🇦🇺 This Week in Australian Startups #169, 12th July 2026
$20.5m raised across 4 rounds, WiseTech founder Richard White steps down as chairman, Firmus Technologies close to closing a $2.9b equity raise, Australia ranks first for Claude usage per capita
News
M&A, IPOs & Exits
Boston-based digital safety app Aura prepares to list on the ASX via backdoor merger with Qoria, completing a deal that valued the combined group at $3b when announced in February - Qoria stock has since halved (Capital Brief)
EQT, the Swedish private equity firm, has acquired Orikan, a Melbourne-based smart parking software provider, from Five V Capital for $475m in cash - at least a threefold return for Five V’s investors (AFR)
Brandon Capital and super fund backers Hostplus, HESTA and Aware Super pocket over $300m as Novartis agrees to pay over $2b ($US1.1b upfront cash) for London biotech Myricx’s cancer therapy pipeline (AFR)
Open Point, an Australian community engagement platform, has acquired Converlens, an AI-powered public-sector analytics firm, for undisclosed consideration (Startup Researcher)
Stakk, the ASX-listed fintech, has acquired ParaScript, a Colorado-based AI document-fraud detection firm, for $91m in a mixed cash-and-stock deal ($25m cash, $19m Stakk shares, $19m deferred) (BNA)
Capital Markets
Identitii, an ASX-listed maker of the BNDRY anti-money laundering compliance platform, signs a $20m convertible note facility with Blackstone Mercantile (BNA)
NextDC expands senior debt facilities by $500m to $2.3b, taking total available debt to $8.7b, to fund its Western Sydney S4 data centre and other capex (ARN)
WiseTech founder Richard White steps down as chairman, replaced by Raelene Murphy, as AFP and ASIC investigate his conduct; stock jumps 8.9%, adding $1.2b in value (The Age)
Partnerships & Deals
Anthropic seeks 1.4GW of Australian data centre capacity in a tender worth up to $21.6b ($US15b); Infratil’s CDC tipped for the largest share at 500MW (AFR)
Port Kembla green hydrogen startup Hysata signs its first export customer for a large-scale electrolyser, with delivery expected in H1 2027 (Startup Daily)
Product Launches, Milestones and Expansion
Bound, a Sydney company making resealable closures for food packaging, wins a 2026 Red Dot Design Award for Looplock, a polymer band that airtight-seals opened packaging and resets in hot water for reuse (SmartCompany)
Sydney dronemaker Carbonix secures Australia’s first SAIL III certification, unlocking beyond-visual-line-of-sight flights across Queensland’s Surat Basin for gas infrastructure inspection (BNA)
CipherStash launches a searchable-encryption integration for Supabase, letting the 10m-developer platform run encrypted database queries with under 10ms overhead (LinkedIn)
Sydney quantum startup Diraq proves its silicon qubit chip design can scale four times larger with no performance loss, per new Nature Communications research (InnovationAus)
Kindling, a go-to-market platform pairing software with a dedicated strategist to help B2B founders build trust with target customers, opens its public beta with 10 spots for post-PMF companies in the US and Australia (LinkedIn)
Stripe quietly trials its Treasury banking product with Australian startup founders ahead of a wider launch to rival Airwallex and Wise (Capital Brief)
Xero launches Ultra, a new ERP-tier plan powered by its Claude-based JAX AI agent, aimed at keeping growing businesses from migrating to Oracle or SAP (SmartCompany)
Venture Capital & Other Funding
Canberra’s Electro Optic Systems wins a $5.7m government contract under ASCA’s Mission Syracuse to develop its R400 Slinger counter-drone weapon system (InnovationAus)
AI compute firm Firmus Technologies calls a 31 July shareholder vote on a proposed $2.9b ($US2b) equity raise that would lift its valuation to $15.5b ahead of a delayed ASX IPO (AFR)
Gilmour Space targets at least $290m ($US200m) in a pre-IPO raise led by Citi, capitalising on investor appetite from SpaceX’s $3 trillion listing ahead of its own US float (AFR)
Nvidia agrees to take about $721m ($US500m) of preference shares in Firmus’s proposed $2.9b equity raise, as the neocloud preps a 50-for-1 share split ahead of its ASX float (AFR)
