Standards Australia makes its first VC play, backing $3.8 million pre-Seed for engineering startup

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 chipped in around a third of the round.

The calculation management platform describes itself as “Github meets Notion”, was cofounded in 2021 by Onur Ekinci, Tim Rawling and Mahan Lamei, during the Antler program. 

Ekinci said Kungari’s support is a landmark investment in the context of standards development organisations globally. 

“Standards Australia’s investment in CalcTree is significant and really exciting,” he said. 

“The funding will help us further improve our platform and deliver improved outcomes in quality and safety around the world

CalcTree set out to improve engineering productivity in construction and has its eyes on other engineering-heavy industries. The platform’s public beta, which went live in 2024, already has users from over 110 countries and signups from top-tier firms like Arup, Jacobs, Aurecon, and WSP. 

Mistakes on engineering calculations – notoriously manual, slow, and prone to human error – for large-scale projects account for 7% of contract value, costing millions in fixes.

Standards Australia’s chief development officer, Adam Stingemore, said the investment will help improve the digital implementation of standards for engineering professionals. 

“Standards Australia sees great value in supporting organisations operating in areas where the use of standards is critical to success, and also in businesses with technologies that can transform standards-based knowledge and implementation,” he said.

“Our investment in CalcTree highlights our commitment to innovation within the industries we serve, pushing the boundaries of digitisation, modernising access to standards and helping companies collaborate.” 

Sydney VC Antler backed CalcTree from the outset when it was part of its program in 2021. Partner James McClure said the platform is primed to streamline and create efficiencies for engineering workflows on a large scale,” he said.

“We’re excited to see CalcTree move into the construction industry and other heavy engineering industries, such as resources, automotive, and utilities, and grow its user base internationally,” he said.

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