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.

Mission

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.

Mission

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.

Mission

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.

Mission

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

Mission

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.

Mission

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.

Mission

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.

Mission

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.

Mission

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.

Mission

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.

Mission

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.

Mission

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.

Mission

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.

Mission

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.

Mission

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.

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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.

Mission

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.

Mission

Snooper is an Australian crowdsourcing platform that enables brands and retailers to collect in-store data by uploading paid 'missions' for shoppers. Launched late 2016 by Romain Stas and Laurie Wespes, the platform instantly connects brands with shoppers across the country. Clients include Heineken, Unilever and Coca-Cola. The company raised AUD$1M in funding led by Microequities Venture Capital Fund. It intends to use the funds to accelerate growth in Australia, recruit talent, strengthen its user base in regional areas and develop new features in close collaboration with flagship clients. Following the investment, Daniel Szekely from Microequities will join Snooper's board.

Mission

Gridcog is a London, UK-based clean energy software company led by CEO Fabian Le Gay Brereton. Its platform gives companies a holistic view of energy resources, including solar, wind, battery storage, EV fleets and charging infrastructure, and flexible loads across multiple sites and energy markets. The software helps users assess how existing solutions are performing, simulate the impact of market and project changes, and — using live feeds of energy prices and other market considerations — model projects across commercial scenarios. Gridcog says its platform is used by Shell, Mitie, and EY to manage multi-asset, multi-site projects across the UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. The company raised £3.3M in funding led by AlbionVC and intends to use the proceeds to accelerate the energy transition across the UK and Europe by making clean energy investments more transparent, efficient, and commercially viable. Gridcognition develops software to plan and optimise a wide range of decarbonised, decentralised energy projects. The company is focused on enabling the shift toward local electricity generation and helping customers manage the operational challenges of decentralisation. Gridcognition plans to use its recent government funding to significantly expand its product engineering team and hire talent across Australia. Management intends the investment to accelerate international growth and to support customer trials in the UK, with plans to enter the US and Japan. The company participated in Startmate and works with Australian energy businesses including Ausnet, Evergen, JetCharge and Ampol. Financially, Gridcognition recently raised a $998k commercialisation grant and previously closed a $675k pre-seed round from Australian tech and clean energy investors.

Mission

iVvy provides a cloud-based event and venue management platform that lets venues display real-time rates and inventory for accommodation and meeting space to facilitate online bookings. The platform enables meeting planners to search, compare, book and pay for function space, catering and group accommodations 24/7. After bookings are confirmed, iVvy supplies operational tools including diagramming, invoicing and payments, creation of banquet and event orders, and catering management. Led by Founder and CEO Lauren Hall, the Queensland-based company has amassed more than 25,000 users across 14 countries. iVvy plans to use new funding to accelerate growth of its sales and catering software, with a focus on U.S. and European markets. The company intends to list on the Australian Securities Exchange within the next 12 months.

Mission

Liontown is developing the large, high‑grade Kathleen Valley hard‑rock lithium deposit and plans to produce spodumene and battery‑grade lithium chemicals. The company expects the mine to be in production by the end of July. Liontown expanded its existing supply agreement for spodumene concentrate from five years to 15 years and says the Kathleen Valley resource is large enough to feed multiple refineries. It has an expanded partnership with LG Energy Solution that includes studies to develop a U.S.‑compliant refinery to process spodumene into battery‑grade lithium chemicals, and a parallel partnership with Sumitomo to explore production in Japan. LG Energy Solution is investing $250 million via five‑year convertible notes; if converted today those notes would represent roughly an 8% stake. The company is operating amid sharply falling lithium prices — a benchmark for refined lithium carbonate in Asia is about one‑third of what it was a year ago — and its shares rose more than 7% on the funding news.

Mission

Hudled builds a dashboard for growing companies to track, control and optimise their software stack and reclaim visibility into SaaS spend. The platform syncs in real time with accounting tools such as Xero, Netsuite and QuickBooks to surface company-wide visibility and actionable savings. In beta it has customers including Employment Hero, Airwallex, Legal Vision, Simply Wall Street and Autopilot and has analysed more than $10 million of software spend. Hudled has secured 250+ partner integrations with vendors such as Zoom, Monday.com, 15Five and Semrush to help customers access competitive rates. The company emerged amid the 2020 pandemic through Antler Australia; the team has grown to eight and has hired four engineers since the seed. Hudled will reopen its waitlist and officially launch the product in April 2021 and plans to use the seed funding to accelerate product development, expand partnerships and investigate US expansion by Q3.

