A Melbourne-based software engineer has lost an unfair dismissal case after he was fired for refusing to return to the office. Richard Johnson worked as a product engineer at print management software provider PaperCut Software from April 2022 until mid-June 2025, when he was fired for refusing to comply with a three days per week… Read more »
The Australian government’s financial system anti-crimes regulator, AUSTRAC, has called in an external auditor at Airwallex over concerns that the fintech unicorn has failed to properly comply with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) laws. AUSTRAC CEO Brendan Thomas, said the external audits will assess serious compliance concerns by the regulator, which is charged with… Read more »
Sendle staff questioned the parcel delivery startup’s US expansion plan and high cash burn well ahead of its closure, suggesting the business faced existential challenges before its ill-fated merger. The Australian-born scaleup, which allowed small businesses to send parcels through partnerships with major courier networks, shocked customers last week by cancelling all upcoming pick-ups. The closure came… Read more »
Australian sustainable cleaning product startup Pleasant State will close its doors after six years in operation, as cost-of-living pressures force environmentally-conscious consumers to make tough spending decisions. Founded in 2020 by Ami Bateman and Sian Murray, Pleasant State provides alternatives to traditional cleaning products and household sprays. Instead of relying on single-use plastics, Pleasant State… Read more »
Touch Ventures (ASX: TVL), which invested more than $36 million into Sendle over several years, wrote down the value of its stake to nil in the weeks before the logistics startup’s abrupt closure. The downgrade, revealed publicly on Wednesday, sheds light on how one of Sendle’s major financial backers responded to worrying claims about its… Read more »
Woolworths has announced a partnership with Google to incorporate agentic artificial intelligence into its “Olive” chatbot, starting in Australia later this year. Until now, Olive has largely answered questions, resolved problems and directed shoppers to information. Soon, Olive will be able to do more: planning meals, interpreting handwritten recipes, applying loyalty discounts and placing suggested… Read more »
Long-term Sendle investor Federation Asset Management has confirmed that one of the two US partners in last August’s 3-way merger into Fast Group failed to disclose its true financial position at the time, leading to the sudden demise of the Australian scaleup and its parent company. Sendle announced suddenly over the weekend that it was… Read more »
Alternative parcel delivery scaleup Sendle has halted operations just five months after it merged with two US delivery firms amid claims of financial irregularities. In a terse statement from the firm’s PR agency, the company said “Sendle has informed its customers that it is no longer taking any future bookings. We are not able to provide… Read more »
Scaleup tech companies from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and USA have been selected as finalists in a competition run by Moreton Bay council, north of Brisbane, for the $1 million “Ultimate HQ”. The competition, a collaboration between City of Moreton Bay and the University of the Sunshine Coast, aims to embed a high-potential scaleup business… Read more »
The bitter legal battle by HR platform Employment Hero against investor Seek has ended with the combatants releasing a terse mutual announcement today to kiss and make up and discontiue proceedings. The stoush began last July after Seek announced it would terminate aceess to its API (application program interface) to post jobs on the Employment… Read more »
As wall calendars are replaced and the fireworks smoke dissipates, our colleagues at SmartCompany put together an annual list of startups they’ll be paying close attention to in the year ahead. The 2026 list includes startups capturing carbon emissions in concrete, making life easier for parents with autistic children, launching rockets into space, and more.… Read more »
When Jake Shelley and Joseph Pons, former senior leaders at Deputy, launched their Sydney startup Jiffi in 2023, they started with a simple thesis: the tech industry is broken. Software oversaturation has left companies burdened with fragmented systems and inefficient processes that technology alone cannot repair. So as tech set out to build yet another… Read more »
Business leaders would face fines of up to $40,000 for not listing their Director ID when required, and penalties of up to $20,000 for failing to provide updated email addresses, under draft legislation put forward by the federal government. The Treasury released an exposure draft for the Treasury Laws Amendment (Business Registries Stabilisation and Uplift)… Read more »
The latest round of the NSW Government’s EV fleets incentive program has opened with $5 million in co-funding up for grabs for businesses and organisations making the shift to electric vehicles. The provides support for the purchase or lease of up to 15 battery EVs (BEVs) and the installation of smart charging infrastructure. The latest… Read more »
Over the summer break, Startup daily is republishing some of its most read and favourite stories from 2025. Today it’s about Canva’s profitabilty, published in September. It’s just shy of 20 years since US political satirist Stephen Colbert coined the term ‘truthiness’. He described it as “something that seems like truth – the truth we… Read more »
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