This Week in Australian Startups #71, 11th June 2024

A late edition, two days later than normal due to the long weekend. It was a busy one here in the Qureshi house - it was nice to fully disconnect, and having lots of family over is always a great catalyst to do just that.

With that said, no deep dive this week.

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Top News

• The Victorian government is doubling the size of its early-stage agtech fund to $2 million. (Startup Daily)

• Airwallex for Startups offers new $10k business grant for ‘next generation of unicorns’ (Startup Daily)

• Queensland backs impact VC Pollination’s $150M fund for climate solution startups (Startup Daily)

• Queensland backs local VC Sprint Ventures, lures Blues fund Tidal Ventures north (Startup Daily | BNA)

• PsiQuantum deal under microscope: Senate estimates raise more concerns (SmartCompany)

• Funding provider Tractor Ventures unveils all-women C-suite to help “open door” for women leaders (SmartCompany)

• Reejig now has 50 AI workers and is saving $1.5 million a month (SmartCompany | Siobhan Savage CEO of Reejig)

• Booktopia to slash 50 staff as co-founder Tony Nash resumes top role (SmartCompany)

• Aggregator Software Combined makes eighth buyout, scoops up NZ’s Dbvisit (ARN)

• The Green Light Accelerator, a algae biotech accelerator, has opened applications (BNA)

• Swyftx co-founder Alex Harper steps aside as CEO with Jason Titman taking over (BNA)

• SEEK sells growing South American operations for $127.7m to reduce debt (BNA)

• Fintech Block Earner scores major victory for crypto industry against ASIC (BNA)

• Xero launches $1.27b convertibles deal; $380m delta block trade (AFR)

• Paul Giles, one of Iress’s divisional CEOs, has left as it fields interest from both potential bidders and cyber hackers (AFR)

• Medibank faces maximum $21.5 trillion fine in new cyber hack case (AFR)

• Providoor scraps hot food to concentrate on frozen meals (AFR)

• Hostplus, HESTA, biotech giant CSL and the Queensland Investment Corporation have poured $270 million into a new fund for VC Brandon Capital, which it plans to keep raising until it hits a $350M target (AFR)

• The 2024 Finnies winners have been announced (Australian FinTech)

• Plenti selected to receive up to $60M in finance from Clean Energy Finance Corporation (Australian FinTech)

• Till Payments partners with BigCommerce (Australian FinTech)

• The Australian Sports Technologies Network’s (ASTN) has received funding from the Queensland Investment Corporation (InnovationAus)

• Harrison.ai’s Annalise.ai has won a major contract where it will be used across six NHS networks that perform 35% of X-rays in England (Capital Brief)

• Atlassian has invested an undisclosed amount in Figma’s secondary stock sale valuing it at US$12.5B (Capital Brief)

• Build Club rebrands and launches 2.0 - a place where the top builders around the world gather, announced the launch of their hackathon in 9 cities across the world (Annie Liao)

• Tech Ready Women Academy has been acquired by Scalare Partners (Christie Whitehill)

Funding Rounds

• Psylo, a biotech which makes psychedelic-inspired medicine to treat mental illness, has raised a $12.1M (US $8M) Seed round led by Tenmile (Startup Daily)

• Ofload, Australia’s leading digital road freight service, has raised a $31M Series C (SmartCompany | The Australian | Forbes)

• Subble, a subscriptions management startup for companies, has raised a $1M Pre-Seed (Startup Daily | ARN)

• YBL.AI, an AI Copilot for the financial adviser market, has raised a $2.5M pre-Seed round (Startup Daily)

• GPN Vaccines, a startup developing a vaccine against one of the world’s most prolific bacterial pathogens, has raised $18.17M (US $12M) led by New York-based Forepont Capital (AFR | BNA)

• Cannaponics, a medicinal cannabis company, $1.9M via an equity crowdfunding campaign (Birchal)

• Iondrive, a battery technology commercialisation group , has raised $2M (BNA)

• Genetic Signatures, a molecular diagnostics biotech, has raised $30M on the ASX (AFR)

• BCAL Diagnostics, a breast cancer biotech, has raised $10.5M in an oversubscribed round (AFR)