Mission

UPowr operates a digital platform to offer third-party household battery assets and battery orchestration programs to rooftop solar customers. The company will leverage its existing platform to enrol customers in behind-the-meter orchestration programs and optimise charging and discharging to access grid services and revenue streams. UPowr’s ARENA-funded project uses behavioral science to develop a customer segmentation framework and tailor product offerings and customer journeys based on customers’ motivations and values. The trial targets households in Victoria, New South Wales and potentially Queensland and South Australia and aims to demonstrate an end-to-end approach to designing and delivering orchestration programs. ARENA has provided $446,000 in funding toward a $943,155 project to explore how customer insights can increase willingness to participate; the project is underway and expected to complete by early 2022. If successful, UPowr expects increased household participation in orchestration programs and a business case for using customer insights and modelling to support greater uptake of distributed energy resources.

Mission

Founded in 2018 out of Swinburne University, H3D has built an automated CAD and 3D-printing platform that rapidly designs and produces custom-fit healthcare products, initially focusing on the hearing market with items like hearing aids, noise protection and custom earphones. Its proprietary software combines machine learning, advanced 3D algorithms and real-time cloud processing to let labs batch-process hundreds of complex jobs in minutes, replacing labor-intensive workflows that can take technicians up to 30 minutes per case. The company has also developed a smartphone-based 3D scanning solution that captures accurate ear scans using computer vision, AI and AR, eliminating the need for traditional ear impressions. With offices in Australia, Denmark and Ireland, H3D is beginning to extend its technology to dental labs worldwide, aiming to alleviate technician shortages and quality inconsistencies in that sector. Management positions the platform as a cornerstone for the future of AI-driven digital manufacturing in healthcare. The startup’s early backers include Swinburne University and Starfish Ventures, and it has generated meaningful commercial traction in the global hearing market. The recent capital injection will fund global dental-market expansion and the commercial roll-out of its mobile scanning product.

Mission

Vitruvian builds the Trainer+, an at-home, cable-based strength-training system that dynamically adjusts resistance via software. The Trainer+ claims adjustable loads from about 5 lb up to roughly 440 lb and integrates with a smart TV, phone, or tablet for self-made workouts or immersive classes. The unit sits on the floor, is portable, requires no installation, and Vitruvian released a second-generation upgrade late last year. The company says it sold out of its initial run and will begin ramping production the following month. Vitruvian plans to use its latest funding to scale the Trainer+ business and push into the U.S. market. Financially, the company completed a $15 million Series A after a $3.4 million seed round at the end of 2020. Vitruvian develops the V-Form Trainer, a strength-training device that uses custom motor systems and an adaptive force algorithm to vary load from 7kg to 180kg. The device logs performance data and pairs with a connected app offering over 200 exercises, coached classes, technique tutorials and accessories. Founder Jon Gregory, a former high-frequency trader, spent about a decade iterating the technology and algorithmic foundation for the product. The company launched to the global retail market after a pre-order campaign that outsold Peloton, demonstrating strong early demand. Vitruvian plans to ramp up production to meet that demand and expand into new markets with support from strategic partners. The recent seed raise provides capital to scale manufacturing and commercial rollout.

Mission

Cincera Therapeutics is developing small-molecule Des-1 inhibitors designed to shift the balance between toxic and beneficial ceramide lipids (increasing dhCeramide) to produce anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrotic effects. Its lead program targets severe obesity-related conditions including NASH and aims to reduce organ fibrosis and inflammation. The company says inhibiting Des-1 has shown beneficial effects across models of liver, kidney, heart, lung and skin disease. Cincera plans further preclinical testing of its compounds in various disease models and intends to progress toward clinical testing of a once-daily, orally administered drug candidate. Founded in 2018 as a spinout from Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Centre for Cancer Biology, Cincera operates in Adelaide and Melbourne. Financially, the company received a $1 million grant from the Biomedical Translation Bridge Program and previously secured a $7 million venture investment from the Medical Research Commercialisation Fund (MRCF). Cincera Therapeutics was launched to develop new therapies targeting conditions linked to unhealthy Western diets, with an initial focus on NASH. The company is developing drug‑like lead compounds that modulate enzymatic targets to reduce the abundance of specific ‘toxic’ fats and thereby address inflammation and fibrosis. Founding scientists include Associate Professor Bernard Flynn (CEO) and Professor Stuart Pitson (CSO), and the company is harnessing research from the Centre for Cancer Biology (University of South Australia/SA Pathology) and Monash University’s Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Cincera’s programs emphasize potent, broad‑acting anti‑inflammatory and anti‑fibrotic agents that may address liver and kidney dysfunction and potentially certain cancers. The company launched with an AU$7 million venture capital commitment and plans to use the funds to demonstrate efficacy in disease models and optimize compounds. Management expects to select drug candidates suitable for clinical trials in three to four years.

