Explore Startups

Mission

Layer operates a managed marketplace that aggregates and automatically matches IP rights owners and licensees to simplify licensing for games and metaverse projects. The platform provides data insights and tools to help participants assess opportunities and standardise transaction workflows, addressing friction in bespoke, manual licensing deals. Layer was built quickly by founders Rachit Moti and Chris Illuk, who developed an MVP and entered Startmate in August 2021. The team is actively hiring and onboarding IP and game owners at pace as part of their go-to-market push. Layer raised AU$3,888,888 in a Seed financing round to support product development and growth. Aura Ventures highlighted founder-market fit and the founders' domain experience as reasons for backing the company.

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Our mission is simple: to build teams that build the future, with over 1 billion candidates finding jobs they are passionate about.

Founders

Mission

Our mission is to build teams that build the future by giving founders the talent infrastructure they’ve always needed but never had. Startups shouldn’t lose months navigating recruiters, spreadsheets, guesswork, and expensive agencies. They deserve clarity, expertise, and momentum from day one. Matchbox transforms hiring from a barrier into a superpower, empowering early-stage teams to move faster, make better decisions, and unlock their full potential.

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Greenlite’s vision is to build a “trusted AI workforce” — a platform of AI agents that can automate high-volume, routine compliance workloads with auditability, regulatory alignment, and scalability.

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Twingate helps organisations secure and manage access to their resources in a world where people work from anywhere.

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To solve the AI trust problem in healthcare by providing the infrastructure for safe, scalable AI agents that deliver care. The goal is to make these agents trustworthy enough to operate in high-risk environments where the cost of error is very high.

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Harmonic’s mission is to democratize access to the world’s innovation economy. They believe breakthrough companies shouldn’t succeed or be discovered simply because they are well-networked — but because they are exceptional. By building the most complete, continuously updated map of startups on the planet, Harmonic aims to level the playing field between incumbents and emerging founders, making venture discovery more transparent, equitable, and data-driven. Their vision is a world where investors, founders, and operators can instantly understand where innovation is happening, who is building it, and how markets are shifting — ultimately accelerating the pace at which transformative companies are found, funded, and scaled.

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Make the internet more accessible and protect the entrepreneurial dream for ecommerce merchants

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To optimise the shopping experience beyond simple economics, recognising it as an emotional and sociological activity that can be fundamentally improved with AI to better serve the user. The goal is to make a better shopping experience for Gen Z and others.

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Willow offers an Enterprise SaaS digital twin platform, WillowTwin™, that assembles and structures static, spatial, and live data into a virtual replica of the built form to deliver actionable insights across business functions and project stages. The platform provides a single interface for tasks including predictive maintenance, maintenance request tracking, energy consumption analysis, smart-building features, and community/tenant management functions. Willow has deployed its technology with customers including Microsoft, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, and Brookfield Properties. The company completed a $28.8M (A$42M) funding round in December 2022 to support ongoing deployment of WillowTwin to its blue-chip customer base. Willow operates globally with offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Seattle, New York, London, Manila, and Amersfoort. Willow develops software that creates digital replicas of built assets, aggregating data into a single “twin” to help infrastructure owners and operators make data-led decisions. Its customers include large real estate and critical infrastructure firms such as Brookfield Properties and several Fortune 500 companies including Microsoft. The company has been deployed on major projects including SoFi Stadium, Hollywood Park and a digital twin for the Western Sydney International (Nancy-Bird Walton) Airport. Willow operates from a Sydney headquarters with additional offices in Melbourne, Toronto, Seattle, New York, London, Amersfoort and Manila. The four-year-old venture says it is focused on scaling global deployment of its platform. Last month In-Q-Tel took a strategic stake, and the company previously raised A$54 million in a Series A in late 2019.

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To fully automate restaurant management using data, automation, and ML so that restaurateurs can focus on their passion for making great quality food. The vision is to reduce operational workload while making businesses more money through data-driven decisions.

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Robyn’s mission is to restore emotional connection in a digital world, to build an AI that doesn’t reduce people to data points or transactions, but that truly understands and evolves with them. It aims to offer “a safe space to think, feel, and be understood,” helping individuals navigate thoughts and feelings with empathy, compassion, and privacy. Founded by a physician-turned-entrepreneur with a background in neuroscience, Robyn strives to combine empathetic design with rigorous science, blending emotional intelligence, memory, and personalisation to help people feel less lonely, more self-aware, and better connected to themselves and others.

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Audinate develops TCP/IP-based digital media networking technology. Its networking technology has been widely adopted by A/V industry leaders including Bosch, Yamaha, Peavey, Dolby, and Lab.gruppen. The company is based in Ultimo, Australia. Audinate secured an additional $4M in funding led by existing investors Starfish Ventures and Innovation Capital. CEO Lee Ellison said the investment will allow Audinate to expand its global sales and support organizations and accelerate development efforts. The funding is intended to support its rapidly expanding customer base.

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To build the global accommodations brand of choice that is beloved by guests, indispensable to property partners, and desired by neighbour''s.

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To build the world’s most accurate prediction engine — one that replaces guesswork with actionable foresight and allows organisations to make decisions based not on sentiment, but on simulated reality.

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Silkline’s mission is to revolutionise B2B procurement for advanced manufacturing by building the “modern operating system” for supply-chain orchestration. They believe that supply-chain and procurement processes shouldn’t be held back by fragmented systems, siloed data, manual workflows, or inefficient supplier portals. Instead, they aim to deliver a unified, secure, and intelligent infrastructure, one that enables tight collaboration, automated workflows, real-time visibility, and compliance, so hardware manufacturers can meet production requirements, stay on schedule, and accelerate time to revenue

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Circadian Health Innovations (CHI) has developed MiEye, a wearable light pin plus a linked app that continuously monitors users' light exposure and provides real-time recommendations to optimise sleep quality, mood stability, and long-term health. The device attaches to the upper torso, produces a 'light score' that evaluates the effects of different light types, and is designed to support use cases such as jet-lag adaptation, shift-work management, productivity optimisation, and workplace safety. CHI is initially targeting the research market, estimating a TAM of at least USD $70 million and a Serviceable Obtainable Market of $18 million per year, with expected annual growth of 4–8%. Product development has progressed to a mass-manufacturable design (Good Design award, 2022) and CHI retains IP over data use for customer solutions. Founders Sean Cain and Andrew Phillips are Harvard-trained, Monash-affiliated scientists with extensive publication and grant records, which CHI cites as a competitive advantage versus current competitors. Early commercial traction includes more than $1 million in presales interest from the research market.

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Slyp is a Sydney-based fintech focused on digital receipts technology that integrates with banks and retail point-of-sale systems. Its core product digitizes receipts and is being developed for bank-appropriate security and scalability. The company recently raised $4 million to expand the product and scale operations, after a $2 million investment in October from NAB Ventures and Westpac’s Reinventure. ANZ and Scentre Group joined the new round alongside those earlier investors. Founders Mike Boyd, Paul Weingarth and Spiro Rokos have concentrated on building infrastructure to ensure the network can receive data from partner banks' retail POS customers. Company leadership cites banking innovation and environmental awareness as timely tailwinds for growth.

