This Week in Australian Startups - Issue #27, 5th July 2023

Jul 04, 2023

In a world first deal, Telstra is set to sell broadband and voice services to rural Australia using Starlink.

Starlink has been available in Australia since 2021 and recently demand for its services in regional Australia has outpaced NBN’s equivalent Sky Muster.

As with all NBN services, Sky Muster, is resold through telco’s and ISPs - Starlink is sold direct, in competition with all teclos, ISPs and the NBN.

It’s been a competition that Starlink has been making progress in with the take up of Sky Muster down about 17,000 users from its peak.

The announcement by Telstra outlines the particulars, but notably the main reason for consumers and businesses to buy through Telstra rather than direct - local tech support and the option of professional installation.

This is a really astute piece of business where I think the timing has been critical, with Starlink gaining more traction across Australia, Telstra would also be set to lose market share in rural Australia.

This is a competition NBN is very well aware of, and questioned about in the Senate in May. They’re taking a different approach, and not trying to compete on satellite infrastructure (one that they will never be able to compete with Starlink/SpaceX on).

The NBN plans to move majority of its rural customer base onto faster fixed wireless networks and continue to roll out the Fibre to the Premises upgrades. Fast fibre in the ground will be superior to satellite connectivity which is closer to fast ADSL/Cable speeds, but in a country and large as Australia will take significant time and money.

Starlink on the other hand is a very different proposition, and not an internet infrastructure provider like the NBN. It’s all downstream from SpaceX and how they have been able to make re-usable rockets. They’ve deployed lower orbit satellites which offer better latency trading off with lower coverage. The way to solve that is to deploy more satellites and SpaceX’s re-usable rockets makes this economically viable.

Communications has been a huge market for the Space economy in the private sector, and Starlink is downstream from SpaceX’s efforts in this space utilising all spare capacity.

On the whole, I’m very interested to see how the next few years pan out in Australia - where even going to your local supermarket often is a mobile black spot. This is good for competition and the open market to drive greater efficiencies in Australian internet.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Starlink will stop selling in rural Australia as part of a deal with Telstra, or make it cheaper to purchase through Telstra. Whilst Starlink has higher monthly fees than the NBN (for a superior service), it does not lock customers in and they can cancel anytime. Their plans also allow for regional roaming, and even global roaming. Meaning going from one side of Australia to the other (or even the world), you could your Starlink with you and be connected to the internet. This is different to any standard plan that Telstra would offer with a minimum 12 month lock in, although now with Starlink they too could offer roaming plans.

Australian Funding Rounds

ANU physicists raise $10 million in a Series A for their quantum sensor startup, Nomad Atomics (Startup Daily | AFR)
Mortgage retention and refinance platform fintech Sherlok raises $3.4 million (Startup Daily | Rampersand Investment Notes)
AUCloud completes $8.5M capital raise (ARN)
Booktopia shares plunge to all-time low amidst $8.1m capital raise (Business News Australia)
VentureCrowd raises $3.5m for Southeast Asia JV (Business News Australia)
Advanced Navigation technology Moon-bound with $5.2M grant by the Australian Space Agency (Business News Australia)
Proptech Inspace, which lets building be viewed remotely in 3D, raises $6M (AFR)
Sensand, the world’s first all-in-one digital agriculture ecosystem, linking the latest smart farming and land management technologies with a transparent carbon credit trading platform, has raised $6M from high-profile businessman Robert Costa (Geelong Advertiser)
Readiitel has raised $2M in funding for its new Web3-enabled internet service, Readii, which allows customers to earn crypto (Mobile Magazine)
Pet Circle retains unicorn status after $75M funding boost from Prysm Capital (Business News Australia)
Bassat, Thorpe-backed skincare brand, Stuff, raises $1.4M and looking to raise more to hit target of $3.5M (AFR)
Synbiote, a biotech startup harnessing the power of microbiology to combat climate change, wins $150,000 grant from the 776 Foundation managed by Reddit co-founder (UNSW Founders)

International Funding Highlights

SuperScale raises $5.4M to grow games revenue SaaS platform (VentureBeat)
Workflow automation startup Parabola raises $24M (TechCrunch)
Inflection AI sets off fireworks with $1.3B funding, highlighting surging interest in LLMs (VentureBeat)
Xero cofounder’s hospitality B2B marketplace, Upstock hits Australia after $5.5M raise (Startup Daily)
Zinc secures a £5M Series A to revolutionise background checks (Zinc)

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This Week in Australian Startups

This Week in Australian Startups - Issue #27, 5th July 2023

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Australian Funding Rounds

International Funding Highlights

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