This Week in Australian Startups - 8th March, 2023
This Week in Australian Startups - 8th March, 2023
It's International Women's Day 2023, and I want to start today's edition of This Week in Australian Startups with a story.
It was 2014 and I had been in Sydney for a few months trying to build my network, I was attending 5-7 networking events per week in that first year. One conversation has still stuck with me almost 10 years later. It was at a meetup in Darling Harbour, startups showcased what they were building, and developers were explaining all the cool things you could do with Ruby on Rails.
The next speaker came up and talked about how we can all do more to get more women to consider careers as software engineers and what companies can do to create a better environment.
One man raised his hand as the Q&A started. He went on to explain why hiring women is bad for business, why when they will inevitably have a baby he is having to pay them to not work, and why hiring a man is better.
Whilst majority disagreed with his views and many went on to explain why he was wrong in everything that he said, the unfortunate reality is that these views exist, and even sadder is that these views still exist today in 2023. If you don’t believe me, you can read the comments when PM Anthony Albanese announced a bill to require companies with more than 100 staff need to report their pay gap publicly.
The sexism does not stop there, like most of you who are reading this we all have first hand accounts of women we know being bullied out jobs, treated differently simply because of their gender, replacing them while they are on maternity leave, being paid less to do the same job, needing to extra work to get the same recognition or promotion as their male colleagues and the list goes on.
It’s been a year now since I’ve come back to Australia after 5 years in the UK, and the majority of what I still see everywhere is white and male. The hard reality we need to accept is there is still a large portion of society who have and truly believe in these outdated views.
In my professional experience, I can hand on heart say the best leaders and managers I have worked for have been women. So much so that when it was time to come back home, and I had the opportunity to work for an inspirational female leader I had worked with previously, I knew it was an opportunity I should pursue.
Today I want to shout out some of those leaders - Jo Schneider, Sascha Gray, Christa Diaz, Amy Pisano, Sarah Calveley. Thank you for your leadership, mentorship, support and guidance - I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for the way each of you have individually positively impacted my career and continue to do so.
If there’s been any women who have had a positive impact in your career, make sure to recognise them today of all days in the comments here - I want to read all the positive stories out there!!!
In this week's newsletter I've also included some links worth checking out this #iwd2023
Before you jump to the rest of the newsletter, here’s some links worth checking out this International Women’s Day
This bot will reply to any company using #IWD2023 with their gender pay gap, Twitter link
Meet the woman who invented a whole new subsection of tech set to be worth $1 trillion, more here
After Facing Health Challenges, This Nigerian Femtech Founder Raised $1.3M To Scientifically Design Performancewear for Women, more here
"Despite the media buzz, 'Femtech' is still struggling to find equality", more here
These 3 advancements in femtech will lead to better care and treatment for women’s health, more here
Why are underrepresented founders still not getting venture capital funding? More here
How taking risks helped these female tech leaders reach the top, more here
Period care startup Woom offers a subscription service for workplaces, more here
LaunchVic has $300,000 grants for organisations to run female-focused pre-accelerator programs, more here
The number of women coders in Australia is going backwards: Why this is a problem, more here
Brunch with Sujata Bhatia: The woman helping Monzo grow up, more here
Top News
Atlassian cuts 5% of its workforce, more here and here
JPMorgan Chase requires tech workers give 6 months notice before quitting, more here
OpenAI announces an API for ChatGPT and its Whisper speech-to-text tech, more here
OpenAI Is Now Everything It Promised Not to Be: Corporate, Closed-Source, and For-Profit. More here
Amazon’s RTO backlash, Google’s desk-sharing: Big companies clash with employees over the future of work, more here
Apple doubles its $1 billion investment in German R&D, more here
Top 10 AI Tools to Check Out If You're Bored With ChatGPT, list here
Network 10 is reviving its MAFS for startups show, Shark Tank Australia, more here
Push to give Biden new powers to ban TikTok moves ahead in Congress, more here
Amazon is letting employees use their stock to finance home purchases and even second homes, more here
Linktree builds out its C-suite with former Snap, Headspace and Netflix execs, more here
How a single engineer brought down Twitter, more here
Meta planning thousands of more cuts after widespread layoffs, report says, more here
How NSW is building the nation’s digital spine, more here
This Ex-Googler’s Scathing Takedown of the Company Is Basically a Blueprint for How to Kill Innovation, more here
ADHD startups are exploding, and now there even a dedicated browser, more here
Thoughtworks lays off around 500 employees amid ongoing slowdown, more here
Qualtrics has $12B offer on the table to go private, more here
Australian Funding Rounds
Curtin University picks 9 startups for its new accelerator program, more here
Canva’s Cameron Adams backs Tasmanian carbon accounting startup Sumday in $2 million Seed round, more here and here
Off-grid cabin startup Unyoked raises $28 million to expand in Europe, more here
International Highlights
Attio raises $23.5M to build a next-gen CRM platform, more here
Typeface emerges from stealth with $65M to bring generative AI to the enterprise, more here
8VC raises $880M in new fund that aims ‘to fix a broken world’, more here
Open banking startup Abound nabs $601M to supercharge its AI-based consumer lending platform, more here
Wise and Monzo founders back legal generative AI startup Robin AI’s $10.5m Series A, more here