This Week in Australian Startups #34, 27th August 2023
It’s been a slower week in funding with only 4 raises totalling $38.6M raised this past week in Australian startups.
Notable is that Ignition, the all-in-one platform for professional services that empowers businesses to get paid faster, and run smarter raised $23.4M through a venture debt facility.
Investopedia states that venture debt financing is a type of loan extended to startups or fast-growing companies that can provide more flexibility than other types of debt.
We’ve seen plenty of funding rounds this year so far, and it’s not uncommon that any post Series B round in this climate has led to a down round, further dilution of equity and generally on less favourable terms than startups have previously raised.
It’s no surprise that Ignition who is founded by Guy Pearson a former accountant has completed a very astute piece of business in the current macroeconomic climate by avoiding to raise venture capital.
Looking abroad the most interesting raise is certainly Hugging Face’s $235M which included investment from Google, Amazon, Nvidia and Salesforce. The AI race continues to gain pace. The Series D round now values the Open-source AI model repository at $4.5B.
In May I wrote the leaked document from a Google researcher making the argument that open source models are faster, more customisable, more private and more capable. Hugging Face CTO Julien Chaumond also shared the below graphic highlighting that it’s inevitable open source models will over take closed source models.
I’m not sure if we are there yet, but we are certainly getting closer with over 500,000 different AI models now hosted on its platform.
Top News
Australia
Collapsed non-alc brand Sans Drinks sold to Just Wines (BNA)
Victorian startups are going gangbusters – and that’s a big win for the local economy (Startup Daily)
Companies filling tech jobs offshore amid skills shortage (The Australian)
RedBalloon founder Naomi Simson joins Weebit Nano’s all-blokes board (Startup Daily)
LaunchVic reveals $1 million Hugh Victor McKay fund for agtech startups (SmartCompany)
Acusensus beats IPO forecast as mobile phone detection contracts roll in (BNA)
Ruslan Kogan wants his ASX-listed retail business valued like a software company after $25 million loss (Startup Daily)
Biotech Opthea eyes $80M raise to back retinal disease therapy trials (BNA)
AO StartUps, the incubator program by Tennis Australia, which nurtures tech companies in sport, has chosen seven ideas for its mid-year intake (Startup Daily)
ASX-listed Wisr terminates CEO, with his brother taking leave as the fintech’s chair (Startup Daily)
Start-ups defend valuations as they raise millions from crowdfunding (AFR)
"There was no path to follow": Megaport founder bullish after rise from startup to ASX200 (BNA)
Raise when you don't need the money, says Fishburners CEO Martin Karafilis (BNA)
Economic downturn, high salaries widen gender pay gap and reduce diversified hiring, data finds (The Australian)
$14.6M Startup Year loan scheme now open to student entrepreneurs (SmartCompany)
Brisbane based Vaxxas, which makes needle free vaccine patches has received $5.4M from global charity Wellcome to conduct a trial of a typhoid vaccine (InnovationAus)
Tasmania’s Sea Forest to scale up production of methane-busting seaweed (SmartCompany)
Alex.Bank was wins FinTech Startup of the Year at the 8th Annual FinTech Awards 2023 (LinkedIn)
Compass, which makes Australia's most comprehensive school management platform, and Technology One, Australia’s largest home-grown ERP software provider, have won a deal for over 800 schools in WA worth around $190M over the next 15 years (InnovationAus)
Around the World
NVIDIA Announces Financial Results for Second Quarter Fiscal 2024 (NVIDIA)
The false promises of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (The Verge)
SpaceX working with Cloudflare to speed up Starlink service (Reuters)
Television Accounts for Less Than Half of U.S. Viewing Time for the First Time (WSJ)
Google and YouTube are trying to have it both ways with AI and copyright (The Verge)
Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel (TechCrunch)
Arm/SoftBank: even an army of underwriters cannot stand up $70bn valuation (FT)
Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt to launch AI-science moonshot (Semafor)
All hail the new EU law that lets social media users quiet quit the algorithm (TechCrunch)
Bain Capital Ventures launches an AI based “pitch” tool (BCV)
Leaked Zoom all-hands: CEO says employees must return to offices because they can't be as innovative or get to know each other on Zoom (Insider)
Instacart files for its IPO (Axios)
EU’s new rules for tech giants are about to kick in: All you need to know (Al Jazeera)
Zoom’s CEO thinks Zoom sucks for building trust, leaked audio reveals (Ars Technica)
Meta releases Code Llama, a new open-source LLM geared for programming (VentureBeat)
Australian Funding Rounds
HEO Robotics, a startup that creates satellite-to-satellite imagery and analytics to help space players protect critical assets in space, has raised a $12M Series A led by AirTree (BNA)
Laronix, who has pioneered a device that helps people speak again after they’ve had their larynx removed, has raised a $2M Seed round led by Scale Investors (AFR)
Haast, the startup which uses AI to analyse a company’s digital presence for compliance, has raised a $1.2M Pre-Seed round (The Australian)
Ignition, the all-in-one platform for professional services that empowers businesses to get paid faster, and run smarter, has secured a $23.4M venture debt facility from existing partner CIBC Innovation (LinkedIn)
International Funding Highlights
Blackbird backs New Zealand Airbnb hopeful, Kiki, with Big Apple dreams in a $4.5M seed round (AFR)
ClassWallet Closes $95 Million Funding Round to Continue Reshaping the Way State and Local Government Agencies Do Business (Business Wire)
Ramp announces $300 million in new funding to accelerate expansion, hiring, and product roadmap (Ramp)
Looking to tackle outdated HR functions, Pakistan’s Paismo announces raising $1.3mn in seed round (Business Recorder)
Zepto becomes India’s first 2023 unicorn with $200 million fresh funding (TechCrunch)
Google, Amazon, Nvidia, and others put $235 million into Hugging Face (The Verge)
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