Mission

Real Pet Food Co (RPF) is a 29-year-old Australian pet food company producing fresh, chilled and frozen dog and cat food under roughly 17 brands, including Ivory Coat, Billy + Margot, Trilogy, Fussy Cat and Dr. B’s, and operating six manufacturing plants in Australia. RPF positions itself as the largest independent pet food manufacturer in Australia and New Zealand and among the top 20 globally. In June 2023 the company received an equity investment of US$161.2 million (about A$242 million) from its existing Asia‑Pacific investors to expand its chilled pet food business. The participating investors were Temasek, food‑space private equity firm Hosen Capital and China’s New Hope Group; those investors first became RPF’s owners in 2017 when they bought the company from Quadrant Private Equity. RPF says it will use the proceeds to hire additional strategic personnel and launch more products to maintain its market leadership in fresh, chilled and frozen pet food for dogs and cats. The company’s manufacturing footprint and brand portfolio underpin its stated roadmap to expand chilled offerings and preserve market leadership.

Mission

Magnis Energy Technologies is an Australian graphite producer participating in the lithium-ion battery industry. The company secured A$20 million (about $14.7 million) from two U.S.-based investors to fund expansion in the lithium-ion battery sector. A$13 million of the funds will be invested into its majority-owned energy storage systems provider, Imperium3 New York, to assist with a potential listing on Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange. Part of the investment will also be used to advance work at the Nachu graphite project in Tanzania and at its Townsville battery plant. The company is positioning itself amid rising raw-material prices and robust demand in the lithium-ion battery sector. Graphite and lithium, which Magnis works with, are considered critical minerals used in electric-vehicle batteries and other applications.

Mission

myInterview is a Tel Aviv-based provider of asynchronous video interviewing software that uses AI to encourage candidates to express themselves and help hiring managers identify the best hires. The platform offers an automated, AI-augmented interviewing framework with team collaboration, workflow management, reporting, enterprise-grade security, and integrations with applicant tracking systems and other HR applications. Employers can leverage the solution to continually identify and attract qualified staff and reduce time-to-hire cycles by up to 70%. myInterview's platform is used by more than 10,000 companies, including 7-Eleven, Ocado, Facebook, Six Flags and Chick-fil-A. Led by co-CEOs Benjamin Gillman and Amalia Bercot, the company plans to use the funding to expand its product offering to meet growing demand from brands for recruiting solutions. The company recently raised $11M in a Series A round. myInterview is a video-based recruitment platform that allows candidates to upload video responses to prompted questions while giving recruiters transcripts and tagging to sort submissions. The platform includes myInterview Intelligence, machine-learning tools that analyze responses for keywords, phrases and tone and apply the Big Five Personality Model to generate shortlists. The company says it has been used by more than 2,000 companies, mostly in the United States and United Kingdom, and more than two million candidates have used the platform. Notable clients include Ocado, B&M and P&O Ferries; myInterview has worked with Facebook Career Connections and maintains a strategic partnership with reed.co.uk. Founded in 2016, the company started with products to integrate into existing recruitment systems and launched a standalone platform in early 2019. The startup plans to use new funding to expand its sales, product and research and development teams and aims to reach tens of millions of job seekers while working to mitigate bias via diverse training data and behavioral psychologist audits. myInterview provides a video-based recruitment platform that lets candidates attach video cover letters and complete video interviews to showcase personality and fit. The company plans to invest in machine-learning research to analyse videos for signals such as emotion and tone and to surface trends from successful candidate interviews. The platform is already used by employers including Pandora and Catch Group, and is also being adopted by insurance providers and universities. myInterview was launched in 2014 by Guy Abelsohn and Benjamin Gillman (Gillman is now based in Tel Aviv). The startup recently raised $1.6 million to fund expansion in the UK and US and to support its R&D roadmap. Leadership says the product aims to reduce unconscious bias from written resumes and help recruiters select better candidates more quickly and cost-effectively.

Mission

Power Ledger operates a blockchain-powered marketplace that lets residential and commercial users trade surplus renewable energy directly with each other via an auditable, automated clearing mechanism. The platform uses smart contracts to enable transparent pricing and trading decisions between buyers and sellers. Co-founded by MD David Martin and Chair Dr Jemma Green, the company has partnered with Bancor to increase POWR token liquidity through instant smart‑contract trades. Power Ledger says it will use the funds to build the business, broaden applications, and make inroads in peer-to-peer trading. The company also pledged up to $1M to help island energy grids affected by hurricanes Irma and Maria, and will support resilient microgrid development by providing its trading platform without transaction fees to those networks.

