A decade and three bitcoin halvings later, industry association Blockchain Australia has rebranded to the Digital Economy Council of Australia (DECA). The change comes amid a restructure of DECA, with CEO Simon Callaghan departing and former chief operating officer Amy-Rose Goodey taking the lead as managing director. Speaking at the annual Blockchain Week gathering in… Read more »
Melbourne and Brisbane have continued their rise through the ranks of the best global startup ecosystems, but Sydney remains the most favourable location for burgeoning companies in Oceania, according to a new report. Innovation development organisation Startup Genome’s annual Global Startup Ecosystem Report uses research and analysis of data from 4.5 million startups to paint… Read more »
Corporate regulator the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has issued its first interim stop order over a crowd-sourced funding (CSF) campaign. ASIC intervened in the raise for Hirehood, an hire marketplace for holiday items such as surfboards, bikes and baby equipment, on the VentureCrowd platform. The regulator’s concern is over the structure of shares… Read more »
Victorian startup The Leaf Protein Co has raised $850,000 in a pre-Seed raise as it looks to join the race for palatable meat alternatives. The round was led by the Breakthrough Victoria-backed University of Melbourne Genesis Pre-Seed Fund, Loyal VC and LaunchVic’s recently launched agtech sidecar fund, the Hugh Victor Mckay Fund. Previous investors include… Read more »
The social media platform formerly known as Twitter is chasing former Australian employees for money and threatening to take them to court after mistakenly overpaying them when they were fired in 2022. Twitter, now called X by its mercurial owner, Elon Musk, who was forced to buy the platform for $61 billion in mid-2022, went… Read more »
Supply chain integration platform Switchboard has raised $1.5 million from a consortium of early-stage VCs to digitise logistics. The Sydney startup was backed by Archangel, AfterWork, Investible, Skalata, Startmate, TEN13, and The Fund. Founder and CEO Hugh Dixson launched Switchboard in August 2022, having previously worked at road freight backfill startup Ofload in M&A, setting… Read more »
Mind mapping startup Omniscient has raised US$60 million (A$89m) in a Series C as it uses artificial intelligence (AI) to decode the human brain. The raise was backed by mining magnate Gina Rinehart and existing investor Will Vicars, the billionaire chief investment officer at Caledonia. The five-year-old startup previously raised $40 million in a Series… Read more »
I speak to hundreds of Australian founders every month from all backgrounds pursuing a wide range of businesses. However, there is one unifying view from them all: how hard it is to raise the necessary capital to scale and grow. There’s a counter-intuitive irony here; historically, the best venture returns have come from the vintages… Read more »
Apple has announced how it will integrate generative artificial intelligence into its iPhones, iPads and Macs, following months of speculation. The company’s AI system, dubbed Apple Intelligence – the company has resisted using the words artificial intelligence – was announced at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in Cupertino, California on Tuesday. Already lagging behind… Read more »
Internet of Things agriculture scale-up Farmbot Monitoring Solutions has exceeded its capital raising plans by 50% to bank $4.6 million as it looks to ramp up its US presence. The round, originally targeting $3m, was backed by existing investors Telstra and Macdoch Ventures, among others. Telstra first joined the cap table a decade ago when Farmbot… Read more »
Documents compliance checking startup Atticus has banked $10.84 million in its first external raise, with VCs Blackbird and Kim Jackson’s Skip Capital buying in. The Melbourne legal tech – named after the To Kill a Mockingbird lawyer – was founded in 2017 recovering corporate lawyer Saul Wakerman and former Palantir software engineers Misha Wakerman and… Read more »
As the Brisbane Olympics loom in 2032, the Queensland government is keen to get local sportstech startups on the podium with new accelerator programs. The state government-backed Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) is bringing Melbourne-based Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN) north with funding from the QIC-managed Queensland Venture Capital Development Fund (QVCDF). The accelerator and entrepreneurship programs… Read more »
Sydney fintech Bridgit has raised $14.2 million in a Series A as the non-bank lender looks to offer bridging loans to homeowners moving house. The round was led by existing investor OIF. Bridgit, founded in 2021 as TechLend, previously raised $7.5 million two years ago in a round co-led by OIF Ventures and Perennial Partners.… Read more »
Monogramed luxury fashion business The Daily Edited (tde.) is back from the brink yet again, with the former startup’s owner, Marquee Retail Group (MRG), emerging from voluntary administration, following the execution of a Deed of Company Arrangement (DOCA) to secure the business. MRG is owned by former Myer boss Bernie Brookes. It bought tde. in… Read more »
Australian disability tech accelerator Remarkable has ramped up its venture side, and is now looking to back startups in disability, ageing and health, from Seed to Series A. Remarkable is the startup venture arm of the Cerebral Palsy Alliance (CPA), founded in 2016 by Pete Horsley. Over the past 8 years Remarkable has helped 120… Read more »
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