🇦🇺 This Week in Australian Startups #156, 19th April 2026

$89.9m raised across 10 rounds in the last fortnight, SafetyCulture acquires Twine, Canva acquires Simtheory, Ortto & announces Canva AI 2.0, Droneshield and Swyftx get new CEOs, Zeller enters the UK

A longer wrap up than usual and later send this week - needing a bit of extra time to curate the last 2 weeks worth of news and funding rounds in Australia.

News

M&A, IPOs & Exits

• CleanPeak Energy buys Sustainable Energy Infrastructure for an undisclosed amount, adding 71MWac of solar and 42MW of battery storage to expand its national renewable energy platform. (BNA)

• Canva, the Australian design software giant, has acquired Simtheory, an Australian AI agent workflow platform, and Ortto, an Australian marketing automation software company, for undisclosed amounts, as it expands its AI capabilities ahead of a potential IPO (AFR)

• Bolt Group, the parent company of digital mortgage lender Tic:Toc and neobank Up Money, has acquired Beem, the consumer payments app owned by Australian Payments Plus, for an undisclosed amount (Australian FinTech)

• Cuscal, the ASX-listed payments infrastructure provider, has acquired Paymark, New Zealand’s payments switching network, for $27m in cash, and raised $30m to fund the deal. (BNA)

• AI data centre startup Firmus expects to secure a further $725m in capital as it readies to IPO on the ASX (Startup Daily)

• Humanforce, a workforce management software company, has acquired Emprevo, a private work marketplace for frontline shifts, and ShiftMatch, a contingent workforce and relief-management platform, in an undisclosed eight-figure deal (Capital Brief)

• Openmarkets Group, a trading and wealth management fintech, has acquired FXE Trading Academy, a member-based trading education and market research provider, for an undisclosed amount (Australian FinTech)

• SafetyCulture, the workplace operations software, has acquired Twine, an AI sales analytics start-up, for an undisclosed amount, and says it has submitted a term sheet for one other acquisition and entered final-stage talks on a third deal as it accelerates its AI product push (AFR)

• Sharon AI, AI infrastructure company, plans to dual-list on the ASX by June after its Nasdaq IPO, with chief executive James Manning pressing ahead despite market volatility (Capital Brief)

• Vinyl Group, an ASX-listed digital media and music company, has acquired Val Morgan Digital, the advertising sales business holding ANZ licences for BuzzFeed, Fandom, LADbible Group and Vox Media, for $10.5m in cash and stock. (BNA)

• Rampersand portfolio company Dexibit, a data analytics software provider for attractions, has been acquired by Accesso, a visitor experience technology company, for undisclosed amount (LinkedIn)

Capital Markets

• BlinkLab raises $17.5m to fund FDA autism diagnostic trial and ADHD expansion (BNA)

• HaemaLogiX, blood cancer immunotherapy biotech, is preparing a $20m–$25m ASX IPO with its prospectus expected next week (Capital Brief)

Partnership & Deals

• Lumonus inks joint venture with NY cancer centre to scale AI oncology (AFR)

Product Launches, Milestones and Expansion

• Canva debuts a new suite of agentic tools, as the design app quietly becomes one of the world’s most used AI services | Fortune (Fortune)

• SiteMinder launches AI hotel distribution tools to help hotels appear and be booked through ChatGPT- and Claude-style assistants (AFR)

• Springboards launches Flint, an AI model for creative and marketing teams that generates more varied campaign, content and strategy ideas than general-purpose chatbots (The Australian)

• Fintech unicorn Zeller launches its all-in-one payments solution in the UK (Startup Researcher)

• Atmo Biosciences, Victorian medtech company, is expanding production in Box Hill after US FDA clearance and Singapore approval for its ingestible gas-sensing capsule for gastrointestinal diagnostics (LinkedIn)

Venture Capital & Other Funding

• Atomic Tessellator raises $11.3m Seed with backing from Australian VCs Salus Ventures and Side Stage Ventures to develop rare-earth alternatives (AFR)

• Beaten Zone Venture Partners raises $2.6m in March on defence tech appetite (Capital Brief)

• Caruso, the New Zealand-born funds administration startup, has raised $9.3m in a round backed by Sydney-based Balmain, at an $80m valuation, as it relocates its headquarters to Sydney (AFR)

• CEFC, Australian Ethical launch $600m growth fund to back climate tech and digitalisation opportunities (AFR)

• PowerPlus Energy secures $2.3m ARENA grant to triple battery production capacity in Melbourne (BNA)

