This Week in Australian Startups #82, 25th August 2024

The tech consolidation continues with M&A across the board - this week it’s Sitemate that has acquired Nomad Fleet.

As with most initiatives in the post ZIRP era, it’s profitability driving these types of decisions. But consolidation isn’t just limited to M&A, it’s also internal within a company. This week Uber announced it’s shutting down it’s car sharing division which all started with the $105M acquisition of Car Next Door at the start of 2022.

Later that year we saw Turo enter Australia.

Every startup has its main quest, and along the way there’ll be plenty of side quests too. For Uber a car sharing marketplace was always a side quest, whereas for Turo it’s their main quest. Adding to this is the context Uber is now profitable every dollar needs to align with the new financial model and expectations of the public market.

I think we’ll continue to see more of this, whilst many may not be as full force as shutting down acquisitions or entire teams (although we have seen this already this year) and could simply be turning specific products into maintenance mode.

Some further reading on the topic;

• Uber scraps $105m Aussie car-sharing division (AFR)

• The $105 million Uber Carshare dream, inspired by Australian startup Car Next Door, is over (Startup Daily)

• Uber targets car rentals after Carshare failure (AFR)

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Top News

• Jessy Wu has left AfterWork Ventures to start her own strategic communications agency - Encour (Encour)

• Australia’s first state gov-funded satellite, Kanyini, launched via SpaceX (Forbes)

• Go1 cofounder Andrew Barnes exits CEO role after 10 years, handing reins to Chris Eigeland as IPO plans emerge (Startup Daily)

• Independent auditors expressed “substantial doubt” about the financial viability of World View prior to Breakthrough Victoria $37M investment (AFR)

• Nuix swings to profit as new AI data platform boosts earnings (Capital Brief)

• Canva leak sparks Blackbird’s own Wagatha Christie (AFR)

• Crowdfunding platform Equitise seeks survival funding after ‘diabolical’ 18 months (AFR)

• SafetyCulture has spent $1.5M on a documentary series, that takes the Netflix Drive to Survive approach to World Rally Championship driving (AFR)

• Appen shares have surged more than 200% since July from $0.43 up to $1.40 (Capital Brief)

• Investible appoints Charlie Ill as new CEO (Capital Brief)

• Hipages has achieved profitability, with a $3.6M profit in FY24 - up from a $5.1M loss in FY23 (BNA)

• Megaport shares are down 18.3%, making it the worst performing stock across the ASX 200 (Capital Brief)

• Realestate.com.au has partnered with Roomvo to let users digitally renovate properties (The Australian)

• Square, Afterpay relocate to Tech Central (The Australian)

• WA casts its own VC net to build startup scene (InnovationAus)

• Amazon has chosen Sydney as the first Australian city to launch same-day deliveries, as it invests an extra $1.6B in its local network (The Australian)

• Now profitable, Advanced Navigation is hunting for acquisition opportunities (Capital Brief)

• SunCable gains federal approval to establish Australia’s largest solar farm in NT (BNA)

• Super funds, once vital to local VC growth, now face disincentives as tough regulations discourage investing in riskier ventures with higher potential returns (Capital Brief)

• WiseTech is now doing $1B in revenue, up 28% from last FY (Capital Brief)

• Diraq says its on track to deliver a useful quantum computer within four years and a fault tolerant computer ahead of bigger rivals after achieving two-qubit gate accuracy in CMOS to above 99% (InnovationAus | Diraq)

• DigiDirect owner Shant Kradjian buys Booktopia from administration (SmartCompany)

• Sitemate acquires Nomad Fleet for $2M (Capital Brief | Will Smith)

• Hometime co-founder, Dave Thompson has decided to step down after 10 years (Dave Thompson)

• Cut Through Venture State of Venture Debt - 1H 2024 (YouTube)

Funding Rounds

• Shift, a credit and payments fintech, has raised a $35M Series D round from Peak XV Partners (AFR)

• Seedlab Australia, the food and drink startup incubator, has received a $7M investment from Woolworths (Startup Daily)

• LoveHeart, an early childhood education startup, has raised a $2.3M Seed round from OIF Ventures and Skalata (SmartCompany)

• Moneycatcha, a fintech that delivers open banking solutions to mortgage brokers, has raised a $1.5M Seed round (Australian Fintech)

• Metakosmos, a spacesuit startup which is developing the “Kosmosuit” for life in space, has raised a $2M pre-Seed round led by Alzadhar Al-Sanai (Startup Daily)

• WhyHive, a data analytics startup aiming to be ‘Canva for data’, has raised a $600K pre-Seed round led by Skalata Ventures and Culture Amp’s Jon Williams, Linktree’s Alex Zaccaria and Up Bank’s Dom Pym (AFR)

• Compass Education, a platform for school management, has raised an undisclosed amount from EQT (PR Newswire)

• Digital Classifieds Group, an APAC focused real estate and classifieds aggregator, has raised an undisclosed amount from Living Lab Ventures (Deal Street Asia)