Mission

Fable Food develops mushroom-based meat alternatives using the fruiting bodies of shiitake and agaricus mushrooms rather than mycelium. The company emphasizes natural umami flavor and a chitin cellular structure that can mimic the texture of animal meat. Its go-to-market strategy focuses on partnerships with top chefs and foodservice channels across restaurants, premium quick-service chains, meal-kit companies and value-added manufacturing for retail. Fable has begun international expansion into the UK, US, Singapore, New Zealand and Canada and will launch mushroom burger slider patties at STK Steakhouse as the chain’s first plant-based option. Management says the latest funding will be used for research and development and to develop additional mushroom-based products. The team positions mushrooms as having taste and texture advantages versus soy- and pea-based alternatives amid broader industry headwinds. Fable Food develops mushroom-based meat alternatives built around shiitake mushrooms to recreate meat-like taste and texture. Its initial portfolio includes substitutes for pulled pork, braised beef and beef brisket plus a line of ready-made meals. The company emphasizes minimal processing and ingredients, leveraging co-founder Jim Fuller’s chef/chemical-engineer/mycologist expertise (its braised beef uses shiitake, seven other ingredients, salt and pepper). Fable’s products are sold at Australian retailers including Woolworths, Coles and Harris Farm Markets and are served in restaurants such as Grill’d (136 locations); they are also available in Singapore and the U.K. The startup plans a U.S. launch by the end of the year via partnerships with restaurants and meal-kit companies. It intends to expand its product line to mushroom-based substitutes for pork, chicken, lamb and other animal proteins while keeping much of its pipeline under wraps.

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IntelligenceBank is a marketing operations software platform that converts manual processes to digital to improve marketing efficiency, speed to market, and minimise compliance risks. The platform helps marketing teams manage digital assets, creative content approvals, compliance, and creative project management. It is used by more than 400 brands and has 250,000+ users across 55 countries. The company maintains offices in the US, Canada and Australia and counts clients including Hertz, NAB, Bupa, the Queensland Government, Isuzu, Kubota, and RACQ. IntelligenceBank plans to accelerate growth and scale its system while advancing its product roadmap, which includes next‑gen AI, flexible integrations, and stronger content governance and compliance features. The business says the new funding will fortify its market leadership and help it move faster to capitalise on global market opportunities.

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Marketboomer is a proptech company offering a cloud-based B2B eProcurement SaaS platform and online procurement marketplace for hospitality. Its platform is used by hotels and travel companies including IHG, Accor, Marriott, Capella, and Qantas. Headquartered in Sydney with offices across Asia, Marketboomer operates in 23 countries and serves over 10,000 monthly buyers and 20,000 suppliers. The company was founded in 1995. Marketboomer will use the funding to expand in the Australian market and pursue growth initiatives in Southeast Asia and the UK. The $4.9M raise is intended to support those expansion plans.

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PictureWealth provides a digital wealth platform that lets users build a ""wealth picture"" and access customised advice through on-demand financial experts, blending professional human knowledge with digital tools. The company plans to use recent capital to further build its technology stack and to acquire and digitise financial planning practices. It has expanded geographically — operating across NSW, WA, SA and QLD and planning to enter VIC — and made its first overseas move in 2020. The business recently moved its headquarters to a new 60-person office in the Perth CBD as it scales. Leadership includes co-founder David Pettit as group CEO focusing on stakeholder engagement, strategy and M&A, and the appointment of Allan Maitland as CEO of PictureWealth Advisory. Financially, the company has raised a total of $30 million to date, including a $14 million Series A in late 2021. PictureWealth is a two-year-old Perth-based fintech co-founded by CEO David Pettit that builds a digital platform for financial advisers and retail clients to modernise advice and superannuation services. The company has an ""engine of innovation"" designed to rapidly onboard advisers, optimise practice operations, reduce product fees and deliver a best-in-class client experience. Within its first two years of commercial operation PictureWealth reports roughly $20M in annual revenues, about $2B of funds under advice and more than 40,000 clients. The business plans to digitally transform the financial-advice and superannuation landscape in Australia and to release a range of value-added services to make advisers’ work easier. PictureWealth recently completed strategic moves to grow through both capital and M&A while positioning Mark Edman, the former MD of NEO Financial Solutions, as Group COO. PictureWealth is a Perth-based fintech that aggregates bank accounts, expenses, assets and cryptocurrencies to build a one-minute ""Welfie"" snapshot of a user's financial position, according to co-founder David Pettit. The company was founded in March and launched its platform last week after a beta period. While still in beta the platform had $500 million in assets being tracked. PictureWealth raised $1.2 million in seed funding in the last couple of months from investors including advisory group Super Advice and with contribution from Neal Cross, who has joined as co-founder and investor. The startup has distribution partnerships with Super Advice and accounting-service RISE Standards that together provide access to about 120,000 prospective users. Pettit says the company plans to scale via partnerships, focus on financial education and offer its service free to users.

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Smart Token Labs develops TokenScript, an open-source programmable smart token interface, and BrandConnector, a token-gating solution that enables websites to respond to visitors based on tokens in their wallets. The company also maintains AlphaWallet, an open-source mobile NFT wallet. It plans to use the new funding to further develop TokenScript and onboard brands in loyalty, CRM, sports and other verticals, with integrations underway for platforms like Shopify and Galaxy and partnerships pending. Early applications include NFT ticketing, AutographNFT, automotive and IoT tokenization, and TokenScript is being used for ticket attestation and perks at DevCon VI. Financially, TokenScript is reported at a $200M valuation, up from $50M in July 2021 after an initial $6M SAFT; Smart Token Labs announced a new $6M SAFT raise in September 2022. The company says the funds will accelerate use cases across Web2 and Web3 and support announced and upcoming brand partnerships.

Mission

Founded in 1992 and based in Brisbane, Console Group has offered accounting software to property managers since the early 1990s. For most of its history the product ran on in-house servers, but the company shifted to cloud-based delivery about three years ago. Its core product, Console Cloud, provides automated management of funds, trust accounting and other aspects of property management. Chief executive Charlie Holland says the move to the cloud created an opportunity to raise service standards and attract new clients. The company has just completed a $7.5 million Series B round. The raise comes roughly 29 years after it first brought its property tech to market.

