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 »
Startmate CEO Michael Batko has stepped as CEO after eight years of leading the startup accelerator and investor, effective immediately. Taking over is chief operating officer Phoebe Pincus, who’s been with the Blackbird-backed organisation for four years. Batko, who was also a startup founder on the side, most recently exiting his side hustle, Startup Striders, last month,… Read more »
Blackbird’s come-to-Jesus moment six months ago, when it tipped $60 million from its 2022 follow-on fund into Airwallex, is now being pitched to the VC’s investors as its rising star. Details from the annual Blackbird Ventures investor day were leaked to Capital Brief’s Bronwen Clune, and included details of Canva’s performance, with the VC flagging… Read more »
Four months after entering the UK market, controversial short-term subletting startup Kiki is following a familiar pattern as it finds its footing in London. Manual processes powered by Instagram, limited revenue, parties, and growing costs (including visa sponsorship for newly hired staff) are already defining Kiki’s local operations. Meanwhile, the startup is publicly projecting confidence… Read more »
New Zealand startup Kiki Club’s move from Sydney to New York generated just $76,000 in revenue over two years, but has cost them three times that figure in fines for operating illegally there. Kiki Club paid US$152,000 (A$224k) to settle charges by the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement (OSE) that it violated New York City’s… Read more »
A Brisbane startup hoping to unleash the unrealised productivity gains of workplace artificial intelligence has raised $2.3 million in pre-Seed funding to help people refine ideas and inspiration using AI. The round for Enhance Labs was led by Blackbird Ventures with support from QIC Ventures. Enhance was cofounded by former Amazon engineer Haziq Nordin, former… Read more »
Blackbird’s disclosed portfolio value has climbed to $9.9b (AUD), capping a rebound led by Canva and fresh deep-tech momentum, and pushing performance to a 36.09% net IRR.
Over the past week, conversations about women founders and venture capital in Australia have been amplified by Blackbird’s latest portfolio data, reported by Startup Daily’s Simon Thomsen, alongside Elaine Stead’s thoughtful piece, The myth of the funnel. Both point to something important: The numbers we track matter, but the story they tell depends on how… Read more »
An all-women founding team has as little as a 1-in-5000 chance of being funded in Australia according to the latest analysis of investment data from Blackbird. The VC fund released details on its efforts to close the gender investment gap for the 2025 financial year (FY25), with head of impact, Kate Glazebrook, saying “the last… Read more »
Kiwi startup Kiki is hoping that its plan to be bigger than Airbnb will have more luck in London after it was forced to shut down in New York due to the city’s subletting laws. It’s also a case of 4th time lucky for the Blackbird-backed startup, which has previously opened, and closed, in New… Read more »
The grand New York experiment for New Zealand rental accomodation startup Kiki is over, with cofounder Toby Thomas-Smith announcing he’ll end his Big Apple ambitions for a second time. “The beginning of Kiki’s intense fire in NYC,” as he described it 13 months ago, is being snuffed out by regulation, he says, announcing the decision… Read more »
Trans-Tasman VC Blackbird has tripled down on New Zealand-born brand tracking platform Tracksuit in a $38 million in a Series B. The round was led California consumer brands investor VMG Partners, supported by existing backers Blackbird, NZ’s Icehouse Ventures, and San Francisco’s Altos Ventures, and Footwork. Tracksuit previously raised a $20.5 million Series A in… Read more »
Blackbird has added another unicorn to its portfolio, but unlike Canva, has come late to the party with plans to tip $60 million into fintech Airwallex. The AFR reports that the VC is signing on for an unannounced capital raising for Airwallex, ahead of plans to go public in the next 12 months. Airwallex last… Read more »
A quantum startup cofounded by three former PhD students just nine months ago has raised $2 million in a pre-Seed round to develop faster and cheaper fault-tolerant architectures for quantum computing. The raise for Iceberg Quantum was led by Blackbird, supported by UK-based LocalGlobe. CEO Dr Felix Thomsen cofounded the Sydney startup with Larry Cohen,… Read more »
Sydney retail technology startup Hivery was handed to administrators last week after nine years and nearly $63 million in venture capital. The books for Red Analytics, trading as Hivery, were handed to Christopher Johnson and Andrew McCabe at Wexted Advisors in Sydney on November 6. A first meeting of creditors is scheduled for Friday, November… Read more »
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