by RMIT Professor Alan Wong and Kokwai Leu Melbourne in 2013 following the 2009 Black Saturday fires, to develop Early Fault Detection (EFD) systems for preventing bushfires and grid failures. The… Read more »
Australians and the world have been left horrified and reeling after at least 16 people were killed, with another 40 injured following a mass shooting involving two gunmen at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Sunday evening. NSW police declared the incident a terrorist attack, which began at about 6.40pm on December 14. Alongside a typically busy… Read more »
Digital food safety platform Squizify has continued its Asian expansion, launching a subsidiary in Japan following a $10 million Series A earlier this year. The Brisbane startup, founded in 2018, by CEO Daniel McDouall, helps restaurants, retailers and food manufacturers automate hygiene tasks, digitise HACCP (Hazard analysis and critical control points) compliance, monitor equipment performance… Read more »
Nearly three-quarters of Australians aged 18-14, and eight in every 10 adults have backed the federal government’s social media ban for children under 16. While support for the ban was lowest among young adults (72%), it rose to 80% for people aged 50-64 and 87% for over 65s, taking the national average to 79%. There… Read more »
Data-scraping bot blocker Kasada has raised US$20 million (A$30m) in a round that values the business at $300 million. The round was backed by Swedish private equity giant EQT, with support from existing investors, including Malcolm Turnbull’s Turnbull & Partners, Westpac’s VC fund Reinventure, CSIRO-backed Main Sequence and OIF Ventures, and in the US, New… Read more »
The arc of a tech company’s success is often sprinkled with near death experiences. And according to Airwallex cofounder Jack Zhang, the business, which raised $498 million in a Series G this week, had so many lives in its first 10 years, it should probably be nicknamed “Catwallex”. London-based Zhang took to social media overnight… Read more »
The Commonwealth Bank (CBA) has paid $792,000 in penalties following action by he ACCC over breaches of the Consumer Data Right (CDR). It’s the second time in six months that a major bank has been busted for dragging its feet over CDR, also known as open banking, which launched in Australia 5.5 years ago. NAB… Read more »
Fishburners is addressing the women founder funding gap with a free program to help them succeed. The pioneering startup coworking space has collaborated with more than 30 organisations, from venture funds to corporates, to launch The Ascent Project, a free, on-demand program to support, inspire and inform women, and tackle structural gaps in clarity and… Read more »
Venture capital firm Blackbird’s annual startup Coachella, Sunrise Australia, will be held on Thursday, April 30, next year. That shaves a day off the annual “love letter to Aussie startups”, with the VC promising “one massive day + one huge night” instead. Announcing the changes to the 2026 event, Blackbird said the revamping the event… Read more »
PsiQuantum, the US startup backed by Blackbird, and the Queensland and federal governments, is already running several months behind schedule on plans to build its Brisbane facility and deliver the world’s first quantum computer. Founded in Palo Alto in 2016 by four expat Australian professors, PsiQuantum was backed by $940 million in joint funding from… Read more »
Melbourne-born fintech Airwallex has seen its valuation increase by 30% in just six months following a second raise for 2025 – US$330 million (A$498m) in a Series G. The round led by a new US VC investor Addition, supported by T. Rowe Price, Activant, Lingotto, TIAA Ventures, and Robinhood Ventures. Local VCs Square Peg –… Read more »
The federal government has appointed data scientist Dr Ian Oppermann as a commissioner of the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC). Dr Oppermann, the keynote speaker at this year’s Startup Daily Best in Tech awards, was previously NSW Government’s inaugural Chief Data Scientist, a startup founder and CSIRO director and entrepreneur-in-residence, and a pioneer of… Read more »
Tech Council of Australia founding director and former chair Robyn Denholm will depart the board in February after five years. Her departure comes amid two other changes to the 10-member board, which features several tech billionaires, with its two ex-politician directors also logging off, replaced by two more. Former NSW Liberal minister Victor Dominello departed… Read more »
Hachiko, an optimisation software startup for industrial battery energy storage systems (BESS), has raised $2.5m in a Seed round. The round was led by Archangel Ventures, with support from Twynam, Investible, Motion Capital, Electrifi Ventures, and Wattle Hill Capital. The funding will help build technical and go-to-market teams as well as deepening and expanding platform… Read more »
Unless you’ve stayed on Elon Musk’s social media platform, X – previously known as Twitter – you probably missed an extraordinary rant from US investor Keith Rabois claiming that “Airwallex has become a Chinese backdoor into sensitive American data like from AI labs and defense contractors”. The former PayPal exec – yes he’s part of… Read more »
Daily startup news and insights, delivered to your inbox.
