An OpenAI agent got into a Medicare portal on 18th June, and we only found out on Thursday when Albanese revealed it from New York, partway through a week of pushing for international AI guardrails. OpenAI noticed in August and emailed a public inbox on 10th September. It then took another five days to reach the Australian Signals Directorate. No personal data was accessed and, as far as I can tell, nobody was required to report it. InnovationAus reports the AI laws are being brought forward to the end of the year, whilst the AI Safety Institute has less than $30m over four years and can only advise. There’s a lot more to this, from what it means for the copyright fight to the local startups quietly running on Chinese models, and I’ll try and go deeper in a longer standalone piece soon.
Outside the breach, Firmus will run their $7b IPO bookbuild on 6th and 7th October ahead of a 22nd October listing. That would make it the second largest float in Australian history after Telstra. Anthropic is in advanced talks to anchor AirTrunk’s planned data centre at Kurri Kurri in the Hunter, one of at least four Australian leases they’re working on. That’s the same week Victoria said new data centres will have to match their power use with new renewables and sit 150 metres from homes.
Airwallex is also back in a public fight over their China links. A second US congressman has flagged their Chinese entities, staff and investors as a potential national security risk. Investors in rival Ramp have piled in, and Keith Rabois warned Jack Zhang he’d be “pleading the Fifth soon”. It’s the second time in a year Airwallex has faced this in the US, but this time Zhang is hitting back with memes, long arguments on X and a formal rebuttal from a former US attorney. They’re also preparing for an IPO rumoured for 2027, and AUSTRAC ordered an independent audit of their compliance with money laundering rules earlier this year. What will be interesting to see is whether fighting it out this publicly helps or hurts them.
News
M&A, IPOs & Exits
Tangerpay, the Australian fintech that lets laundromat customers tap to pay for machines, has merged with British laundry software company CleanCloud in a deal valuing Tangerpay at more than $70m (AFR)
US private equity firm Thoma Bravo plans to relist Nearmap, the aerial imaging company it took private in 2022, on the ASX next year in a multibillion dollar float (AFR)
Scope Systems, an enterprise software and advisory firm focused on mining, has acquired AssetHive, Silverhorse Technologies’ platform for managing maintenance and compliance on mines and infrastructure, for undisclosed consideration (LinkedIn)
Genetic Signatures, the ASX-listed maker of hospital PCR tests, has agreed to acquire Microba, the ASX-listed gut microbiome testing company, in a merger paid entirely in shares, creating a $51m diagnostics group (BNA)
Innovaero, the maker of military drones including the OWL-B strike drone, has listed on the ASX after an oversubscribed $40m IPO, valuing it at about $158m (Startup Researcher)
NIQ, the US shopping data company formerly NielsenIQ, has launched a takeover bid, recommended by the target’s board, for The U Group, the Australian owner of receipt scanning app ReceiptJar, for undisclosed consideration (Startup Researcher)
Catch co-founders Gabby and Hezi Leibovich are set to sell their Luxury Escapes shares, about 12% of the travel booking platform, to Ellerston Capital in a secondary sale valuing it at $525m (AFR)
Elixinol Wellness, the ASX-listed hemp and wellness products company, has agreed to acquire Vitable, a personalised vitamin subscription platform, for up to $3.5m, mostly in shares (BNA)
Firmus will run its $7b IPO bookbuild on 6-7 October for a 22 October ASX listing; lead manager Morgan Stanley’s analysts value it at up to $128b (US$90b) including debt (AFR)
Ofload, the digital freight marketplace matching shippers with truck carriers, has acquired National Transport Solutions, a Queensland freight brokerage, for undisclosed consideration (BNA)
Stakk, the ASX-listed fraud detection software company, has acquired ParaScript, a US AI document fraud detection firm, for $88.7m (US$63m) in cash, shares and deferred payments, completing a deal announced in July (Australian FinTech)
Telix Pharmaceuticals, the ASX-listed biotech developing radioactive drugs that detect and treat cancer, has agreed to acquire ITM, a German supplier of medical radioisotopes, for up to $3.3b (US$2.35b), mostly in shares (BNA)
Partnerships & Deals
Anthropic is in advanced talks to lease AirTrunk’s planned data centre on the old Kurri Kurri aluminium smelter site in the Hunter, one of at least four Australian leases in the works (AFR)
Advanced Navigation has signed a $26m deal to supply Norway’s Kongsberg with hundreds of its Boreas navigation systems, which work when GPS is jammed, for counter-drone platforms Poland has ordered (Startup Daily)
Anthropic is giving Australian researchers and deep tech startups another $10m in Claude API credits, taking its local science commitment to $13m since April; Victor Chang and the University of Canberra join (Capital Brief)
Product Launches, Milestones and Expansion
DroneShield, the ASX-listed counter-drone maker, has opened a $13m research hub at Adelaide’s Lot Fourteen with South Australian government support - its first Australian office outside NSW (InnovationAus)
Airtasker co-founder Jonathan Lui has relaunched Soho, his property app where users swipe through listings, as SohoAI, a chatbot that answers questions like which suburbs have the highest rental yields (SmartCompany)
Venture Capital & Other Funding
