Last Week in Australian Startups #84, 9th September 2024
I’ve been out of action most of the weekend with a sinus infection unfortunately, so I haven’t had the time to go as deep into some of the interesting news pieces this week. I think I’ll still get to them over the next month or so as there’s some interesting angles to breakdown.
It’s also a few times now that TWIAS has gone out on a Monday - personally it’s been good to have more time over the weekend to get through everything and more time to write out some considered opinions, and balancing everything with work and family commitments.
Keen to hear from you though, what day you prefer? I’ve had a few people now mention to me that they read it on a Monday as it’s good read for the start of the week along with not wanting to be in ‘work’ mode on a weekend.
Keen to hear what you think below
It has been a busy week in tech in Australia with several notable headlines;
AirTrunk gets acquired for $24B by Blackstone
A huge exit that’s been talked about for some time now.
It’s being reported that Robin Khuda, founder of AirTrunk, will walk away with $500M in cash and retain a stake in AirTrunk of a similar value. That would work roughly to mean after 10 years of building Robin’s equity at exit was around ~5%.
As a person of colour it’s amazing to see these success stories come through - Robin arrived from Bangladesh to Australia 26 years ago to attend university. A very common story for most expats, my dad also came to Australia in the 70’s to study and more than 50 years later is still here. Interesting to note given the current the Government is looking to cut the number of student visas over apparent concerns of ‘migration and housing prices’. Will shortsighted policies like this mean we’re going to lose the next 10-20 Robin Khuda’s? I also highly doubt we’ll see any impact to housing prices by cutting student visas. More thoughts here by several CEOs in Australian tech on the dangers it could add to uncertainty for local tech and startups.
A good write up by Mrinaal Datt on why this deal is a big win for the the South Asian Australian community here.
Other interesting facts about the deal;
Biggest deal for 2024 YTD
5th ever largest deal in Australia
Biggest data centre deal globally
This is Blackstone’s largest deal in APAC
AirTrunk was founded less than a decade ago
Robin’s now got his eyes set on making AirTrunk into a $100B company
Read Robin Khuda’s announcement here.
Uber and Turo announce a multi-year partnership
When the closure of Uber Car Share 2 was shared 2 weeks ago - I wrote about how in a post ZIRP environment sticking to your main quest is more important than ever, however shiny certain side quests can be.
This week saw the convergence of two main quests. Tim Rossanis, VP & MD for Turo Australia, announced on LinkedIn the partnership between Uber and Turo which will enable Uber customers to rent a car from Turo’s marketplace directly within the Uber app.
It’s a great move for Uber, who has an existing customer base which they can continue to monetise without having to invest anything in operations and customer support.
More here by the AFR.
Harrison.ai launches it’s own foundational AI model
They become the second Australian startup, after Leonardo.AI, to launch their own foundational model choosing to name it Harrison.rad.1 as reported by Capital Brief.
Alongside this, they’ve shared they are in the process of raising their Series C to launch into the US market. Good timing to drum up interest from VCs and I’d imagine even a lot of corporate investment arms of big medical and pharma.
More here by InnovationAus.
Top News
Investor Adir Shiffman must pay Sleeping Duck co-founders' legal costs, court orders (Capital Brief)
Australia proposes mandatory guardrails for AI (InnovationAus)
Deputy, Fortiro, Hysata, Startmate & Goterra win at the Startup Daily Best in Tech Awards (Startup Daily)
Husic defends govt’s track record on AI investment (InnovationAus)
MP Ed Husic discusses federal government’s bid to make AI safer (The Age)
Upworth releases its free AI-powered budgeting and cash flow management tool leveraging Open Banking (Australian FinTech)
WA commits $30M to entice VC funds (InnovationAus)
'We'll need more money': PsiQuantum wants even more cash to build Brisbane computer (Capital Brief)
Screen Australia announced a $2M funding boost for local game developers (InnovationAus)
NextDC opens $100M Adelaide data centre (The Australian)
Rocket motor developer Black Sky rebrands, Go1's Vu Tran joins as co-founder (BNA)
Albanese declined meeting with Meta's Nick Clegg over media code deals, emails show (Capital Brief)
CSL using AI to tackle cancer (The Australian)
GoCardless completes acquisition of Nuapay (Australian FinTech)
The Indigenous Australian Datathon is on the hunt for startups and entrepreneurs to help solve real-world challenges in Traditional Owner communities (Startup Daily)
Canva triples prices citing the need to pay for new AI design tools (AFR)
Is Canva pricing out small businesses with its Teams subscription hike? (SmartCompany)
CSIRO teams up with Murdoch Uni for $8M Bioplastics Innovation Hub developing compostable plastics (Startup Daily)
Geelong’s Axcess Consulting acquired by Aryza Group, four years after failed ASX listing bid (BNA)
MTPConnect kicks off $28.5M health tech accelerator targeting heart disease and diabetes (Startup Daily)
News Corp’s REA Group weighs big M&A bet (AFR)
Nine accused Google, Meta of scraping its content for AI models (Capital Brief)
NSW startups to expand into South-East Asia with new government-backed program (SmartCompany)
SenSen AI takes its platform to solve “urban canyoning” to Montreal with $17.7M contract win (SmartCompany)
Grumpy about Accel-KKR’s bid, LiveHire investor courts rival bidders (AFR)
Funding Rounds
Safe Ag Systems, a safety and workflow app that improves productivity while working with agriculture equipment, chemicals and water handlin , has raised $2.5M from the AgFood Fund (SmartCompany)
Modra Technology, which develops technology for use in the global carpet manufacturing industry, has raised $15M from the Australian Business Growth Fund (SmartCompany)
Change Financial, a fintech which provides payments solutions to banks and fintechs, has raised $4.25M through the placement of new shares on the ASX (Australian FinTech)
Envirosuite, an environmental intelligence platform for aviation, waste, wastewater, water treatment, mining and industrial, has raised $10M from Hitachi Construction Machinery (BNA)
AICRAFT, which offers tailored artificial intelligence (AI) models and embedded systems for multi-sensor and multi-modality computing at the edge, and Safety from Space, who build resilient satellite based emergency communications systems, have each received a $100K grant from the South Australian Space Collaboration and Innovation Fund (Startup Daily)
Business Kitz, a platform for Australian business and legal documents, has raised a $3.3M Pre-Seed round from The Rural Bridge (ACCESSWIRE)
Heatseeker AI, which uses AI to help companies speed up the process of market testing and product validation, has raised $200K from the Female Founders Co-Investment Fund from Advance Queensland (Advance Queensland)
Airtasker, the online services marketplace, has raised $14.4M in equity-for-media deals with iHeart Media and TelevisaUnivision in US (BNA)