This Week in Australian Startups #33, 19th August 2023
This Week in Australian Startups #33, 19th August 2023
No deep dive this week as it’s a (late) weekend edition, but they’ll be back next week as normal.
Have a great weekend everyone!
Top News
Australia
CUREator+ a new $50M incubator program by Brandon BioCatalyst and ANDHealth, backed by the federal government’s Medical Research Future Fund is providing startups in the medtech and biotech space access to up to $5M in non-dilutive funding (Startup Daily)
ASX-listed VC Bailador Technologies results reveal a mixed bag for investors (Startup Daily)
Food delivery giant DoorDash served up $2m fine for more than 1 million spam messages (Startup Daily)
Husic calls for ideas to tackle STEM’s lack of diversity (The Australian)
Applications are now open the the 2024 AgriFutures evokeAG Future Young Leaders Program (evokeAG)
AirTree says more failures will occur within its portfolio, following the collapse of high-profile start-ups Milkrun and :Different, but says deal flow is ramping back up (The Australian)
5 Indigenous uni students land NASA internships as part of part of the inaugural cohort of Monash University’s National Indigenous Space Academy (Startup Daily)
Cyber attacks wipe $76m from Latitude results (BNA)
How a former premier runs biggest – but least known – a $2B VC fund, Breakhrough Victoria (AFR)
OZEDI and Zepto partner to deliver Australia’s first instant super fund payments (StartUp ScaleUp)
Meet Australia’s female VC leaders – changing the world of funding (Forbes)
Rokt whips into IPO shape as discrimination claim persists (AFR)
Apple fights back against attempts to regulate Apple Pay, Wallet in Australia (AppleInsider)
Culture Amp is deploying Google’s Vertex AI capabilities to save HR professionals hundreds of hours normally spent analysing employee feedback (The Australian)
Online trading platform Stake says it is now the nation’s third-largest investment platform with more than $2.5B in assets under management, and has poached former Blackrock APAC MD Jon Howie as its new CCO (The Australian)
Around the World
Amazon imposes new fees on sellers who ship their own products to customers (ABC)
Intel abandons chipmaking acquisition after failing to secure Chinese approval (The Verge)
Inside Canada’s fight with Facebook (POLITICO)
X, formerly Twitter, lowers requirements for its ad-revenue sharing program...with a catch (TechCrunch)
Google required to remove ads that violate trademarks, Indian court rules (TechCrunch)
WeWork may be struggling, but the co-working sector is on the upswing (Axios)
PayPal announces senior Intuit exec Alex Chriss as new CEO (TechCrunch)
The New York Times says you can’t use its content to train AI models (The Verge)
Apple and Samsung line up to invest in Arm (The Verge)
Google opens eSignature beta for Google Docs and Google Drive (TechCrunch)
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta reportedly rehires ‘dozens’ after slashing 21,000 jobs (New York Post)
Mastercard to purchase a minority stake in MTN’s $5.2B fintech business (TechCrunch)
For Meta, the big AI play is shoring up its ad business (Axios)
Wedbush says Apple definitely plans to acquire ESPN (BGR)
The New York Times Is Apparently Considering a Lawsuit Against OpenAI (Futurism)
UK launches £1bn fintech fund backed by Mastercard and Barclays (UKTN)
Australian Funding Rounds
Hysata, a green hydrogen startup that has designed a new kind of electrolyser that is 20% more efficient than existing hydrogen production technology, has received $23.9M in grants from the QLD and Federal governments (Startup Daily)
Marqo, an AI powered vector search engine, has raised an $8.1M seed round led by Blackbird (Startup Daily)
Curiious, a VR startup helping companies embrace 3D worlds, has raised $1M led by Galileo Ventures (Startup Daily)
SafetyCulture, the workplace safety HR tech startup, has raised $34M on a $2.7B valuation and is now planning a $500M share sale (AFR)
Medigrowth, a medicinal cannabis biotech startup, has raised $3.4M through equity crowdfunding platform Birchal (SmartCompany)
Zena Sport, the sportech startup that makes the most advanced breast and rib impact protection vests for female athletes playing contact sports, has raised a $148K pre-seed investment from Breakthrough Victoria (BNA)
Pendula, the customer engagement startup, has raised $14.5M to fuel international expansion in the UK and Asia (AFR)
Silex Systems, a technology commercialisation company focused on the uranium enrichment, has received a $5.1M grant by the Defence Trailblazer program, a partnership between UNSW and the University of Adelaide, to supply companies with a sovereign supply of quantum silicon (InnovationAus)
StockSpot, Australia’s largest digital investment advisory, has raised $28M by selling just over 50% to Korea’s Mirae Asset Global investment (AFR)
International Funding Highlights
AI startup Anthropic gets $100M to build custom LLM for telecom industry (VentureBeat)
Monetizr raises $4M to replace intrusive game ads with engaging brand experiences (VentureBeat)
Lindus Health lands £14m Series A for clinical trial software (UKTN)
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