Victorian agtech startup Drone-Hand has raised $720,000 in a pre-Seed round for its autonomous livestock management platform. The raise was led by US VC Radius Capital, supported by three local agribusiness investors Gippsland-based Edward Barraclough founded Drone-Hand in 2023, having grown up in NSW on a mixed livestock property. The idea was inspired by an… Read more »
A Sydney AI-powered ecommerce startup focused on customer satisfaction during delivery – known in the trade as WISMO (Where is my order?) – has raised $2.3 million in pre-Seed funding. The round for Keeyu was led by Rampersand, with support from Archangel, Startmate, Empress Capital, Exhort Ventures, Sydney Angels, Southern Angels, and others including Marketplacer’s… Read more »
New Zealand voice-based 360 feedback platform, Huckleberry, has raised NZ$2.1 million ($1.84m) in pre-Seed funding. The round was led by US VC Oregon Venture Fund, with support from Archangel Ventures, plus US and NZ founders, including Mineral CEO Nathan Christensen, TradeMe’s Rowan Simpson and M-Com’s Serge Van Dam. Huckleberry enables people to talk rather than… Read more »
An AI-based “cloud waste” startup has raised $3 million in pre-Seed funding to help companies save billions on their cloud costs. The round for Optimaze was led by Arconic and The Innovation Club. The Sydney startup is currently in private beta, with a waitlist for preview access to the software. The funding is to expand… Read more »
Lucent, founded by 22-year-old Alisa Wu, has raised A$2 million in a quickly oversubscribed pre-seed to build behavioural datasets for browser agents, and will base itself in San Francisco over the next year.
Robotics data analytics platform Alloy has raised $4.5 million in pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Blackbird Ventures with support from Airtree, US-based robotics VC Xtal Ventures, and Skip Capital as well as strategic angels investors include senior engineering leaders and founders from Waymo, Tesla, Halter, Reach Robotics, and Carbon Robotics. The Eucalyptus cofounders… Read more »
Australia’s first foundational legal AI startup Isaacus, which is building sovereign legal AI models and tools for legal tech companies, has raised $700,000 in pre-Seed funding. The round was co-led Aura Ventures and Galileo Ventures and will be used to bring Isaacus to market with significant customer traction already underway. Isaacus has developed a massive, proprietary… Read more »
An AI assistant designed for financial advisers, developed by New Zealand fintech Marloo has trousered A$4.2 million in pre-Seed funding. This round was led by Blackbird Ventures, with support from CoVentures, Brand Fund and a Who’s Who of angel investors, including Xero cofounder Philip Fierlinger, Stake’s Matt Leibowitz, Halter’s Craig Piggott, Heidi Health’s Tom Kelly,… Read more »
Artificial intelligence is changing the online search and marketing landscape and a marketing startup, hoping to ride the new wave for small business has raised a $2 million pre-Seed round. Hall, founded in 2023, is the brainchild of former Dovetail and Atlassian designer Kai Forsyth. The raise was backed by Blackbird. The martech startup is… Read more »
LaunchVic’s sidecar fund for women founders, the Alice Anderson fund, has completed a pre-Seed $1.1 million raise for Melbourne pet health startup Elita. The commitment brings to a close the long-running raise for Elita, which is building a stem cell bank for Australian pets. Founded by Paloma Newton and Jackson Gritching, the genetics startup, which… Read more »
An Irish-Australian teenager’s second startup in just 12 months has raised US$1.4 million (A$2.15m) in pre-Seed funding during a holiday Down Under to visit his grandparents. Liam Fuller, now 18, wasn’t old enough to drink beer when secured the raise for QuickFind AI, an agentic AI ordering system for retail procurement, after cold-calling local VCs.… Read more »
Real estate proptech FoundIt has raised $2 million in a pre-Seed to give buyers greater insights when buying property. The raise was backed by a strategic group of real estate experts, including Realbase cofounders Frank and Jacques Greeff, Realtair’s Peter Matthews, and Propps founder Daniel Bignold. FoundIt, the brainchild of former Domain executive Angus Ferguson… Read more »
Melbourne renewables battery startup Voltavate has raised $850,000 in a pre-Seed round to make lithium-ion batteries and energy storage devices safer, more efficient and sustainable. The round was led by Artesian, with support from Investible, Electrifi Ventures, and angel investors John Wood, Christiaan Jordaan, and Steven Vassiloudis, as well as the startup’s chair, Reza Behnam.… Read more »
A nine-month wait to finalise their pre-Seed round has paid off for product market testing startup Heatseeker, nearly doubling its size to US$1.5 (A$2.3m). The raise was led by San Francisco-based Capital F, with support from Dom Pym’s family office, Euphemia, Even Capital and East End Ventures. In September last year, the Sydney via Gold… Read more »
Standards Australia has made its first early-stage investment, backing calculation tooling startup in $3.8 million pre-Seed round. The round for CalcTree was led by Foundamental, with support from Suffolk Technologies, Antler VC, Autodesk & Bentley employees. Standards Australia’s VC subsidiary, Kungari, invests in businesses innovating to improve safety, efficiency and quality across the economy, and… Read more »
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