Mission

Complete Home Filtration builds whole-of-home water filtration systems that deliver freshly filtered water to every tap. Its proprietary Attapure technology is a point-of-entry system that removes 100% of PFAS compounds from contaminated bore water. Since the last funding round it has grown twelve-fold in Western Australia and is beginning expansion into Brisbane and Sydney. The company says the new capital will fast-track production of Attapure and expand manufacturing capabilities in Australia. Its innovations have been supported by the federal government and the Defence Science Centre, targeting a large market of PFAS-contaminated sites in Australia and the US. MD Suzanne Dodds brings over 13 years of water filtration experience and has received international recognition in the space.

Mission

Driva offers a market-leading car financing product that provides finance options for vehicle purchases and for partners to offer to their customers. The company says it has already helped provide finance options for over $600m worth of vehicle loans. Driva is still a relatively new company and is beginning to scale its product and reach. With a newly announced A$3m seed round led by Carthona Capital, it plans to accelerate development of new products. The company intends to bring more seamless and cost-effective financing to more Australians across the country. Driva also highlights that its partner integrations can unlock new revenue streams for partner businesses.

Mission

Edrolo produces curriculum-specific tutorial videos, textbooks and online content for secondary school students and sells packaged resources to schools. The company began by selling to parents but shifted to school packages after teacher demand; those packages save teachers time in lesson prep and marking. Last year Edrolo recorded 71 million online video plays and 106 million pieces of content viewed by teachers and students. The business employs almost 200 people and has reinvested 100% of its revenue back into the company alongside outside investment. The new capital will finance an ambitious rebuild to create a complete catalogue of core curriculum-aligned resources for science, maths, humanities and more across Years 7–12, accommodating state-by-state curriculum differences; Year 7 content has already been completed. Edrolo is Melbourne-based and was founded by Ben Sze, Duncan Anderson and Jeremy Cox. Edrolo is an Australia-based online education startup. The company operates in the online education space. It raised $2.6 million in a venture round. The round was led by AirTree Ventures and Blackbird Ventures, with support from Singapore-based Jungle Ventures, investor Roger Allen and others. The article does not disclose the company's founding year, valuation, prior rounds, specific product details, operating metrics, or how the proceeds will be used.

Mission

Airtasker operates a two-sided marketplace where consumers post tasks—ranging from home repairs to administrative support—and qualified ‘Taskers’ bid to complete the work. The company leverages media-for-equity partnerships to build brand awareness and accelerate geographic expansion in Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. In FY25, Airtasker’s revenue increased 12.8% to A$52.6 million, driven partly by a 111% surge in UK marketplace sales to A$21 million. Despite a net loss of A$31.5 million—largely attributable to A$46.3 million in sales and marketing spend and unrealised accounting losses—the business achieved positive free cash flow of A$1.2 million. Management views proactive marketing, particularly through media partnerships, as critical to scaling the platform and cementing Airtasker as a household name in key markets. The company has secured more than A$51 million in media deals during 2024 with partners such as oOh!media, ARN, TelevisaUnivision, iHeartMedia, Sinclair and Mercurius. Airtasker’s current focus is to deepen penetration in the UK while continuing to grow its user base and task volume across existing regions.

Mission

The Yield provides a Sensing+ platform that captures in-field microclimate data and feeds a proprietary AI modeling application to deliver predictive insights for irrigation, feeding, planting, protection, and harvest. The company targets large commercial and specialty crop growers, emphasizing clear ROI for irrigation-intensive production. Its technology stack leverages IoT, data science, and artificial intelligence to scale digital solutions across the food supply chain. The Yield is highly awarded and was selected as a 2020 THRIVE Top 50 Scaling and Visionary AgTech Company. The company is based in Sydney and is focused initially on growers in Australia and New Zealand. Financially, The Yield recently closed an AUD $11 million initial funding round led by Yamaha Motor Ventures, with participation from the Bosch Group. The Yield provides Sensing+, a platform that unites sensors, hardware and software with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to help growers make critical on-farm decisions. The company is led by Founder and Managing Director Ros Harvey. It raised $6.5M in a Series A round and has raised $11.5M over two years. Early seed support included a $1M Accelerating Commercialisation Grant from the Australian Government in 2015. The new funding will be used to bring its platform to the Australian market in the second half of 2017, accelerate new product development, and grow sales and marketing capabilities in Australia.

