🇦🇺 This Week in Australian Startups #120, 22nd June 2025
$48.6m raised across 4 rounds, Canva acquires MagicBrief, Vow gets approval to sell meat in Australian & New Zealand, and Kiki shuts down NYC citing regulatory uncertainty which the city disputes
Top News
Space has partnered with mDetect, Nomad Atomics, and DeteQt to advance mineral exploration technology through AI-powered systems (Capital Brief)
Muir Ventures: the new accelerator backing women founders in marketing and communications (BNA)
Subletting startup Kiki is exiting New York, citing regulatory uncertainty, but is preparing to launch in a new location (SmartCompany
New York’s Office of Special Enforcement says short term rental laws are straightforward after Kiki cites regulatory”grey area” for leaving the city (SmartCompany)
WiseTech exodus continues as veterans exit (The Australian)
"Totally new category of food": Cultured meat startup Vow approved for sales in Australia, NZ (BNA | George Peppou)
ReGen Ventures has raised nearly $100m for its second climate-focused fund, attracting investment from Australian billionaires including Angela Bennett, Robyn Denholm, and Scott Farquhar. (AFR)
Deal-making Canva reports spike in paying users as it nears IPO (AFR)
Austrade launches UK Landing Pad for Aussie startups (SmartCompany)
Canva will acquire marketing and advertising design and analytics start-up MagicBrief to boost its expansion in the enterprise sector to further entice business subscribers to its design platform (The Australian | George Howes | Cliff Obrecht)
Why MagicBrief's sale to Canva is bittersweet for these emerging VCs (Capital Brief)
Canva prepares secondary share sale after last year’s $US1.6b bonanza (AFR)
Canva’s push to get potential staff to use AI coding in recruitment tests raises engineering eyebrows (Startup Daily)
CSIRO launches R&D program for Australian SMEs innovating in health care (StartUp ScaleUp)
Dubber sues auditors BDO over $26m in missing company funds (Capital Brief)
Labor's $15b NRF under investigation following whistleblower allegations (Capital Brief)
A new VC fund has launched - Climate Tech Partners securing $50m for its first fund, focusing on Series A climate tech startups (Startup Daily)
Sydney Angels sidecar fund raises $3.5m in a week on VentureCrowd (BNA)
Amazon Web Services bets big on Australian data centres with $20 billion investment (Startup Daily)
Dr Peter Devine to step down as CEO of Uniseed, Australia’s longest running venture fund (BNA)
Sally-Ann Williams set to leave incubator Cicada Innovations (InnovationAus)
Funding Rounds
Circumvent, which is developing a Multi-Agent AI System where agents operate like virtual security experts integrated into DevSecOps workflows, has raised $9.2m ($6m USD) in a Seed round from Paladin Capital Group
Acorn, an AI-powered LMS that connects learning to performance, has raised $19m ($12.3m USD) in a Series A round from Level Equity (Blake Roberts)
Allume Energy, the makers of SolShare a world-first and Australian-made technology enabling a single rooftop solar system to connect to multiple apartments, has raised $10m from E.ON, Ellerston Capital, Foxglove Capital and Taronga Group (Cameron Knox)
Butn, a fintech that provides embedded finance and instant funding solutions for businesses, enabling real-time access to capital at the point of transaction, has raised $10m on the ASX (Mighty Partners)