• Praetorian Aeronautics, an Adelaide-based AI drone defence startup with technology set for deployment in Ukraine, is seeking $30m+ in a Series A at a $100m+ valuation (AFR)

• CBA’s x15ventures backs Dom Pym’s Triple Bubble fintech fund, which has reached a $10m first close toward a $50m target to invest from seed to IPO (AFR)

• Uluu, seaweed-plastic alternative startup, has secured a $2.1m federal Industry Growth Program grant to scale production 10x and accelerate commercial trials in cosmetics packaging, fashion accessories and textiles (SmartCompany)

• Western Australian government allocates $2.5m through its Innovation Pathways Program to accelerators and investor education aimed at strengthening the state’s tech and VC pipeline (Startup News)

Ecosystem & Hubs

• LuminaX, Gold Coast healthtech accelerator backed by Economic Development Queensland, has announced its 2026 cohort of 10 Australian startups spanning medtech, biotech, healthcare payments and clinical AI (Lumina)

People Moves & Spotlights

• DroneShield has replaced its chair and chief executive, appointing Hamish McLennan as chairman after Oleg Vornik’s $50m share sale saga unsettled institutional investors (AFR)

• Swyftx appoints co-founder Alex Harper and former CFO Andrea Yuen as acting co-CEOs and cuts nearly 20% of staff as acquisition integration pressures and the crypto downturn bite (The Age)

Other News & Updates

• Canva AI 2.0: The Platform Bet Behind the Product (Shashi)

• Tom Humphrey, GP at Blackbird, on why the SaaSpocalypse gets it half right and why the most interesting companies have never fit neatly into a category (Blackbird)

• Australia captures just $10 to $15 of every $100 spent on hyperscale data centres, as imported chips, servers and cooling systems send most of the value offshore (The Age)

• Spoony, a social app for disabled and neurodivergent users, is shutting down after raising $1m as investor appetite swings to AI (SmartCompany)

Funding Rounds

6th to 12th April - $28.6m raised

• Rosella, an insurtech brokerage platform that uses AI to match commercial insurance to specialised SMEs and mid-market companies to cut costs, has raised $3.7m in a Pre-Seed round from Peak XV Partners and Intact Private Capital (Startup Daily | Forbes)

• Chime Labs, an AI receptionist that answers and qualifies business calls for tradies to automatically book jobs into their calendars , has raised $900k in a Pre-Seed round from 500 Global and Angel Investors (Startup Daily)

• Kimia, a chemical AI knowledge hub that turns fragmented product and regulatory data into instant technical answers for sales teams to speed deals, has raised $7m in a Seed round from Airtree Ventures, Blackbird Ventures and Skip Capital (Capital Brief)

• Haast, a RegTech that provides an AI-powered platform to automate marketing and content compliance, has raised $17m ($12m USD) in a Series A round from Peak XV Partners, Airtree Ventures, defy.vc, Aura Ventures, Black Sheep Capital and DST Global (AFR | The Australian | Startup Daily)

13th to 19th April - $61.3m raised

• DeteQt, a startup developing highly sensitive, portable, and scalable quantum magnetometers that integrate nitrogen-vacancy diamond technology with traditional silicon chip fabrication, has raised $5m in a Seed round from Main Sequence Ventures, ATP Fund, BOKA Capital, Beaten Zone Venture Partners, Uniseed, University of Sydney (Capital Brief | The Australian)

• Earthletica, a sustainable activewear brand that makes high-performance PFAS-free garments, has raised $1.13m in an Equity Crowdfunding round (SmartCompany)

• Clean Slate Clinic, a virtual detox platform that helps people withdraw safely from alcohol or other drugs at home with clinician supervision to stay safe, has raised $2.8m in a Pre-Series A round from Giant Leap and Scale Investors (Startup Daily)

• Phonely, a voice AI customer-service platform that handles inbound and outbound phone calls, has raised $22.4m in a Series A round from Base10 Partners, Y Combinator, TSA Group, Etech Global Services and Engage CX (AFR | Capital Brief | Startup Daily)

• Pay.com.au, a FinTech platform that lets businesses pay everyday expenses with linked bank accounts and credit cards to earn flexible rewards, has raised $20m (SmartCompany)

• DryFlow Magnetics, a mining technology that uses dry magnetic separation to process iron ore for miners and steelmakers to produce high-purity iron, has raised $10m in a Seed round from Virescent Ventures, Orion Industrial Ventures and Taronga Group (Virescent Ventures | The Australian)