Mission

Founded in 2021 after completing the Alacrity Foundation programme, Newport-based Validient offers an automated compliance management and due diligence system for law firms and regulated businesses across the UK. The company was founded by Ieuan Leigh, Katie Turnbull, Thomas Elliott and Gareth Williams and received strategic support from Capital Law during the 15-month programme. Validient is the only Welsh tech company to secure a place on the LawtechUK Programme. Management says the new funding will be used to further develop the product and invest in sales resources to support UK-wide expansion. Financially, the business secured a second investment of £300,000 in this round and has prior backing from the same investors.

Mission

AmazingCo operates an online marketplace for events and outings that surfaces experiences—ranging from wine nights for couples to home cook nights for families—based on user data and demand. Once customers select an experience they are connected to a concierge who helps manage the outing and its logistics. The platform evolved from a mobile kids-entertainment business and was founded in 2012 by Silvia Hope, Jeremy Cox and Nick Brozovic in Melbourne. AmazingCo has launched in U.S. cities including Los Angeles, Boston and Philadelphia and is focusing on further expansion across the U.S. Management says the business uses scale and search traffic to identify unmet demand and rapidly build solutions. The company previously raised $835,000 from Macdoch Ventures last year and is now pursuing external capital to accelerate global growth.

Mission

Coach Welly builds a next-generation consumer-facing wellness app and gym engagement platform that integrates with wearables, equipment, virtual content and member management systems. The product combines AI, fitness content, biometrics and gamification to provide personalised experiences and rewards at scale. The company says it has pre-revenue traction and a rapidly growing list of contracted customers, including an undisclosed global gym brand. Coach Welly plans to complete platform development and execute a go-to-market plan ahead of a planned Q1 2024 launch. Founded in 2019 in Brisbane, the startup was named one of the top 20 Australian AI startups to watch. The funding will support the company’s launch and initial commercial expansion.

Mission

WORK180 operates a jobs platform and advocate service for working women, pre-screening employers against a set of 35 criteria including pay equity, flexible working, women in leadership and paid parental leave. The platform launched in 2015 and has expanded into the UK. It has secured more than 100 clients, including Microsoft, NAB and BHP. The company planned to use new funding to hire an additional 15 staff and to initiate expansion into the US while doubling down on growth in the UK. Leadership emphasizes investor alignment with the company’s values, a theme highlighted during the fundraise. The company has previously raised funding, though prior round details are not specified in the article. WORK180 is a gender-equality jobs platform launched in 2015 that screens employers against a benchmark covering pay equity, flexible working, women in leadership and paid parental leave. Employers that meet the benchmark can list jobs and the platform publishes employer information for job seekers. The company reports a 400% spike in job listings in the prior three months and says clients see up to 50x more female applicants versus platforms like SEEK. WORK180 counts clients such as Atlassian, Microsoft, CommBank, BHP, NAB, Caltex, Xero, MYOB, Telstra, Qantas and the NSW Government. The team is eleven people and the founders emphasize refusing investors or employers who would require lowering their benchmark. WORK180 is using its recent funding to drive an international rollout, beginning with a UK launch and a US launch scheduled for 2019.

Mission

Judo Bank is a small business-focused neobank that began as a small business lender and has expanded into other banking services. The bank primarily competes with other lenders rather than consumer neobanks. Judo says it is now profitable and has increased its business lending activity by about 80% since March 2020. The company operates in Australia and has raised multiple capital injections to fund growth, including a prior $230 million cash injection in May last year. Leadership emphasizes long-term relationships with investors, noting many backers join after multi-year conversations and observing performance benchmarks. Management frames continued fundraising success as evidence of confidence in Judo's proposition and in the broader SME banking market. Judo Bank focuses on providing loans and deposit services to Australian SMEs. The bank’s core product is SME lending, and it obtained a licence to take deposits last year. Judo now has more than $1.5 billion in deposits and has written more than $1.5 billion in loans, serving around 10,000 customers across loans and deposits. Management says it intends to rapidly grow its national footprint and expand the products and services offered to thousands of Australian SMEs. The company has raised roughly $500 million in equity to date alongside about $450 million in known debt. The Series C pushed its valuation north of A$1 billion (about $653.7 million USD). Judo Bank offers relationship-focused lending tailored to small and medium-sized enterprises, positioning itself against larger banks’ one-size-fits-all approach. The company has recently launched a deposit business to complement its lending activities. It secured wholesale debt lines from Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs to bolster its funding capacity. Judo completed a second-round equity raise of $400 million, which will support its mission to transform SME lending in Australia. Management says the financing plus debt lines adds substantial depth to the bank’s ability to fund SMEs and grow its business.