Mission

Kashcade has built an online platform to offer R&D lending targeted at companies using the Australian R&D Tax Incentive rebate. Its new R&D Loans product is designed to extend runway, optimise capital efficiency and deliver funding with no dilution. The product promises very fast execution, turning funds around in 48 hours. Prior to the wider launch, Kashcade funded over 30 loans privately and used customer feedback to refine the offering. The company has raised an additional $23 million to bring the R&D lending product onto its online platform. It says the expanded product will support Aussie companies investing in innovation and scale to customers operating globally. Kashcade is a fintech digital lender that provides founders with fast, non-dilutive capital and integrated financial analytics. Its software integrates with a startup’s financial systems (Xero), banking and Stripe to collect and analyse data and surface metrics like growth rates, capital efficiency and customer-value trends. Launched this year, the platform has funded 14 deals in its first nine months, with most loans around $250,000 to technology companies generating $1–10 million in annual revenue. One of its largest clients, ASX-listed Mad Paws Holdings, took a $1 million facility arranged in under 48 hours. Cofounded by former Apple engineer Patrick Nappa and CEO/ex-CBA lending strategist Alex Simmons, Kashcade says it can enable founders to raise funds in just a few clicks and plans to use the new capital to build out its loan book.

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Enboarder offers a People Activation Platform led by founder Brent Pearson that companies use to inspire action and engage employees across HR programs such as onboarding, L&D, change management, DEI, and transitions. The platform is used by more than 400 companies, including Deloitte, Dolby, Eventbrite, Hugo Boss, ING, McDonalds, Shopify and Wyndham Destinations. Enboarder is based in Austin, Texas. The company raised a $32M Series B to support growth and operations, bringing total investment to $50M. Management says the new funds will be used to double headcount over the next year and to invest in additional infrastructure and systems. The stated objective is to further accelerate the company’s global growth and expansion. Enboarder is an experience-driven onboarding platform that enables HR teams and managers to create, deliver and measure the impact of employee onboarding communications. Its cloud-based solution uses adaptable journeys and people experience data to deliver intelligent, personalized communications for buddies, managers, leaders and employees. The platform is used by large organizations including McDonalds, Gap, EA Games, Verizon, Wyndham, Hugo Boss and Eventbrite. The company closed an $8m Series A financing, bringing total funding to $12m. It intends to use the funds to build out its sales, marketing, customer success and product functions. Brent Pearson is CEO and founder and the company is based in Austin, Texas. Enboarder is an Engagement Onboarding Platform that helps organisations create ongoing, engaging onboarding experiences rather than one-off events. The platform enables customers to build customized workflows for each new hire role and continues support after onboarding to improve preparedness, retention and productivity. Enboarder says employee-focused onboarding increases retention and productivity and makes new hires feel welcome and prepared from the moment they sign their offer letter. The company’s customers include large organisations such as McDonald’s, Deloitte, GE, TomTom, Samsung, HSBC, Westpac, Tesco and Canva. Enboarder plans to use new funding to accelerate growth in the U.S. and to fuel ongoing development of the platform. The company has won multiple HR-tech awards and is used by large organisations globally.

Mission

Ynomia is a Melbourne-based construction startup developing a product in partnership with CSIRO. The company secured $3.6 million in seed funding to support product refinement and development. Investors include Aconex co-founder Rob Phillpot, US specialist VC Brick & Mortar Ventures, Aussie real estate technology investor Taronga Group, Aura Ventures, and Salta Capital (the venture arm of Salta Properties). The funds will allow Ynomia to continue working with CSIRO to refine and develop the product. Ynomia also plans to use the capital to begin expanding into overseas markets. Media coverage described the investor group as heavyweights and said the backing exceeded the founders' expectations.

Mission

BenchOn operates a B2B talent-mobility platform that matches a business’s idle staff to short-term contracts across multiple industries. The platform addresses employee underutilisation, which the article cites as costing the Australian economy $305 billion annually. In the past 18 months BenchOn has processed over $50 million worth of contracts across defence, IT, construction, mining, engineering, cyber security, logistics and other sectors. The company was founded in March 2016 by Tim Walmsley, who developed the idea while working in the defence industry. Walmsley is an alumnus of the BlueChilli accelerator and credits the program with helping him launch a minimum viable product. BenchOn plans to use new funding to scale nationally and reach more businesses across the ten industries it now operates in.

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Trellis Data’s core product is the Trellis Intelligence Platform (TIP), a SaaS deep‑learning platform that lets experts and non‑experts create, train and deploy neural networks with one‑click. TIP can ingest and combine sound, video, structured data and documents to produce explainable, real‑time ML solutions. The company serves commercial, government, not‑for‑profit, defense, intelligence and financial customers. Trellis says it has grown profitably over the past three years. Management intends to use new capital to further develop TIP and to scale across Australian private‑sector and government markets as well as pursue international expansion. The company is Canberra‑based and emphasizes sovereign deployment for its customers.

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The Leaf Protein Company is focused on producing leaf-derived plant protein for food applications (as indicated by its name and hashtags). The company operates a pilot plant and is preparing to enter the next phase of development at that facility. The recent fundraise will support ongoing pilot-plant operations and hiring. The team is currently very small and plans to expand from an initial team of two. The company signaled hiring needs for hands-on plant operations experience in the food industry. The LinkedIn post positions the business within the broader alternative/plant-protein sector.

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Humii is a Sydney startup that brings mystery shoppers into online retail to help brands understand customer experience. Its platform uses paid mystery shoppers who are paid per shop to analyse brands across eight dimensions and over 200 data points. The company was cofounded by former Deloitte director Andy Evans and Mareile Osthus, the former CCO of The Iconic. Leading brands such as New Balance, Pet Barn, BCF and Lorna Jane are already using Humii’s service. Humii envisions a standardised global CX score and plans to expand its offering to get under the skin of every retailer in the country. The company recently raised $300,000 in a pre-Seed round from Melbourne early-stage VC Skalata.

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Titomic develops metal additive manufacturing systems and related parts, centered on its Titomic Kinetic Fusion technology. The company intends to use a grant to bring a new line of aerospace components to market, including series production and commercialization of satellite parts and titanium space vehicle components. While Titomic has not explicitly confirmed the manufacturing method for these parts, much of its activity revolves around its additive technology and it has prior work with Airbus and Gilmour Space Technologies. The funding comes via a government manufacturing initiative aimed at helping Australian firms capture aerospace supply‑chain opportunities. Titomic will deploy the capital to scale production and address both domestic and overseas aerospace markets.

Mission

Cartherics develops cell-based immunotherapies, including CAR-NK and CAR-T products, using an allogeneic off-the-shelf iPSC platform derived from donated cord blood. The company genetically engineers iPSCs at specific “safe harbour” genomic sites to enhance the function of differentiated NK, T and other immune cells. Its lead product, CTH-401, is a CAR-NK therapy directed against the tumour antigen TAG-72 and includes deletions of two genes associated with immunosuppression. Cartherics has shown CTH-401 effectively kills ovarian cancer cells in tissue culture and animal models, and plans to initiate the first clinical trial next year. The recent financing will support the CTH-401 clinical trial and allow the company to expand its pipeline into other diseases. The company is privately held and headquartered in Melbourne, Australia.

