Over the Summer break, Startup Daily is republishing key stories from 2025. This opinion piece from editor Simon Thomsen first appeared in February amid news that the NSW that the NSW government and UFC fan premier Chris Minns, paid $16 million to the US cage fighting company to stage 3 events in Sydney at a… Read more »
The Victorian government’s plan to abolish LaunchVic has shaken beneficiaries of its Alice Anderson Fund, who fear upcoming women-led startups could lose out on important funding, significant business opportunities, and a powerful support network. In response to a major cost-cutting review of the public sector, the Allan government confirmed earlier this month that startup support… Read more »
Despite the continued strained economic climate, we’ve seen some big chunks of change thrown around in 2025. While early-stage funding stayed constrained for much of the year, large cheques concentrated around a smaller group of companies certainly prevailed. In some cases, twice. These were some of the largest Australian startup raises of 2025, and the… Read more »
When Jen Clark launched Heartful, the online accommodation marketplace for sustainable and inclusive travel, just over 12 months ago, the last thing she predicted as a founder was that AI bot attacks could lead to its potential demise. It wasn’t even an attack on Heartful, which has more than 550 high-quality property listings nationally. They came… Read more »
The federal government will tip an additional $233 million into the national science agency the CSIRO over two years in response to budget shortfalls that have forced it to cut hundreds of research jobs, but the startup sector will pay for it with further cuts to commercialisation funding programs. And CSIRO still plans to cut… 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 »
This week saw more $24 million in VC funding go towards AI onboarding tools, seaweed tech and more. Keep reading to learn more about the six Australian startups with fresh capital to deploy. Bodd: $15 million 3D body scanning platform Bodd has raised $15 million as it looks to expand globally. The round was led… Read more »
Ochre Ventures, the first Australian VC solely focused on First Nations entrepreneurship, has reached a $30 million first close on the $100m target for its first fund. The VC has already made its first five investments, including veteran First Nations-owned construction and facilities management business PSG Holdings; video games maker MicroProse, which generated $5m in… Read more »
This week’s funding roundup looks a little different. While it includes startups building AI, solar and medtech solutions, it also includes a bakery with a cult following and a rapidly growing retailer that caters to parents. Keep reading to learn more about 19 Australian and Kiwi companies that have raised more than $59.6 million in… Read more »
Disability worker Storm Menzies, founder of accessible makeup tools startup ByStorm Beauty has won the Kickstarter Challenge, taking home $30,000 in equity-free funding. Four runners-up also took home $7,500 for their startups following the grand final at Parliament House in Canberra today. The five-year-old Kickstarter Challenge, developed by Enterprising ME and run in conjunction with The… Read more »
Nearly $5 million in funding has been awarded to 12 Western Australian innovators and startups working on local health and medical innovation projects The ideas, many from academics and WA’s universities span tests for liver cancer to heart monitoring, endometriosis diagnosis, asthma treatment and more, were funded from the Innovation Seed Fund 2024-25 Program. The state… Read more »
The government-backed Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has tipped $25.3 million in new funding into Sydney startup SunDrive, which is developing cheaper, copper-based solar panels. It’s the second major funding injection from ARENA, which also tipped $11 million into SunDrive in 2023 and has now supplied nearly $40 million in capital. SunDrive began life in a… Read more »
The Victorian government is investing $75 million across five specialist venture capital firms. The funding, via Breakthrough Victoria, will go to VCs backing climate-tech, life sciences, and female founders, as well as a cornerstone investment in an unnamed US specialist healthcare fund manager as they launch their first Australian fund. All five have committed to… Read more »
Breakthrough Victoria has selected the first three recipients of its new Fellowship program, which hopes to turn academic research into startup reality. The $7.5 million, multi-year program offers each recipient $150,000 to kick off their entrepreneurial efforts, and Breakthrough Victoria is hoping it will result in around 50 startups commercialising research and IP. The trio… Read more »
After some quiet weeks of startup raises, we’ve seen some course correction on the funding front over the past few weeks, and the trend is continuing. The last week of September saw $94.4 million raised across the tech, marketing, robotics and fleet spaces. Leading the charge was Morse Micro with $88 million in Series C. Morse Micro:… Read more »
Daily startup news and insights, delivered to your inbox.
