This Week in Australian Startups #32, 11th August 2023 - The South Asian Australian Startup Founders List
The SAARI Collective released a list of 101 South Asian Australian Startup founders (list here) - as someone with a South Asian heritage whose parents came to this country in the 1970s it’s incredible to see how far our community has come.
The insights report states there is 1.3 million South Asians in Australia and it’s the fastest rising population of any minority group.
Some of the key findings that stood out for me;
78% of the founders on the list have raised a total of $1.12B of funding since 2013
Lack of media attention and lower representation in the Australian Startup ecosystem, especially for women
Majority of founders shared that they had not been interviewed or seen much representation in the Australian media - this was even worse for South Asian Australian women despite raising a combined $120M in investment.
Of the $10B of VC funds raised in 2021 in Australia, only 0.03% went to women of colour founders.
US ecosystem discriminates less and is more collaborative
Multiple founders shared similar sentiment that they saw greater traction in the US when it came to collaboration with other businesses and raising capital. There’s much more representation in the US ecosystem from founders, operators and investors - all the way to the top with both Google and Microsoft CEO’s being South Asian.
Top News
Australia
Blackbird offloads $150 million slice of its Canva stake at $39 billion valuation (Startup Daily)
Airtree founding partner Daniel Petre appointed to the $15bn National Reconstruction Fund board (Startup Daily)
Side Stage Ventures which was “founded by founders for founders” has moved into mainstream VC 15 months on, raising $15 million for its first fund (SmartCompany)
Driva has landed a multi-year partnership with Carsales.com to offer personalised finance options for privately sold vehicles (Startup Daily)
NSW government launches four pre-accelerators for startup diversity and social impact (SmartCompany)
Amazon starts construction on giant robotics warehouse in Melbourne (BNA)
EnergyLab reveals 10 startups for 2023 Climate Solutions Accelerator (BNA)
Castlepoint Systems buoyed by government take-up of its AI data-protection technology (BNA)
Hatch announces a partnership with The University of Sydney Business School to help students find paid internships with alumni (LinkedIn)
Femtek, the first menstrual health focused smart ring, announced it’s raising a seed round (LinkedIn)
Labor, unions move to protect workers who could lose jobs to AI (The Age)
ANZ, Westpac and CBA reduce VC arms, whilst NAB Ventures remains at status quo (AFR)
Healtech startup Telecare launched RxPad - a standalone electronic prescribing tool for doctors and nurse practitioners (LinkedIn)
EVP launches the Founders Corner an online program that connects up and coming founders with B2B SaaS specialists (EVP)
Cashrewards announces they have surpassed 2M members and $4B in sales for their partners (Cashrewards)
nVest wins the Sydney Pitch, takes home prize of $115,000 (SmartCompany) and launches its sandbox for fractional investing (StartUp ScaleUp)
Around the World
Pandemic-era unicorn Hopin sells events assets for £39m (UKTN)
Russia-backed hackers used Microsoft Teams to breach government agencies (TechCrunch)
Zoom says it isn’t training AI on calls without consent. But other data is fair game (AP)
The Unicorn Fire Sales Ahead (The Information)
Zoom orders workers back to the office (BBC)
WeWork goes from $47B valuation to ‘substantial doubts’ about its future (TechCrunch)
Stability AI has launches StableCode, a generative AI LLM for coding (Stability AI)
Amazon in talks to anchor Arm IPO (UKTN)
Google and Universal Music negotiate deal over AI ‘deepfakes’ (FT)
Google launches Project IDX, a new AI-enabled browser-based development environment (TechCrunch)
In win for Google, judge dismisses many claims in DOJ monopoly case (Ars Technica)
AWS unveils Build, a new accelerator program for early-stage startups from around the globe (VentureBeat)
Spotify introduces new product to help software development teams with A/B testing (TechCrunch)
Slack's latest redesign has a dedicated DM tab and a Discord-style Activity view |(Engadget)
Adobe's $20 billion purchase of Figma is being scrutinized by the EU (Engadget)
Alphabet dumps more than 90% of its stake in Robinhood (CNBC)
Australian Funding Rounds
Kivera, a Sydney founded cloud security startup now HQ’d in NYC, has raised $5.1M to focus on NAMER growth (Startup Daily)
Awayco, a unified commerce solution startup, has raised $11M led by Thorney Investment Group (Startup Daily)
Lifebid, the startup building a 100% digital life insurance platform, has raised $700K and is now launching a crowdfunding campaign with co-investor Stride Equity (Startup Daily)
HAL Systems, a startup that provides predictive self-learning climate control for commercial buildings, has raised $850K (SmartCompany)
Programa, a startup building a platform for interior designers, raises $7.5M led by EVP (The Australian)
One Model, the people analytics platform, lands $41M to bring data science-powered insights to HR (TechCrunch)
Upstream, the energy startup helping Australian businesses to produce their own affordable, reliable, and sustainable electricity, has raised $20M (AFR)
International Funding Highlights
Elon Musk's Neuralink Raises $280 Million to Develop Brain Implants (Bloomberg)
Haus, which helps companies measure marketing ROI, raises $17M (TechCrunch)
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