Mission

Mindset Health builds app-based digital hypnotherapy programs that combine world-class health specialists and clinical research with a proprietary scalable technology platform to deliver evidence-based audio therapies. Its platform currently powers three apps addressing medically-diagnosed irritable bowel syndrome, menopause, and smoking cessation. The company reports top user markets as the US (38%), Australia (19%), and the UK (15%). With US$12 million raised in an oversubscribed Series A, Mindset plans to broaden channels-to-market and scale distribution to meet increasing global demand. It intends to launch new apps for conditions including anxiety and depression, sleep, and chronic pain, and to enhance personalization and features in existing programs. Mindset will continue clinical and real-world research with partners such as Baylor University and Monash University to strengthen evidence of health and economic outcomes. The company is also recruiting across software engineering and healthcare sales to support growth. Mindset Health builds evidence-based, hypnosis-based therapeutic mobile apps for self-management of physical and mental health conditions. Its flagship app, Nerva, delivers a gut-directed hypnotherapy program for IBS and helps more than 10,000 people a month. The company reports that 89% of people who finished the initial program said they had an improved ability to manage their symptoms. Mindset partners with health researchers and clinicians and plans to expand its platform to deliver new programs targeting menopause, depression, and chronic pain. The Y Combinator-backed startup will use its recent seed raise to scale to 100,000 users a month, grow its team from 12 to 40, and run several randomized controlled trials. Founders Chris and Alex Naoumidis aim to automate hypnosis-based approaches to offer scalable, consistent, lower-cost alternatives to in-person therapy. Mindset Health builds hypnotherapy-driven apps positioned as self-management tools rather than therapy, with a general Mindset toolkit and condition-specific products such as Nerva for irritable bowel syndrome. The company was founded by brothers Chris and Alex Naoumidis, who turned to hypnotherapy after earlier startup work and developed the apps based on those experiences. Mindset’s products were designed with clinicians — the initial app with Dr. Michael Japko and the IBS program with Dr. Simone Peters — who receive revenue share for helping develop the course content. Pricing varies by product: Nerva has a $99 upfront payment plus an $88 three-month subscription, while the Mindset subscription was priced at $11 (down from $64). The company reports that among program completers, 90% self-report reduced symptoms. Mindset plans to expand under a multi-app umbrella, delivering researcher-developed programs digitally to make them more accessible.

Mission

Kapiche is an Australian startup that provides an AI-powered text analytics software platform. Its platform analyzes large volumes of text from customer and employee survey responses and product reviews, extracting insights from NPS, eNPS and CSAT feedback. Customers include American Express, Nissan, Toyota, Schindler and a Silicon Valley social networking app. In March 2019 the company raised $1.75M in funding led by Main Sequence Ventures, with participation from Transition Level Investments, the Queensland Government's Business Development Fund and River City Labs Accelerator Fund. Kapiche intends to use the proceeds to accelerate its global expansion. Co-founded by Kris Rogers and CEO Ryan Stuart, the company will deploy the capital to scale its platform and grow its customer base.

Mission

GreenSync is an Australian energy technology company developing deX, an open‑access middleware platform to register and make distributed energy resources visible and usable by the grid. deX is technology‑agnostic and lets home and commercial assets — solar PV, batteries, smart air conditioners and hot water systems — bid into markets for services such as frequency management, wholesale energy and reducing network constraints. The platform aims to provide visibility and control of DER services to meet distribution network operational requirements, unlock consumer value and support the grid’s transition to predominantly renewable generation. deX has delivered its first production release and now has nearly 100 organisations and utility partners across 20 countries. It is being used in South Australia by Simply Energy and SAPN in a virtual power plant trial funded by ARENA. ARENA has committed $10 million in funding to GreenSync to accelerate deployment and scale deX for national rollout, with the company highlighting export opportunities for the technology. The platform rollout is expected to total $32 million; deX was initially created during an ARENA A‑Lab collaboration in 2016 and piloted with $450,000 of ARENA funding in the ACT and Victoria. GreenSync develops a proprietary software platform that uses smart control to optimize energy resource use across electricity grids, reducing the need for over-investment in infrastructure. Its platform is deployed by transmission and distribution companies, large industrial and commercial facilities, and residential and remote precincts. Led by founder and CEO Dr. Phil Blythe, the company focuses on energy-market optimization and grid orchestration. The Series B proceeds will be used to further develop its energy-tech product suite for the Australian market. GreenSync also plans to expand its technology offerings to new shores using the fresh capital.