Mission

LivePreso (formerly SalesPreso) offers an automated platform that replaces static documents with interactive, data-driven 'presos' for B2B sales and customer meetings. The product integrates customer-relevant data from unlimited sources, applies business rules and AI to generate personalized digital content in seconds, and provides analytics showing how customers interact and how top salespeople present. The company has rebranded to LivePreso as it develops industry-specific verticals and serves a broader global audience, including financial advisers, real estate agents, marketers and account managers. LivePreso has focused this year on customer acquisition and renewals; its client list includes News Corp, Flight Centre, REA Group, MYOB, Asahi Premium Beverages, Macquarie Telecom, Iress, Aware Super and Booking.com. The company plans to use new funding to further develop the platform to automate creation of digital content for business-critical meetings such as renewals, reviews, business development and new sales opportunities. LivePreso positions its guided- and virtual-selling capabilities as a response to accelerated digital selling trends driven by COVID-19.

Mission

Eden Brew uses a precision fermentation platform based on CSIRO-developed science to produce casein proteins that it says deliver the nutrition, functionality, sensory qualities and bioavailability of cow’s milk. The company was established in 2021 through a partnership between Norco, CSIRO and Main Sequence Ventures. Its core product focus is animal-free dairy ingredients and it plans to pilot its platform at commercial scale and expand research and manufacturing operations in Victoria. Eden Brew will move its head office to Melbourne and introduce a new ice cream product targeted at the food service industry. The company is pursuing regulatory and patent approvals in Australia, where precision fermentation-derived proteins are treated as novel foods requiring pre-market authorization. Financially, Eden Brew has completed a Series A and previously raised capital in 2022 to support scale-up and commercialization efforts.

Mission

Vow’s first product brand, Morsel, is a cultured umami quail product slated for Singapore restaurants by the end of the year. The company focuses on creating meat from animal cells as a more sustainable alternative and previously targeted exotic meats such as buffalo, kangaroo and alpaca. Vow raised $49.2 million in a Series A to accelerate scaling and manufacturing, which the company identifies as its largest single cost. Its Factory 1 currently produces between roughly 1 kilo and tens of kilos every few days, and Vow is developing a second factory it describes as '100x larger.' When fully operational the company has said a facility could produce as much as 30 tonnes (66,100 pounds) of cultivated meat per year. Vow plans to use the new capital to speed Morsel’s market introduction, advance product development and hire across product, marketing and manufacturing; it expects manufacturing headcount to grow from four to 15–20 and overall headcount to reach about 80 by mid next year. The company is pursuing regulatory approval in Singapore and Australia and says the U.S. timeline is less clear. Vow is an Australian cellular-agriculture startup founded in 2019 by Tim Noakesmith and George Peppou. The company builds a proprietary cell library of animal genetic material to develop cultured meat from species ranging from kangaroo to alpaca, water buffalo, goat, pig, and rabbit. Vow emphasizes vertically integrated control of the end-to-end process, from cell-line identification through product development. Its product strategy targets premium, niche experiences initially with a goal of scaling to mass-market consumers. With fresh seed capital, the company is pursuing regulatory clearances to bring products to consumers and is initially targeting faster-moving Asian regulators and markets. The team positions its approach as enabling novel combinations optimized for flavor, nutrition, sustainability, and cost.

Mission

Picklebet operates a proprietary online sports betting (OSB) platform and a media division, Pickle Studios, that produces short-form sports and esports content. The company began as an esports OSB and has expanded into sports and racing, offering singles, parlays, same-game/race parlays and outrights. Pickle Studios and collaborators surpassed 60 million impressions in 2023, supporting efficient brand awareness and low customer acquisition costs. Picklebet reported Net Gaming Revenue (NGR) up 494% year-over-year and says new customer cohorts show favorable unit economics. The company is currently licensed and operating in Australia (Brisbane) and plans to expand its modular platform internationally in 2024. Picklebet was founded in 2020 and intends to use the new capital to accelerate Australian customer acquisition, continue product and media innovation, and fund initial international expansion.

Mission

Athena Home Loans is a fintech mortgage disrupter that offers low rates with no fees and automatically lowers rates when customers accelerate principal repayments. The product is aimed at helping Australians pay off their home loans faster. The company was founded in 2017 and launched in 2019 by former NAB bankers Nathan Walsh and Michael Starkey. Athena's loan book is described as booming, supporting rapid growth in originations. Recently the company completed a major capital raise, signaling strong investor appetite. The raise was notable for being sourced entirely from local backers.

Mission

OMG is an Australian independent trading and wealth management infrastructure fintech that provides a full suite of technologies and market infrastructure to investment professionals and connects consumers with investment and advice. Its tech stack spans KYC and onboarding, CRM, managed accounts, order and risk management, and execution, with new global capabilities after a managed cloud back-office upgrade delivered via GBST. OMG agreed to acquire equities markets‑specialist Cannon Trading for $12.5m, moving from a 40% to 100% ownership stake to secure market‑leading APIs and relationships with Cannon customers such as SelfWealth and Sixpark. The company extended its pre-IPO raise to $17.8m—primarily from sophisticated investor clients of its Openmarkets B2B arm and Opentrader retail product, with the remainder from existing investors—to support record growth in trading volume, customers, and revenue. Recent senior hires, including a former UBS managing director as derivatives specialist, a new chief product officer from Stan, and several ex‑Pershing staff, are intended to strengthen product, execution and client relationships. OMG intends to use the capital, acquisition, technology upgrades, and hires to integrate open architecture APIs, shore up its technology stack, and continue growth into 2022.

Mission

MOSH, founded in 2021 by Maria Shriver and Patrick Schwarzenegger, produces brain-health–focused protein bars sold direct-to-consumer. The bars include ingredients such as lion’s mane, ashwagandha, collagen and vitamins B12 and D3 and retail at about $35 for a 12-pack. In two years the company has amassed more than 100,000 customers and sold approximately $10 million worth of product. MOSH was self-financed at launch and was described as well capitalized prior to taking institutional capital. With the new funding the company plans to accelerate a retail distribution strategy and build out the team needed for that push. Management aims to enter more than 1,800 stores by next year and intends to roll out additional product lines, with a new product teased for launch at the end of September.

Mission

Splend is an Australian rideshare fleet operator. The company was one of seven startups featured in a fortnightly funding round-up that collectively raised $45.6 million. Splend secured another $20 million investment from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC). That latest injection brings the total amount Splend has received from the government-backed CEFC to $40 million. The article frames the funding as an investment and does not provide additional operational or financial metrics. Splend is a tech-enabled financing platform launched in 2015 that provides all-inclusive vehicle ownership products targeted at on-demand rideshare drivers. Its core offerings include a Flexi Own subscription plan that provides a path to ownership over five years and short-term rental contracts. Splend targets electrification of rideshare fleets and estimates full-time drivers could earn about $200 a week net more driving an EV than an ICE vehicle. The company reports that rideshare drivers can cover as much as 60,000 kilometres a year and that Splend drivers make on average 400 customer trips per month. CEFC support has already boosted Splend’s EV fleet by some 500 cars in less than six months, and Splend has committed to sharing data on battery performance and resale values to help fleet operators and financiers. The company aims to grow its EV fleet to accelerate Australia’s transition to sustainable transport and reduce transport-sector emissions. Splend is a technology-enabled platform (launched in 2015) that offers all‑inclusive vehicle subscriptions targeted at on‑demand rideshare drivers in Australia and the UK. Its turn‑key solution handles admin, provides flexible short- and long-term subscriptions, and positions the company as Australia’s largest vehicle subscription provider for rideshare drivers. Splend has rolled out EVs (initial 500 in Sydney starting Q4 2022) and describes itself as the single largest EV operator in Australia; its EVs have travelled over 6.2 million kilometres and saved roughly 1,000 tonnes of CO2 tailpipe emissions to date. The company is fast‑tracking a transition to green mobility with a global fleet target of 10,000 EVs by 2024 and has helped thousands of customers across Australia and the UK. The business is expanding its EV fleet to meet high‑kilometre rideshare demand and aims to double its EV count to about 1,000 vehicles by the end of the year.

