🇦🇺 This Week in Australian Startups #110, 23rd March 2025
A quick reminder there will be no update next week as it marks end of Ramadan and the begin of Eid festivities where I’ll be spending time with family and friends.
On another note, you may have seen that Abhishek Maran, VC at Rampersand and Author of Superfluid, published his very first book - The Fundraising Blueprint.
I was fortunate enough to be invited to a small roundtable dinner with other members of the Australian startup community to get an early preview of the book and discuss some of the key themes he wrote about.
There’s more discourse than ever about how startups should be running their fundraising process - many unfortunately are from professional influencers or thought leaders who don’t have real deep experience in either fundraising or investing. Add to that what we know to be true, minority founders have it much tougher and get less capital than their counterparts.
In his book Abhishek has, as the title explains, laid out the entire fundraising blueprint. It’s a well written and detailed step by step guide of the process from the point of view of an investor but for founders - not just covering how investors think, but practical worksheets and templates covering topics from how to run an effective outreach process, through to managing term sheets and more.
Whether you’re a founder, operator or even an investor - this is a must read if you want to understand exactly how investors think and how the fundraising process works, which is crucial no matter your role is within the startup ecosystem.
You can purchase the book on Gumroad (ebook) or Amazon (paperback), and if you aren’t already make sure to subscribe to Abhishek’s newsletter Superfluid.
Top News
Crypto regulation finally coming to Australia with exchanges facing bank-like rules (SmartCompany)
Employment Hero challenges ad ban in payday super bill (SmartCompany)
Govt plots review of FinTech sandbox as crypto plan unveiled (InnovationAus)
Melbourne-based Shopfront wins eBay Australia’s $100,000 Circular Fashion Fund (SmartCompany)
“Only getting started”: After $24 billion sale, AirTrunk marks 10 years in business with social impact program (SmartCompany)
Australia’s sole silicon manufacturer Simcoa has received a ~$40m grant from the federal government (InnovationAus)
Big Tech urges Trump to target Australian media laws (Capital Brief)
Employment Hero facing new claims over tactics in Rippling fight (Capital Brief)
After 43 years, local tech pioneer NetComm heads for the scrapheap (AFR)
Airtasker backer Mercurius Media Capital launches Australian arm to help startups expand into the US (BNA)
Amazon argues Australia’s new digital competition rules would stifle innovation (Capital Brief)
Australia’s Swyftx acquires New Zealand’s largest crypto exchange, Easy Crypto (AFR)
Why so many Australian startups are sponsoring F1 teams (SmartCompany)
How to fix Australia’s tech ‘quiet collapse’ and become a smart economy (The Australian)
King River Capital is building a $157 million sixth VC fund to back AI (Startup Daily)
Spenda completes the sale of its invoice finance portfolio to Grapple (Australian FinTech)
The big question in the appeal of Uber’s tax case is how drivers get paid (Capital Brief)
Westpac doubles down on women entrepreneurs with $1 billion fund (SmartCompany)
archTIS acquires US-based Direktiv’s assets in US$750K deal (ARN)
Crypto gaming unicorn Immutable bounces back after earnings fall (AFR)
FinTech Australia’s pre-budget submission warns of ‘two-speed’ ecosystem hurting new startups without R&D tax incentive reform (Startup Daily)
Tyro Payments could be facing competition in its $220m takeover proposal for Smartpay (BNA)
What does venture capital think of the year ahead? (AFR)
Reskilling women into tech is a $6.5 billion opportunity for Australia (SmartCompany)
Cortical Labs has released its first product - the "first commercialised biological computer" made of human brain cells (Capital Brief)
Synchron, an Australian-founded competitor to Elon Musk's Neuralink, is building a foundational AI model trained on brain signals (Capital Brief)
Big four banks accelerate push into 'agentic' AI (Capital Brief)
Brisbane SaaS firm Tanda invests in ASX-listed HR tech company Xref, appoints co-founder to board (BNA)
Review backs govt VC fund for intelligence agencies (InnovationAus)
Funding Rounds
BetterX, a digital currency exchange which provides infrastructure for tokenisation, trading and portfolio management, has raised $2.3m in a Pre-Series A round from Angel Investors, Grand Prix Capital and Aument Capital (BNA | Startup Daily)
Reask, who has made a natural hazard model leveraging AI and data science for the insurance and finance sector, has raised $6.3m from InsuResilience Investment Fund (Life Insurance International)
Knocknoc, a data security and authentication gateway platform designed to protect network applications from network force attacks, has raised and Undisclosed amount in a Seed round from Decibel Partners, CoAct and SomethingReal (Next Big Future)
BetterFleet, who makes AI-powered software which enables organisations to efficiently transition, optimise, and manage zero-emission vehicle fleets and EV charging infrastructure, has raised $23.7m in a Series A round from Aligned Climate Capital, Ecosystem Integrity Fund and Remarkable Ventures Climate (SmartCompany | Capital Brief | BNA)
Arkeus, which makes autonomous optical systems that integrate advanced optics, AI, and edge processing to enhance decision-making in defence and security operations, has raised $5m from Main Sequence, Salus Ventures and Beaten Zone Venture Partners (Capital Brief | Startup Daily | SmartCompany)