Mission

PERKii makes low‑calorie, non‑fermented water and juice drinks that contain 1 billion CFUs of Lactobacillus casei 431® per bottle, with each drink at 37 calories. Its ProGel® microgel encapsulation, developed from University of Queensland research, protects probiotics on shelf and through the acidic stomach environment to improve gut delivery. The PERKii range launched in mid‑2016 and is sold in over 2,000 stores across Australia and New Zealand, including Coles, Woolworths, Caltex, Zambreros and Countdown, and the company appointed Manassen Foods Australia as national distributor. The product line includes multiple natural fruit flavours and seasonal editions. PERKii plans to use recent funding to establish production in the US and pursue expansion into a combined ANZ, US and Asia market it values at US$21.8 billion. The company was initially supported by Uniseed, Brisbane Angels and UniQuest during early commercialisation. PERKii produces a low‑calorie (26 calories) water‑based beverage that delivers 1 billion live Lactobacillus casei 431 per bottle using the patented ProGel® microgel technology to protect probiotics in drinks and the acidic stomach. The ProGel® microgels were developed at the University of Queensland and are designed to improve probiotic stability and consumer health benefits. The company positions the drink to help consumers control weight, improve gut health and boost immunity. PERKii has attracted national attention and was invited to participate in Woolworths’ Wstart program; Woolworths will stock PERKii at Caltex Woolworths convenience sites nationally from April. The product is already with existing stockists and the company is focused on scaling sales and distribution. PERKii is led by CEO Randy Milne, who joined in September 2015 after ten years of beverage experience at Coca‑Cola Amatil.

Mission

Founded in 2021 as a joint initiative of the Bionics Institute and the University of Melbourne and based at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne, Neo-Bionica was developed to fill a gap in medical device prototype manufacturing capability. The company offers end-to-end medical device prototype development, clinical trials, and initial low-volume manufacturing support, specialising in engineering, bioelectronics and neurotechnology. It focuses on designing and developing implantable and wearable medical devices and provides advanced commercialisation and manufacturing services to medtech innovators. Neo-Bionica currently operates two workshops and two independent cleanrooms for microfabrication, assembly and testing. The $5 million investment from Breakthrough Victoria will be used to expand manufacturing capability, facilities and market presence and is predicted to generate up to 45 new jobs. CEO Ludovic Labat said the funding will accelerate the company’s domestic and global expansion plans.

Mission

Illuvium is an NFT game developer focused on blockchain and NFT titles. Its main product is Gods Unchained, an NFT collectible card game. The company develops and operates blockchain/NFT games. Illuvium announced completion of a $12 million Series A financing. Participating investors named in the report include King River Capital, Arrington, and Animoca. The article does not provide revenue, user, or other operating metrics. Illuvium is developing an NFT-based strategic autobattler that rewards players by allowing them to explore, capture and trade collectible creatures called Illuvials. The game is being built in Unreal Engine 4 and is planned for Windows and Mac release at the end of Q3 2021. Illuvium is built on Ethereum and integrates a Layer 2 solution, Immutable X, to enable zero gas fees for minting and exchanges and sub-second transaction times. The platform’s economics center on in-game fees and Illuvial sales on the IlluviDEX exchange, with DeFi staking that converts in-game profits into synthetic Illuvium ($sILV) distributed to staked ILV holders. The team plans to create a DAO to give the community ownership and aims to support multiple titles within the same explorable world and open the world to other developers. The company was founded last year by brothers Kieran and Aaron Warwick and counts 37 core contributors to its DAO.

Mission

Sapia.ai is a Melbourne, Australia-based provider of an AI solution delivering diversity and inclusion in hiring. Founded by CEO Barb Hyman, the company offers a platform to help companies engage talent at scale. Its core technology centers on a blind, untimed and asynchronous chat interview designed to transform the speed and quality of hire while removing bias from the hiring process. The company raised $17M in a Series A round and plans to use the funds to continue overseas expansion. Management intends to make the product available in multiple languages as part of that expansion. PredictiveHire is a Melbourne-based recruitment automation company that automates candidate screening with an AI interview bot called Phai. Phai asks five text-message questions and can indicate whether a candidate is right for a job immediately, with the company saying the bot ""interviews"" a candidate every 30 seconds. PredictiveHire has conducted more than 1.2 million candidate interviews and built a dataset of 500,000-plus million words to analyze the contextual meaning of written interview responses. The startup counts customers including Qantas, AfterPay, Telefonica, and Woolworths. In March 2022 the company raised $7.0M in a pre-Series A round. PredictiveHire operates in 47 countries and will use the funds to ramp up global plans with a big focus on the US market.