Athletic Ventures, the VC backed by athletes including Sam Kerr and Pat Cummins, has joined the $351m (US$250m) raise by Fever, a ticketing platform founded in Spain, alongside EQT, Point72 and Baillie Gifford (AFR)
Carthona Capital, the Australian early stage VC, has joined US startup Hubble Network’s $285m (US$200m) raise at a $2.3b (US$1.6b) valuation; its satellites pick up signals from cheap Bluetooth chips anywhere (AFR)
CSIRO is quadrupling its backing for Atmosphere, Main Sequence’s pre-seed program that turns lab research into startups with cheques of about $500k, to $20m in the VC’s upcoming fourth fund (Capital Brief)
Significant Ventures, the VC run by the Hindmarsh family, launches its $50m fourth fund to back early stage hardware and robotics startups; the Snow family and CDC founder Greg Boorer are among backers (AFR)
Government, Policy & Regulation
Employment Hero has proposed a publicly seeded sovereign frontier AI lab, recruited through a global talent contest, with every Australian given an equal stake, in a submission to parliament’s AI committee (Capital Brief)
Victoria will make new data centres match their power use with new renewables, cool with non-drinking water and sit 150m from homes; the industry warns the setback could push projects interstate (Startup Daily)
NSW innovation minister Anoulack Chanthivong overruled an Investment NSW panel and hand-wrote ‘$0’ on a $40,000 grant for the Spark startup festival, FOI documents show (Startup Daily)
The government will now introduce its AI laws - binding data centre energy and water rules, and rules for labs training frontier models here - by year’s end, months earlier than planned (InnovationAus)
Anthropic has told parliament it accepts it won’t get a broad copyright exemption to train AI here, proposing a narrow conditional approval with opt-outs instead; the ABC and News Corp want stronger protections (AFR)
An OpenAI agent breached a Medicare statistics portal in June while researching medicine spending, the Prime Minister has revealed; OpenAI took almost three months to tell the government, emailing a public inbox (Capital Brief)
Ecosystem & Hubs
The University of Newcastle’s I2N accelerator has picked 12 startups for its 2026 cohort, including Envirocone’s recycled cardboard blast hole cones for mines and Mechanistic Health’s drug interaction checker (Startup Daily)
Seven startups have won $15.6m in CUREator+ dementia grants from the Medical Research Future Fund, including TasTest’s digital dementia risk check and CodeBreakers’ gene editing for childhood dementia (Startup Daily)
Reports & Data
Companies claimed $17b in R&D tax breaks in 2023-24 as growth slowed sharply, ATO data shows; seven now claim more than $100m each, with Afterpay joining the list (InnovationAus)
Other News & Updates
A second US congressman has called Airwallex’s Chinese entities, staff and investors a potential US security risk; Jack Zhang has hit back with a formal rebuttal from a former US attorney (Capital Brief)
Funding Rounds
Amber Electric, the energy retailer on a mission to shift Australia to 100% renewables, has raised $78.9m (€49m) in a Series E round from 1GT, ETF Partners, Innovation Victoria and E.ON (Capital Brief | Startup Daily)
HEO, a space platform that tasks satellites to image in-orbit objects for governments to secure sovereign metre imagery, has raised $37m (USD $25m) in a Series B round from Beaten Zone Venture Partners, AirTree Ventures, Salus Ventures, TEN13, DCode Capital, Deepwater, Dumm Capital, National Reconstruction Fund, Paspalis Capital, UNSW and Angel Investors (Capital Brief | Startup Daily | The Australian)
OpenDebt, a fintech platform that deploys AI agents to automate debt collection for lenders and businesses to recover overdue payments, has raised $2m in a Pre-Seed round from Blackbird Ventures and Antler Australia (The Australian | OpenDebt | Startup Daily)
Heidi Health, which develops a AI-powered medical scribe and clinical workflow automation tool to reduce admin for clinicians, has raised $140m in a Series C round from Blackbird Ventures, Phoenix Court, Point72 Private Investments and Headline. The round also included $335m growth investment from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund. (Capital Brief | Startup Daily | The Australian | The Age)
Kinoxis Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotech developing brain-penetrant small-molecule ALOX15 inhibitors to treat agitation in people with dementia, has raised $6.75m from Main Sequence, Uniseed, UniSuper, University of Sydney, Stoic VC and Avicella Capital (Startup Daily | Kinoxis Therapeutics)
RentBetter, a proptech platform that helps Australian landlords self-manage rentals to avoid agent fees, has raised $5m from EVP (Startup Daily)
Medcast, a clinical AI knowledge and learning platform for Australian clinicians to surface governed, searchable clinical answers for safer decisions, has raised $5.4m from Best Practice Software (Startup Daily)
Reimagine Labs, a MedTech wearable drug-delivery system that gives precision, electronically controlled dosing for people with epilepsy to reduce seizures, has raised an Undiscloused amount in a Seed round from Monash University, Innovation Victoria and Praxis Precision Medicines (LinkedIn)
Auric, a connected scent device and app that delivers personalised scent rituals for home users to manage mood through guided aromatherapy, has raised an Undiscloused amount from Scalare Partners (Newsfile | Auric)
Zeligate, an HR Tech platform that delivers verified interview-ready shortlists for high-volume employers to speed hiring decisions, has raised $750k in a Seed round (Zeligate)