This Week in Australian Startups #78, 28th July 2024

This Week in Australian Startups #78, 28th July 2024

My highlights for this week;

  • me&u founder Stevan Premutico has decided to step down from the board to take a sabbatical before coming back with startup #3 (Stevan Premutico )

Always exciting when a seasoned founder is announcing they’re going to go again. These are strong signals of a maturing ecosystem, and that this knowledge and experience is being retained in Australia.

  • Square Peg is raising for a sixth fund, as well as a new “Opportunities Fund 3”, seeking a combined $840M (Startup Daily )

VCs are continuing to raise new funds, will be interesting to see if any investment thesis change/evolve and if there’s any focus on increasing DEI at the founder level. Certainly with more capital from exits/secondaries there’s opportunity for the LP pool to be more diverse which is what is more likely to make real impact from a DEI lens.

  • Melissa Widner, CEO of Lighter Capital, shares her insights into the the current landscape of female VC’s in Australia (LinkedIn )

Out of 169 partners in Australian VCs, only 17% are female yet 43% of all non-partner investment professionals are female.

Certainly a lack of diversity of at the top, but the pipeline is looking healthy - as Melissa puts it in her article “Will this lead to greater gender equity at the partner level.. in five years, will women make up at least 43% of VC Partners?

  • UQVentures introduces Ventures Hustle, an entrepreneurship challenge spearheaded by Luke Anear, founder of SafetyCulture, where students will have the chance to build and launch real businesses (UQVentures )

This is awesome.

Universities, in particular the Group of 8 in Australia, can be very research and theory heavy. It’s great to see a more embedded approach to industry led curriculum, especially when it’s legitimate entrepreneurs like Luke.


Top News

  • 4 space projects at UniSA have received $18M as part of the $230m iLAuNCH program (Startup Daily )
  • The NSW government has launched the NSW Space+ Program with up to $500K in grants for space tech (Startup Daily )
  • Gilmour Space Technologies will kick off a new flight test service in Australia next year for commercial and defence customers with speeds above Mach 5 (Startup Daily | BNA )
  • me&u founder Stevan Premutico has decided to step down from the board to take a sabbatical before coming back with startup #3 (Stevan Premutico )
  • Square Peg is raising for a sixth fund, as well as a new “Opportunities Fund 3”, seeking a combined $840M (Startup Daily )
  • Birchal cuts staff as part of 30% expense reduction (SmartCompany )
  • Blossom has reached $75M in funds under management, targeting $100M by the end of 2024 (Startup Daily )
  • JET Charge rolls out Australia's largest EV dealer charging network with Toyota (BNA )
  • Medtech EMVision unveils first responder device, which would allow paramedics to scan and send images to experts from the site of a suspected stroke (BNA )
  • Birchal has released its latest crowd-sourced funding (CSF) report which estimated the combined market cap of all successful CSF is $5.8B (BNA )
  • Australian VC funding up 12% to $1.8B according to KMPG’s VC Pulse Report (The Australian )
  • Synchron is incorporating ChatGPT into human brains to help those with paralysis communicate with others more freely (The Australian )
  • Up, the digital bank, is on track to hit 1 million customers in October (Capital Brief )
  • Melissa Widner, CEO of Lighter Capital, shares her insights into the the current landscape of female VC’s in Australia (LinkedIn )
  • Square Peg Investor Letter Half Year Report 30 June 2024 (Square Peg )
  • AFR Analysis on Square Peg’s returns (AFR )
  • Asseti wins Most Innovative PropTech of the year at the Proptech Association Australia Awards (Asseti )
  • Scott Belsky, Chief Strategy Officer of Adobe, will join the Atlassian Board of Directors from 1st August (Mike Cannon-Brookes )
  • UQVentures introduces Ventures Hustle, an entrepreneurship challenge spearheaded by Luke Anear, founder of SafetyCulture, where students will have the chance to build and launch real businesses (UQVentures )
  • Stables, the stablecoin payments startup, has announced its expansion to Europe in partnership with Mastercard (Cointelegraph )

Funding Rounds

  • Fundabl, the fintech which offers debt funding to startups, has raised $3.2M (Startup Daily | BNA | Capital Brief )
  • Cuttable, a first-of-its-kind automated digital advertising agency, has raised a $5.5M Seed round led by Square Peg with participation from Rampersand (SmartCompany | AFR | Jake White )
  • Order Editing, a Shopify app which lets customers make changes to their orders without emailing support, has raised an undisclosed amount from its customers in its first funding round (Hamish McKay )
  • PREVE, a pre-product startup looking to improve patient clinical outcomes, quality of life and healthspan through automation and AI, has raised a $550K pre-Seed round (Adam Beaupeurt )

Ethan Singer

Co-Founder at Mighty Partners

3 个月

Really appreciate the shout-out Haris! ??

回复
Adrienne Uthe

Strategic Communications Advisor & Fractional CCO | Empowering Companies + HNWIs + Execs: Driving Awareness, Expansion, and Impact | Aspiring Intelligence Group Operator??D.C. / SLC

3 个月

Intriguing updates. Significant milestones highlight the thriving startup ecosystem's resilience.

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Stevan Premutico

Restaurant Tech Entrepreneur I me&u founder I dimmi founder

3 个月

Appreciated Haris Qureshi :)

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Adam Beaupeurt GAICD

Making physical therapy affordable and accessible to millions

3 个月

Thanks for the love, Haris!

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