Mission

Seitec commercialised technology originating from Defence Australia to build UXOTrackS, a seismic-sensor system for detecting and locating unexploded ordnance on military test ranges. UXOTrackS is described as nearing market readiness and the company is in discussions with the Royal Australian Air Force. Seitec says the technology saves range operators time and money while improving safety and environmental outcomes. The founder, Daniel Stevens, expects the core technology can be expanded into security use cases as a product called Nightingale for vehicle and footstep detection; Nightingale development is ongoing with a demo expected from Q3 2022. Seitec is veteran-founded and based in Canberra, ACT. Financially, the company completed an initial seed round and accepted outside investment to support development and commercialisation.

Mission

Veridooh provides SmartCreativeTM, a platform that independently tracks, measures and verifies every second of every panel of digital out-of-home campaigns and exposes more than 300 metrics. The dashboard gives clients visibility into metrics such as location, plays, exposure time, ad length and share of time to analyse and optimise campaigns. The technology does not require integration with media owners, enabling use anywhere in the world. Veridooh serves more than 140 clients in Australia and New Zealand, including Google, Unilever, Amazon and McDonald’s, and works with media agencies such as Omnicom Media Group, GroupM and IPG Mediabrands. The company has over 20 staff. It intends to use the new funding to accelerate growth and expand globally.

Mission

Arkon Energy acquires distressed data center assets and operates power-dense infrastructure that appeals to bitcoin miners and AI/machine learning clients. Launched in 2021 with a 5-megawatt site in Australia, the company has grown to over 130 megawatts and expanded into the U.S. and Europe. Arkon positions itself as a landlord that owns underlying infrastructure assets, with its U.S. portfolio largely occupied by institutional-grade bitcoin mining companies. The company closed a $110 million private funding round led by Bluesky Capital Management with participation from Kestrel 0x1 and Nural Capital. About $80 million of the proceeds will be used to acquire an additional 200 megawatts across new data centers in Ohio, North Carolina and Texas to increase total megawatts by 130% by mid-2024; Arkon also purchased a 100-megawatt facility in Ohio in June. The remaining $30 million will fund development of an AI cloud service at its Norway data center to serve generative AI and large language model training markets.

Mission

Roborigger builds a wireless crane load‑controlling system and internet‑connected tracking software that records time, weight, and location for every lift. The system is designed to keep personnel away from underneath lifted loads, reducing or eliminating time spent in the danger zone. Early prototypes were developed in 2016 and have been trialled by construction giant Multiplex and oil and gas producer Woodside Petroleum since 2018. The company has won multiple categories in the WA Innovator of the Year program and has signed NDAs with two of the top four wind turbine OEMs to explore handling next‑generation blades. Roborigger is working closely with Curtin University to add pattern and event recognition to its IoT capability, including detecting human bodies under loads. The company says recent funding will allow it to accelerate development for overseas markets.

Mission

Aiculus provides a platform that screens inbound API traffic without contravening data privacy, enabling organisations to detect sophisticated attacks. The product targets enterprises where breaches can be costly (attacks can cost companies in excess of $2 million). Aiculus currently has pilots at large corporate customers in Australia and Singapore, including an ASX-listed bank and a top Singaporean finance company. The company is a CyRise alumnus; founder and CEO Dr Omaru Maruatona was part of the first CyRise intake in 2017. With AUD $940,000 in new seed funding, Aiculus plans to scale the product, refine its flexible deployment, and grow the team in Singapore. The funding will also support expanding product coverage across Southeast Asia.

Mission

Upollo provides a platform that identifies repeat trial users, account sharers, and users using disposable contact details, then drives timely, friendly interventions to convert them into paying subscribers. The system assesses more than 400 signals—including billing and IP data—in real time to detect account sharing, prior trials, and false phone numbers/emails, replacing the need for large internal teams. Onboarding is simple: customers connect billing or add a few lines of code to mobile or web apps, or plug into Segment. Upollo is free to start and offers a paid tier priced based on outcomes rather than usage. The company plans to use new seed funding to aggressively hire and intends to double headcount by year‑end. Early customers reported strong results—conversion campaigns have hit up to 100% on specific campaigns, retention matches or exceeds other conversion methods, and customers reported ROI from roughly 5x to 9x with peak ARR gains reported at $18,000–$22,000 per day and conversions to paid plans up to $499/month.

Mission

CarClarity launched its platform in March last year to connect car buyers with more than 30 finance lenders, handling loan comparisons, applications and approvals. The company matches customer data and criteria to lenders digitally and guides customers through a simple online application to help them secure financing. It also sources cars from the dealer market and manages finance and insurance, and the company says consumers often save thousands. Revenue grew 600% in the six months prior to the article and the business currently employs 15 people, with plans to expand to 50 and invest in engineering and product development. Later in the year CarClarity plans to launch a car‑buying offering that will give customers access to nearly 300 Australian dealerships. The company raised $3m in a Series A and did not disclose its valuation.

Mission

Empiraa provides a results-driven strategy management system that lets leadership set key business pillars, assign actionable objectives to teams, and monitor trackable, live metrics. The platform recently added an API integration function to automate data flows and enable real-time business tracking. Founder Ash Brown built the product from experience with failed business-plan executions and positions Empiraa for SMEs and startups. The company reports strong growth in sign-ups, usage rates and overall adoption, particularly over the last three months. Empiraa plans to expand into the US, opening an office in Denver next week after early traction with a large transport company. The startup has avoided venture capital and focused on investors that understand its business model.

Mission

Diag-Nose.io develops precision diagnostic and drug-discovery solutions for respiratory disease using its RhinoMAP™ platform. RhinoMAP™ combines machine learning (artificial intelligence) with advanced proteomics to enable precision-matched treatments based on patient-specific biological endotypes. The system uses the patented ABEL Microsampler™ to collect nasal liquid biopsy samples for comprehensive biomarker analysis. Insights from the platform are intended to identify disease progression, therapeutic responsiveness, and optimal treatment pathways. The company plans to use the seed funds to expand operations and R&D. Founded in 2020 and led by CEO Eldin Rostom, Diag-Nose.io is based in Seattle, WA.