Mission

CipherStash develops searchable data-encryption technology that keeps data encrypted-in-use rather than only at-rest, using advanced queryable encryption so access controls remain applied during queries. Its products log every data access and show who, what, where, and when sensitive data is accessed, including when it leaves core systems. The solution integrates with existing databases, data lakes, and data warehouses via a drop-in driver replacement, and an SDK supports more complex use cases. Led by founder and CEO Dan Draper, the company focuses on encryption-in-use for security and governance. CipherStash plans to use newly raised funds to expand its digital defense offerings against increasingly complex cybercriminal tactics and to provide protection against data breaches and identity theft. The article notes the company is based in Sydney, Australia. CipherStash provides an end-to-end searchable encrypted data storage platform that keeps data encrypted (including field names and queries) while remaining searchable and fast, with performance similar to traditional databases. The platform encrypts every query, insert and update before data is sent across the network to preserve utility and meet compliance requirements. The company was founded by Dan Draper (former Expert360 engineering VP), Lindsay Holmwood and James Sadler; Dan Draper serves as CEO and is a cryptography engineer. CipherStash’s searchable encryption scheme aims to allow developer teams to protect data without sacrificing usability or performance. The startup says its approach enables high levels of protection for sensitive data while avoiding the trade-off that leaves many organizations unencrypted. It raised funding to support growth and expand into the US market.

Mission

Wide Open Agriculture (WOA) produces regenerative farming‑aligned plant‑based foods and markets oat milk under Dirty Clean Food and OatUp. The company currently imports oats from Italy but plans to switch to domestically regeneratively farmed oats via a specialist factory in Western Australia. WOA raised $20 million through share purchases from institutional and individual investors to fund construction of a new oat‑milk manufacturing facility and to expand a secondary site for lupin protein development. The firm is developing a lupin protein pilot factory and has pre‑purchased equipment to potentially enrich its oat milk, with commercial release dependent on R&D and sampling. WOA is pursuing expanded distribution in Australia and Southeast Asia, citing new deals with Woolworths (stocking oat milk in half of its Australian outlets, an agreement estimated at $750,000 per year) and Grow Hub (at least $500,000 in the first year for Singapore). The company frames the move as aligned with its regenerative purpose and a response to growing consumer demand for low‑carbon, animal‑free dairy alternatives.

Mission

Kaddy is a B2B booze marketplace that centralises ordering, invoicing and payments for bottle shops, bars, pubs and liquor suppliers. The platform aims to eliminate paper invoices and simplify onboarding for independent and craft producers, giving trade customers easier access to boutique products. The company was founded last year by Mike Abbott (former head of operations at Uber ANZ) and Rich Coombes (co-founder of Batlow Cider, Capital Brewing and Will & Co Coffee). After an $800,000 seed round in June last year and a September launch, Kaddy grew to about 50 suppliers and 100 trade partners. Revenues have been close to doubling month-on-month even through the COVID-19 crisis, and the team resisted a direct-to-consumer pivot to stay focused on their core B2B vision. The founders plan to use the new capital to accelerate growth as hospitality reopens and demand for streamlined B2B sales and localised products increases.

Mission

Hometime is an Airbnb property manager operating a technology platform for holiday rentals. Over the last five years the company has scaled its team and matured its technology platform while securing backers including AS1 Growth Partners, NAB Ventures, Asia Principal Capital and OneVentures. The company completed a recent AU$10m growth round with support from its existing investors and welcomed Fifth Estate Asset Management to the cap table. Craig Burton was also appointed to the Hometime board. Hometime is kicking off a debt raise to complement the equity round. The fundraising is intended to accelerate professionalising the holiday rental industry, grow the brand across ANZ, and enter new markets by acquiring local operators. Hometime operates a property-management platform that handles end-to-end Airbnb hosting services, positioning hosts’ properties on ‘autopilot’ while respecting owner preferences. Launched in 2016 by Dave Thompson and William Crock and based in Sydney, its services cover Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Byron Bay, Sunshine Coast, Adelaide and Auckland. The company grew 450% in 2018 and is described as the pre-eminent provider of professional host services in the Australasian market and the first Airbnb professional co-host in Australia. Hometime says it is generating substantial revenue and will use new capital to drive domestic and international market expansion and further develop its host platform. The funding is intended to extend runway and prepare the business for a larger Series A round in early 2020. Hometime manages short-term property rentals and handles listings on platforms such as Airbnb. Since launching in June last year, the company has serviced over 500 properties and welcomed more than 15,000 guests across Sydney and Melbourne, with monthly user growth described as “by double digits.” The company closed a $1.5M seed funding round to consolidate its position in the short-term rental market. Founders Dave Thompson and Will Crock continue to lead the business. Hometime plans to use the capital to drive further growth in Sydney and Melbourne, open new markets using defined plug-and-play processes, and enhance its technology stack with an owner dashboard to provide hosts transparency on earnings, occupancy and guest reviews.