AI in the headlines again this week with two demo days, a quick summary of both below.
Build Club, Australia’s first AI accelerator had its first demo day on Monday where 15 startups pitched for the opportunity to head to San Francisco on all expenses paid trip where they get to live in a hacker house for 2 weeks - fully immersed in the tech scene of Silicon Valley.
Four winners so far, with one more people’s choice award to be announced
See a list of all the teams who pitched here.
Stone & Chalk also hosted an AI Sprint demo day, where 10 startups pitched showcasing how their technology can help transform the lives of everyday Australians.
Winners included;
Top News
Beam in Business acquires jobs for women networking startup Freelancing Gems (Startup Daily)
‘Airbnb for boats’ startup Floatspace acquired by billionaire Ian Malouf’s luxury yacht charter business Ahoy Club (Startup Daily)
Here’s what the NSW Budget offers for startups (Startup Daily)
NSW budget adds digital games to $35 million Made in NSW Fund, but details remain vague (SmartCompany)
Digital wayfinding app BindiMaps to help Guide Dogs Victoria build world’s first fully accessible sensory campus (SmartCompany)
Goterra, the robotic insect farm startup, has partnered with the City of Sydney to transform food scraps from Sydney households into animal feed and fertiliser (SmartCompany)
Deloitte Australia rolls out GenAI platform to 13,000 staff (ARN)
The ASX gets its first bitcoin ETF issued by investment management firm VanEck (BNA)
REA Group buys full stake in end-to-end property sales interface Realtair (BNA)
Camms, which makes risk, strategy, projects, people and business management software has been acquired by Riskonnect, an American risk and compliance technology company (AFR)
Documents signed by employees give Canva the right to invalidate share rights if employees breach strict rules that remain in force even after they leave the company (AFR)
The Government’s giant bet on US-based quantum computing firm PsiQuantum involved an equity investment of $189.5M with the rest of the $470M deal comprising debt (AFR)
Tech giants will be forced to tackle child sexual abuse and pro-terrorist material on their platforms under new mandatory standards to be imposed by the eSafety Commissioner (The Australian)
Zeller partners with Oracle to integrate with their POS Simphony giving them access to 60,000 Australian businesses (The Australian)
How Melbourne startup Phonely got into Y Combinator, and why it thinks voice is the next AI frontier (Capital Brief)
Solar finance startup Brighte locks in $195M via green debt facility (Capital Brief)
Leonardo.Ai is rolling out Australia's first major foundation model (Capital Brief)
'A very big deal': Sydney-based Diraq edges closer to 2028 quantum computing goal after key contract win (Capital Brief)
CBA, MRI Software partnership to automate rental payments (Capital Brief)
PitchBook releases its inaugural report on the Australian VC market (Download Report | Maxine Minter’s commentary)
The National Reconstruction Fund: a guide for Australian startups (Priyanka K)
Funding Rounds
Archistar, a development planning proptech, has raised $5M from NAB Ventures, Skip Capital, and PEXA chair Prabhat Sethi (Startup Daily | AFR)
Linkby, an adtech platform that helps publishers monetise product mentions, has raised a $4M Series A (Startup Daily | AFR | Chris Wirasinha)
Liquid Instruments, which has created technology that can measure gravitation waves for the development of reconfigurable, precision test and measurement instruments, has raised $15M from Breakthrough Victoria (SmartCompany | BNA)
Loopit, a startup that provides software for car-sharing platforms, has raised $3.95M in a pre-Seed funding round (AFR)
Andromeda, which makes a humanoid companion robot named Abi, has raised $3M Seed round led by Purpose Ventures (SmartCompany)
Naked Rivals, an FMCG startup that makes lemon and lime juice cubes sourced from "ugly" fruit , has raised $3M from one Angel Investor (BNA)
MGA Thermal, on a mission to remove 30 million tonnes of CO2 by 2030, has raised $2.48M from ARENA (SmartCompany)
TrueState, a startup that lets businesses build AI apps in days, has raised $1.5M from Airtree, Side Stage Ventures, Galileo Ventures and Imprint Capital Partners (SmartCompany | BNA | William Ashford)
Bearhug, a startup which builds the systems necessary for large FMCG companies to adopt reusable pallet wraps, have raised a $325K round (Tom Field)
Maxme, a startup which offers which offers human skill development programs, has raised $400K from the Alice Anderson Fund (SmartCompany)
Sindy.ai, a digital teaching assistant, has raised $300K as part of being accepted into the UC Berkeley SkyDeck accelerator (BNA)