Mission

Oceanfarmr, formerly SmartOysters, was founded by marine‑biologist‑turned‑oyster‑farmer Ewan McAsh. It began as an app that logged the status and location of each oyster bag on McAsh’s farm. The product has evolved into a fully fledged digital farm operations system and network described as the “Google Maps of the ocean.” The platform gives aqua‑farmers greater oversight of operations, helping reduce labor and improve efficiency. Oceanfarmr says the system is slashing work hours and boosting the bottom line for operators. The company completed a $1.45 million funding round led by Katapult, which placed it in the top 1% of candidates in the accelerator program.

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Easy Microfinance is a Meridian Capital-backed microfinance firm. On March 13 the companies announced that Yangon-based private equity firm Delta Capital Myanmar invested $7 million in Easy Microfinance. Delta Capital Myanmar is described as a Myanmar-focused, Yangon-based private equity firm. The announcement specifies the $7 million investment but does not provide details on the funding instrument or use of proceeds. No operating metrics or additional financial details were disclosed in the statement. Meridian Capital is identified as an existing backer of the company.

Mission

The Iconic is an online fashion portal serving Australia and New Zealand with clothing, shoes and accessories. Founded in 2011, the site carries about 45,000 products from 500 brands and attracts roughly 4 million monthly users. The company is not yet profitable but says it is tracking toward sustainable growth and targets a long-term EBIT margin of about 10%. Planned product and experience investments include adding more local and international brands, user‑interface and CRM enhancements, and a mobile upgrade. The Iconic is also building a ""fashion community"" via social outreach and offline activities such as a printed magazine and live fashion shows. Logistics and customer experience are a focus: the service offers three‑hour delivery in Sydney, free overnight delivery across the rest of Australia, and free 100‑day returns, and it sublets warehouse space to other Rocket companies. The Australian fashion e-commerce market is growing at approximately 20% year‑on‑year, which the company cites as supportive of its growth plans.

Mission

Basketball Forever is a digital media platform focused on global basketball coverage that pairs its editorial content with integrated gaming products. Established in 2015 and originating in Australia, the company reports a monthly audience exceeding 110 million unique visitors worldwide and 45 million in the United States, with 4 billion social impressions in 2023. Its gaming portfolio includes Hot Hands, V.O.A.T., and Streaker, and the Hot Hands live-action free-to-play launch attracted over 10,000 participants who claimed more than 35,000 squares. The company leverages its site and social channels to create a second‑screen experience that drives engagement and community. Management says the business is on a profitable trajectory and plans to expand into sports betting, daily fantasy sports, and additional sectors beyond basketball. Proceeds from the recent funding will be used to grow the North American team, expand product offerings (including real‑money games), and refine the user experience.

Mission

8seats is a next-generation messaging platform designed to bridge the gap between consumer chat apps and costly enterprise IT messaging solutions. The platform is tailored to businesses of all sizes to help them connect with employees, emphasizing cutting-edge user interface and design, user privacy, cross-platform integration, and AI features. Founded in 2021 by Iain McDonald and Sandor Moldan and based in Sydney, the company is preparing for a planned public launch in 2025. In December 2024 8seats raised A$2.0M in seed funding. The company will use the funds to scale its platform and accelerate its go-to-market strategy. No revenue or user metrics were disclosed in the article.

Mission

Incepto is a French digital-health platform that offers doctors and hospitals a portfolio of AI solutions for medical imaging designed to improve diagnostic quality and save clinical time without requiring new equipment. Founded in 2018, the company positions itself as the first European platform for AI applied to medical imaging and reports about a hundred clinics equipped and more than 100,000 patients monitored each month. Its core product is a curated platform that selects and deploys high-quality AI applications and co-develops new tools with clinicians—examples include ARVA (aortic aneurysm CT) and KEROS (knee MRI). Incepto announced five new partnerships (IB Lab, Milvue, PAIRE, SmartSoft and Thirona) to expand applications across emergency care, oncology, orthopaedics, rheumatology and pneumology. To scale in Europe it is launching offers and creating subsidiaries in Germany, Spain, Italy and Portugal, and aims to treat one million European patients per month by 2024. The company raised €27 million to support this European development and to continue selecting, co-creating and deploying AI solutions while supporting transformation of clinical workflows. Incepto, established in 2018 and based in Paris, developed a platform that distributes AI applications for medical imaging. Physicians and hospitals can access the platform's tools via subscription and require no special equipment. Ten medical centers and clinics have already subscribed to the service. The company targets 35 subscribers by the end of 2020. Incepto has raised €5.6 million from several investors, including AXA Venture Partners, according to the article. The business model centers on subscription access to diagnostic imaging apps for clinical users.

Mission

CryptoTaxCalculator (CTC) provides an automated crypto tax reporting tool that reverse-engineers on-chain wallet activity to produce aggregated tax-ready summaries. The platform integrates directly with blockchains and more than 400 exchanges, requiring only a public wallet address to aggregate transactions and smart-contract interactions. CTC was launched on Reddit in 2018 by co-founder and CEO Shane Brunette and his brother, and is built specifically to address the complexities of DeFi and decentralized exchange transactions. The company serves users in 21 tax jurisdictions, with roughly 40% of users in the U.S. and 40% in Australia, and currently reports more than 80,000 users (up 1,700% in the past year). Headcount has grown from three full-time employees last fall to nearly 30 today. CTC advises advanced users to consult tax professionals for final filing decisions while providing lump-sum categorizations of taxable income.

Mission

Nexgen Plants commercialises two platform technologies developed from University of Queensland research: INTtrait for rapid introduction of pathogen-resistance, production and consumer traits, and a virus-resistance approach to rapidly confer resistance in crops. INTtrait is being positioned as having advantages over existing gene-editing techniques such as CRISPR, and the company says its virus-resistance technology is uniquely rapid. Nexgen recently received non-GM notification from the USDA for a salt-tolerant rice variety and is engaging with plant biotech companies and breeders in the US, Europe and Asia. The company has completed projects with Syngenta and a major global food and beverage company and is pursuing further multinational partnerships. Management has appointed Dr Philippe Herve as CEO to ramp up international business development, with Herve based in France and splitting time between Europe/US and Australia. Nexgen was formed in 2013 by UniQuest and is implementing programs to demonstrate its technologies across a broad range of crop types while awaiting the Australian OGTR review of new breeding techniques. Nexgen Plants is trialling a newly discovered genetic pathway that enables plants to defend against common viruses, a discovery originating from scientists at the University of Queensland. The technology is based on identifying a new class of small plant virus molecules that regulate a plant's defence response and could enable selective breeding from germplasm collections and the introduction of virus-resistance traits. Initial trials will be conducted in tomato crops and the company says the technology could be available to plant breeders within 12 months. Nexgen is at proof-of-concept stage and plans both genetically modified and non-GM investigations, noting GM outcomes may be more suited to North and South America while Australian work will focus on non-GM approaches. The science is most relevant to fruit and vegetable crops but may also reduce virus impacts in wheat, canola and other broadacre crops. The article reports strong interest from plant-breeding companies globally.

