🇦🇺 This Week in Australian Startups #116, 25th May 2025
Top News
Canva, Atlassian employees flock to unions amid AI job fears (AFR)
Massive Airwallex cash exposes VC herding (AFR)
Nuclear fusion energy startup HB11 Energy looks to the US as Australia sits out (SmartCompany)
Tech unicorn Immutable cuts staff as AI bots pick up jobs (AFR)
Employment Hero's Canadian culture shock (Capital Brief)
Advanced Navigation sets ‘defining standard for autonomy’ (InnovationAus)
Applications open for Techstars Sydney, as a champion takes charge (Startup Daily)
Synchron co-founder unveils new brain-computer interface venture Ultra Bionics (Capital Brief)
TechnologyOne on track for $1bn revenue (The Australian)
Canva co-founder Cameron Adams and his wife Lisa Miller have pledged to give away more than half of their $4.79bn fortune to help fund ‘urgent environmental issues (The Australian)
Rich Data Co becomes RDC.AI, marking a new era in business and commercial credit decisioning (Australian FinTech)
Victoria looks to AI ahead of public sector ‘right-sizing’ (InnovationAus)
Labor's unrealised capital gains tax in 'bizarre contradiction' with tax breaks for VC deals (Capital Brief)
UniSuper, one of Australia’s largest industry funds, has lifted its venture capital allocation to $100 million by increasing its stake in CSIRO-owned Uniseed (AFR)
Funding Rounds
Muval, a marketplace connecting people with removalists, has raised $1m from QIC, Uniquest and ACAC Innovation (BNA)
Liveheats, a live scoring, results, and event management software platform for action sports, has raised $1.3m in a Seed round from Angel Investors (SmartCompany | BNA)
Foremind, a workplace mental health platform that provides a proactive wellbeing and compliance system for businesses, has raised $1.5m from Skalata, Snow Foundation and Giant Leap (Startup Daily | Capital Brief)
Kite Magnetics, a CleanTech startup that has developed advanced materials that significantly enhances electric motors, making them 25% smaller, lighter, and more efficient, has raised $3.6m from SQM Lithium Ventures (Startup Daily)
Airwallex, a global payments and financial platform for businesses, has raised $465.2m ($300m USD) in a Series F round from Square Peg, DST Global, Lone Pine Capital, Blackbird, Airtree Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Visa Ventures, HostPlus and NGS Super (SmartCompany | Capital Brief | AFR)
Betr, a sports betting platform, has raised $15.6m (JustHorseRacing)
PREVE, who uses AI to create personalised treatment plans for physiotherapist patients engaged throughout their recovery, has raised $2.2m in a Seed round from Carthona Capital, Startmate, Archangel Ventures, Black Sheep Capital and Angel Investors (Capital Brief | Startup Daily | BNA)
Termina, an energy management platform that helps multi-site businesses reduce costs by automatically switching to the best available energy pricing, has raised $3m in a Pre-Series A round from EVP, Archangel Ventures and Skalata (SmartCompany)