Data centre generator-enclosure maker Parratech, now above $300m in annual revenue, hires Luminis Partners to find a private capital backer for its US expansion (AFR)
Atlassian Ventures makes a strategic investment in Rocketlane, an agentic professional-services platform that raised a $60m Series C led by Insight Partners this year (Rocketlane)
Canberra biotech Samsara Eco launches a $100m Series B to extract rare earth metals from batteries and magnets using its enzyme-recycling AI platform (Forbes)
Sydney’s SCX.ai, led by ex-Bigtincan CEO David Keane, seeks to raise $40m for an ASX debut valuing the AI infrastructure business at $75m (AFR)
Government, Policy & Regulation
Labor drafts policy to make AI labelling of music, art and cultural works legally mandatory - with new protections for Indigenous artworks - ahead of this month’s national conference (AFR)
Anthropic and OpenAI’s proposal to fund creatives in exchange for a copyright exemption is rejected by News Corp and the Copyright Agency, deepening the AI training law stalemate (AFR)
WA government backs its space sector with $6.5m over four years for AROSE and Curtin University’s Binar Space Program - about a third of South Australia’s rival $20m manufacturing investment (Startup News)
17 industry groups including AusBiotech urge Treasurer Chalmers to consult on RDTI changes that would limit refundable tax offsets to companies under 10 years old (SmartCompany)
Former Chief Scientist Cathy Foley calls for permanent, secure funding of Australia’s $5.5b NCRIS research infrastructure network as it marks 20 years (InnovationAus)
NSW data centre inquiry exposes rift between sovereign-infrastructure advocates like Sydney’s Emergence Quantum and water/energy justice groups over unchecked sector growth (ARN)
Ecosystem & Hubs
Adelaide University’s Venture Catalyst Space accelerator names 8-startup 2026 cohort, with women founders leading nearly half the group (Startup Daily)
Design studio Edition reopens its $15k Female Founder Grant for AU/NZ women founders, with applications closing 27th July (Startup Daily)
People Moves & Spotlights
Marianna O’Gorman becomes first woman to chair the Australian Renewable Energy Agency in its 14-year history (InnovationAus)
Global payments startup Hello Clever hires ex-Bolt executive Justin Grooms, who helped scale Bolt from 5m to 85m users, as president to lead its North American expansion (LinkedIn)
Reports & Data
Australia ranks first globally for Claude usage per capita - six times its population share - per Anthropic’s latest Economic Index (SmartCompany)
Other News & Updates
Airwallex hires cybersecurity firm Coalfire and law firm Sullivan & Cromwell to rebut US claims of Chinese Communist Party ties, as founder Jack Zhang says he’s not worried by Senator Tom Cotton’s criticism (AFR)
Melbourne biotech Cynata Therapeutics lays off all six staff, including CEO Kilian Kelly, after its stem cell therapy trial fails to beat placebo (InnovationAus)
Insect-farming waste startup Goterra enters liquidation after 22 parties passed on a sale or recapitalisation, leaving $11.2m owed to creditors (SmartCompany)
Funding Rounds
Wildfire Energy, a cleantech process that converts household waste into sustainable jet fuel for airlines to cut aviation emissions, has raised $2m from Qantas, Airbus and Climate Tech Partners (Startup Daily | The Australian)
LendUs, a mortgage fintech platform that embeds white-label home-loan broking into partner apps for brands to offer fast lender matches, has raised $5m in a Seed round from Carthona Capital and Angel Investors (AFR | BNA)
Gridcog, a clean energy software platform that models grid flexibility for utilities and planners to optimise dispatch and investment decisions, has raised $12,5m in a Series A round from ABB Electrification Ventures, AXPO Ventures, DNV Venture and VERBUND X Ventures (DNV | SmartCompany)
Just Meat Protein, a food-tech ingredient maker that converts chicken into powdered protein for sports and specialised nutrition to boost protein in products, has raised $1.05m in a Seed round from Inghams Group (Food & Beverage)