Mission

CareMonkey is a Melbourne-based software platform that lets schools go paperless by digitizing forms and administrative workflows. Its platform enables parents to respond to field trip, payment, medical and policy update forms and other consents, and allows schools and districts to manage workflows such as staff approvals, tutoring registrations, supply requests, fee reimbursements, professional development tracking, asset management, technology repair, and school maintenance. Founded in 2013 and led by CEO Troy Westley, the company has scaled to over 500 schools in Australia and is used in schools and districts across Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. CareMonkey raised $1.5M (AUD$2.2M) in seed funding to accelerate growth in the U.S. and U.K. markets and to expand its product offering. The company plans to deploy the proceeds toward international expansion and product development. CareMonkey provides a parent-controlled electronic medical form and risk-management system that keeps medical and emergency data up to date and makes it instantly available on mobile devices. Its platform is used by families, schools, clubs, businesses and community organisations to collect medical forms and store emergency contacts, medications, allergies, asthma plans, immunisations and other care instructions. Features include electronic collection of medical forms, automated reminders to parents for missing forms, and instant access for teachers, coaches and other carers via smartphones, tablets and a secure website. The company reports over 100k users. Financially, CareMonkey won the Slush 100 pitching competition and received €650k in equity funding from Evli Bank, FiBAN business angels and a group of private investors. Additionally, PwC and Mäkitalo Rantanen & Co committed services valued at €15k each to support the company.

Mission

Konvoy launched in October 2019 and operates a keg rental and management business focused on the Australia–New Zealand beverage market. Its core product is a keg fleet plus technology to manage rentals and operations. The company has expanded into New Zealand and has grown its team, including hiring Tom Madams earlier this year. Operations were hit by COVID-19 — Konvoy had no kegs rented in April and May — but activity rebounded in June and July, with July its best month ever and 26 new customers added. The business plans to use new capital to buy more kegs, invest further in its technology, and build cash reserves to weather volatility.

Mission

Haventec builds passwordless authentication and decentralized data-storage products, notably Authenticate (four-digit PIN or biometric multi-factor access) and Sanctum (decentralised encrypted user-data storage). The company also rolled out an eConsent for Genomics project that received joint funding from AustCyber. Haventec has launched a US expansion and hired Jordan Blair to lead the US team and Joseph Wendland as business development manager in North America. The $11 million in new capital will predominantly fund customer acquisition and growth across financial services, government and health sectors that handle sensitive data. Founded in 2015 and based in Sydney, Haventec has been recognized with awards including Best Emerging Cyber Security Innovation at the Australian Technologies Competition and Excellence in Cyber Security at the InnovationAus Awards. Leadership emphasizes cryptography, decentralisation, biometrics and multi-factor authentication to address shortcomings in current data privacy and authentication approaches.

Mission

HUBBED is a last-mile delivery startup operating designated collection points across 2,150 locations nationally, including 7-Eleven stores, BP service stations, National Storage and independent retailers. The company has built proprietary technology that integrates into retailers, online marketplaces, and carriers’ systems to alleviate B2C last-mile delivery pain points through its PUDO network. Delivery companies such as Couriers Please, DHL, eBay, FedEx, Sendle, TOLL, TNT and UPS use HUBBED as a last-mile solution. The business received a $12 million capital injection from the Australian Business Growth Fund and the big banks, which together took a 30% stake. That funding will expand HUBBED’s collection outlets to more than 3,000 nationally. Founder and CEO David McLean said the ABGF partnership will allow the company to scale significantly and that ABGF’s expertise and network will elevate its business strategy.

Mission

MadeComfy operates a platform that helps urban and regional property owners access the short-term rental market while providing travellers, families and corporates with consistent, high-quality flexible accommodation. The company has developed a B2B product and its own booking channel to target corporate and mid-term travellers. Funds from the latest round will be used to expand across Australia, support New Zealand as the first international expansion, and drive core upgrades to its technology and data analytics platform. MadeComfy rebounded from Covid-19 headwinds to become EBITDA positive and is reporting over $20 million in annualised revenue with annual growth above 120%. Over 250 companies now use its platform. Leadership additions include Simon Lehmann as chair and Rolf Hansen joining the board. MadeComfy provides end-to-end short-term rental management services including professional photography, multi-platform listing, dynamic rate and occupancy management, guest liaison, bookings and check-in, and cleaning and linen services. The company was founded in 2015 by Quirin Schwaighofer and Sabrina Bethunin and operates across Sydney and Melbourne. MadeComfy manages a $600 million portfolio of properties and reports welcoming over 4,000 guests per month. Recent growth has included property management partnership deals with Raine & Horne in Dee Why and Belle Property agencies in Mosman and Neutral Bay. The new funding will be used to expand the company into new cities, and the team has signalled potential additional fundraising from strategic investors. Investec described MadeComfy as a market leader in the Australian short-term rental management space.

Mission

TALY is a Melbourne-based personality profiling platform that applies behavioral data and artificial intelligence to provide real-time, actionable insights for managers and recruiters. The platform is used to center personality data in recruitment and team decision-making and has processed over 4,000 profiles through early adopters including Motorola and Maurice Blackburn. The company plans to enhance its AI capabilities and expand its infrastructure with proceeds from the recent funding. TALY intends to grow its presence across the ANZ region and into Canada. It also plans to launch new features in 2025 to broaden its product offering.

Mission

Bean Bar Company is a Tampa-based coffee company formed as a Florida corporation in January 2019 by founder and president Danielle Henry. Its core operations currently include two high-tech, fully equipped coffee trailers and a planned brick-and-mortar store at 17018 Palm Pointe Drive in Tampa Palms, targeting a mid-October grand opening. The company is moving into the CBD beverage sector and intends to cross-market CBD products to its existing customer database. Reported assets include two coffee trailers, pre-purchased equipment for the new store, and approximately $250,000 cash on hand. Management projects 12-month sales revenues for the trailers and new store (excluding CBD and other value-added products) to exceed $750,000. The company and its partners expect rapid growth as they expand both coffee and CBD offerings.

Mission

AirSeed Technologies has developed an autonomous planting system and a plating system that it says is 95% faster and costs 20% of traditional planting techniques. The company combines drone technology, artificial and data-driven intelligence, and sustainable biotechnology to increase planting rates to about 40,000 tree seed pods per day with a team of two people and one drone. AirSeed reports cost-per-tree reductions of roughly 75–80% versus manual planting and positions its solution to address large global reforestation needs exacerbated by the 2019–20 Australian bushfires. The company has already begun replanting, running a paid trial with a leading food and agri-business to plant over 500,000 trees. If that trial succeeds, AirSeed may conduct a commercial project to plant 200 million trees across Africa, which the article frames as a path to significant revenue over the next five years. The firm communicated strong public interest during its crowdfunding campaign, aided by substantial national media coverage.

