🇦🇺 This Week in Australian Startups #153, 15th March 2026
$43.35m raised across 7 rounds, Koala and Pay.com.au launch ASX floats, Anthropic to open Sydney office, Co Ventures raises $15m for second fund, Canva ranks third in world for GenAI web usage
News
M&A, IPOs & Exits
Pay.com.au, a business payments and rewards platform that lets companies earn frequent flyer points on expenses, has launched its ASX float seeking to raise $85m in new growth capital at an $850m valuation - with shares priced at $193 and an April 22 listing date (AFR)
UK AR giant Blippar acquires Australian 3D commerce platform Plattar (Startup Researcher)
Five V Capital has acquired a 60% majority stake in FTP Solutions, a mining and agriculture software platform in a deal valuing the business at $70m (AFR)
Koala launches its ASX float seeking to raise $68 million at a $300m - priced at 10.5x forecast FY26 EBITDA with an April 1 listing date (AFR)
Link4, an Australian e-invoicing platform, has acquired Unifiedpost Pte Ltd, a Singapore-based e-invoicing provider, from Banqup Group SA (Australian FinTech)
Sideline Sport, a community sports streaming and production platform, has acquired Streamer, a community sports livestreaming platform previously owned by Southern Cross Media, adding up to 10,000 extra matches per year to its network (Startup Researcher)
Capital Markets
Imugene, an ASX-listed clinical-stage cancer immunotherapy biotech, is raising $20m through a share placement at 18¢ per share to fund its lead CAR-T therapy azer-cel (AFR)
Partnerships & Deals
R1 and Heidi Health announce strategic partnership to improve revenue capture for physician groups and healthcare organisations (AP News)
Product Launches, Milestones and Expansion
Amazon invests $750m in Queensland robotics fulfilment centre creating 1000 jobs (The Australian)
AI lab Anthropic launches Sydney office (Capital Brief)
Cortical Labs launches first human brain cell data centre (Capital Brief)
SCX.ai launches Australia’s first sovereign AI infrastructure node in Sydney (Startup Researcher)
CrossCourtAI founder and CEO Sai Naicker has announced the launch of Harper 2.0, an AI system capable of completing 90% of senior associate-level underwriting tasks and producing full 30-page investment committee papers in under 25 minutes, purpose-built for Australian real estate and private credit (LinkedIn)
Lorikeet co-founder Steve Hind has announced the launch of Resolution Loops, enabling human and AI agents to collaboratively resolve customer issues within a single platform - including native SMS and WhatsApp support without third-party integrations (LinkedIn)
Venture Capital & Other Funding
Blackbird tells LPs it stands by its valuation methodology, unchanged since 2022, as AI triggers a ‘SaaSpocalypse’ wipes nearly $1 trillion from global software stocks (The Australian)
Co Ventures, a pre-seed fund co-founded by Eucalyptus early investor Maxine Minter and Eucalyptus founding CFO Alexey Mitko, has raised a $15 million second fund backed by US VC Brad Feld and Blackbird co-founders Niki Scevak and Rick Baker (AFR)
KAST, founded by Australian Raagulan Pathy, raises $80M from QED Investors and Left Lane Capital to take on global stablecoin payments (AFR)
The National Reconstruction Fund has invested $200m in Macquarie Technology Group ahead of the company’s planned $3b data centre campus in Sydney (ARN)
Partners for Growth will target later-stage private Australian technology companies with a new private credit fund that has raised $250m (AFR)
TestBox, founded by Australian Sam Senior, raises $17m from AirTree Ventures, Skip Capital and Glitch Capital to scale its AI-powered software demo platform valuing the company above $70m (AFR)
People Moves & Spotlights
Data centre provider Firmus appoints former AWS and Telstra executive Michael O’Keefe as US CEO to lead (Startup Researcher)
Reports & Data
a16z analysis ranks Canva third in the world for generative AI web usage - behind only ChatGPT and Gemini, and ahead of Claude, Grok and Deepseek (SmartCompany)
Other News & Updates
Atlassian to cut 1,600 jobs amid AI push (Capital Brief)
ASIC bans Remagen Capital boss Simon Raftery for two and a half years over insolvent trading, potentially derailing his fight for a ~2% stake in $6bn data centre startup Firmus ahead of its planned IPO (The Australian)
Funding Rounds
Macropod, a stablecoin issuer for Australian businesses and investors to make regulated AUD digital payments and settlement, has raised ~$10m in a Undisclosed round from Betashares, Galaxy Digital, Flowdesk, Primal Capitaland DACM (AFR | Australian FinTech)
TMRW, a longevity membership platform that analyses biomarkers for consumers to map biological age and get personalised plans, has raised $7m in a Seed round from Tidal Ventures, Capital Zed and Angel Investors (Capital Brief)
Scopey Onsite, a construction data platform that turns WhatsApp messages into traceable records for builders to support claims and protect margin, has raised $850k in a Pre-Seed round from SFC Capital and Enterprise Ireland (Startup Daily)
Mary Technology, a Legaltech startup that uses AI to turn any number of documents into detailed chronologies within minutes, has raised $7m in a Seed round from OIF Ventures, Empress Capital and Sydney Angels (Capital Brief | SmartCompany | The Australian)
MGA Thermal, who is on a mission to remove 30 million tonnes of CO2 by 2030, has raised $17m from IP Group Australia and Main Sequence (SmartCompany | Capital Brief)
NEXA, a queue and appointment management platform for government, health and education organisations to reduce wait times and streamline bookings, has raised an Undisclosed from Australian Business Growth Fund (Capital Brief)
Nbryo, a biotech which has developed an IVF platform to enable the production and transfer of embryos at scale in the beef and dairy industries, has raised $1.5m from AgriZeroNZ (CountryWide)