Mission

Katonic.ai is a Sydney, Australia–based enterprise machine learning operations (MLOps) platform that helps businesses build, deploy and manage AI-powered applications. Its collaborative MLOps platform provides a unified UI to manage data science workflows and supports the full AI lifecycle including data acquisition, automation, deployment and monitoring. The platform is designed to combine data scientists' creative processes with professional software engineering to deliver models into production safely, quickly, and sustainably. Katonic is ISO 27001 certified and was the only Asia‑Pacific company featured in Everest Group’s MLOps Products PEAK Matrix 2022. In December 2022 Katonic raised $1.6M in a pre‑Series A round led by Artesian with participation from Boab AI to expand products and services, hire talent and grow its customer base. The company says the investment will help it pursue global opportunities and capture a larger share of the multi‑billion dollar MLOps market.

Mission

Leonardo.Ai is a generative AI art production platform aimed at creative industries such as gaming, advertising, fashion and architecture. The platform lets users save, edit and build multiple assets in the same style, train their own image-generation models, and offers collaboration tools for enterprise customers. Its enterprise version supports private cloud hosting and exposes APIs, starting with a production API, so customers can build their own infrastructure on top of the platform. The company built its models on open-source technologies and trained them with synthetic data and Creative Commons content; features like Live Canvas combine text and sketch prompts to create photorealistic images in real time. Since December the startup has reached seven million users who have generated more than 700 million images. Founded last year and based in Sydney, Leonardo.Ai plans to expand the B2B aspects of its platform and use new funding to hire sales, marketing and engineering staff as it scales its enterprise product.

Mission

Maple Finance is an on-chain institutional credit marketplace operating in the DeFi sector that enables lenders to view loan operations on the blockchain for increased transparency. The three-year-old startup has cumulatively issued $2.2 billion in loans and currently has around $50 million deposited on the platform. It operates with roughly two dozen employees spread mostly across Western Europe and North America. Maple recently rolled out a direct lending business offering overcollateralized loans secured by Bitcoin, Ether, and staked Ether. The company is diversifying into lower-risk products such as tokenized T-bills and plans to offer trade finance to real-world companies. Maple is targeting expansion into Asia (notably Hong Kong and Singapore) and plans to add its first headcount in the region. Maple Finance operates a token-governed DeFi platform that offers institutional lending at competitive, fixed rates with under-collateralized terms. It targets institutions with solid balance sheets, including traders, market makers and crypto-mining firms. Maple allows collateralization as low as 40% and promises fixed rates that will not change for borrowers in good standing; initial collateral deposits need not be revisited. The protocol is organized into pools managed by Pool Delegates; the first pool is planned to hold $10–15 million and will make loans typically in the $1–2 million range. Liquidity providers across Ethereum can participate and will earn MPL tokens via a liquidity-mining scheme; total MPL supply is fixed at 10 million with roughly 30% allocated to liquidity mining. MPL governs the network, earns fees, supports staking for increased returns, and MPL holders may bear the brunt of losses if a borrower defaults.

Mission

CO-architecture operates a community platform and directory that helps independent designers and architects find permanent and temporary roles and helps small businesses recruit at lower cost. The platform formalises networked studio hiring and aims to scale nationally, with a planned designer directory intended to drive further adoption. The founders—Kevin Mitchem, Wade Smith and Luke Hallaways—launched the venture after participating in Curtin University’s Ignition program in 2020 and later joined the Curtin Accelerate program, receiving a grant to build their first MVP. The company reported that around 8% of Australia’s design professionals had signed on last year and that registered users nearly doubled in January; the team is targeting 20% adoption by the end of the year. CO-architecture also publishes industry research, including a comprehensive salary guide aimed at addressing gender pay gaps in architecture, design and construction. Investors and advisors highlight the platform’s ability to generate industry-level data to support equity and diversity research.

Mission

WhyHive provides an AI-driven platform for survey data analysis, customer feedback, and product reviews. The product lets users compare responses from multiple questions on the same chart, analyze open-ended text responses, and process thousands of rows of data in minutes. Those capabilities enable researchers and product teams to extract meaningful insights efficiently. WhyHive was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia. In August 2024 the company raised $600K in a pre-seed round led by Skalata Ventures with participation from Culture Amp’s Jon Williams, Linktree’s Alex Zaccaria, and Up Bank’s Dom Pym. The company lists its website as https://www.whyhive.com/.

Mission

Fold Health offers an end-to-end platform built to support value-based primary care, integrating with electronic health records and allowing customers to use modular tools to meet unique needs. Its suite includes a ClinOps Efficiency Engine that automates roughly 60% of the work required to succeed in value-based care, a Care Team Enablement Suite that unifies patient data, task management and omnichannel communications, and a Patient Enablement Suite that provides a white-labeled web/app experience with self-scheduling, chart access and wearables/RPM integration. The company positions its platform as eliminating the need for providers to build software from scratch and claims it enables advanced primary care groups to achieve 3x tech-related cost savings. Fold Health said the new capital will be used to continue scaling the platform and to hire talent. The company opened an R&D office in Pune, India in 2023 and is looking to expand headcount across the U.S. Early customers and prospects have endorsed the built-from-scratch VBC technology stack.

Mission

EQL provides hype infrastructure that prevents site crashes, slows down scammers and bots, and delivers a fair launch experience for high-demand product drops. Led by CEO Andrew Lipp, the platform has supported over 1,000 launches and connected millions of hopeful fans. Initially focused on the sneaker space, EQL now serves luxury brands across apparel, alcohol and accessories and counts early adopters such as Footlocker, Sullivans Cove whisky and Crocs. The product is live across Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Spain, the UK, America, Singapore, France, the Netherlands, Macau and Hong Kong. The company plans to expand into gaming, ticketing and the digital collectives space. It intends to use the new funding to strengthen global sales and customer teams and to further develop its infrastructure and AI capabilities.

Mission

Aerotruth is a cloud-based partner-tech platform that accelerates the B2B partnership process by facilitating initial introductions and simplifying document exchange, communications, and compliance workflows for financial institutions. The platform launched in May and has already signed more than 40 financial institutions across 25 countries. Aerotruth provides secure storage and approval tools to expedite onboarding and review, helping customers accelerate their pathway to partnership revenue. The company was founded by Michael Liu and Bryce Currie and is led by CEO Michael Liu. With the latest funding the company plans to implement more technology to further improve the partnering process and to accelerate global growth. The seed round was described as oversubscribed.

Mission

BCAL Diagnostics is a listed breast cancer biotech. The company has closed an oversubscribed fundraising round totalling $10.5 million. The raise was supported by existing backers including Ellerston Capital, APS Foundation and tech entrepreneur Mark McConnell. BCAL initially sought $5 million but was able to raise roughly twice that amount. The company will seek shareholder approval on July 15 for proceeds that fell outside its annual placement capacity. The article does not disclose operating metrics, product details, or use of proceeds.