A legal tech startup cofounded by two lawyers has raised $1 million in pre-Seed funding, backed by LaunchVic’s Alice Anderson fund for female founders. Deeligence, founded by Elena Tsalanidis and Justin Hansky, is using artificial intelligence to tackle legal due diligence. They conceived the idea for the startup after realising that most law firms are still… Read more »
While Katherine Bennell-Pegg is not there yet, she’s now at least qualified for the career she wanted more than two decades ago in high school: astronaut. Adelaide-based Bennell-Pegg, 39, became the first qualified astronaut under the Australian flag this week after completing her training at the European Space Agency’s Astronaut Centre in Germany and now… Read more »
Brisbane startup Biza.io, which help banks and others navigate the introduction of the Consumer Data Right (CDR) has promoted the company’s head of customer success, Jessica Booth, to the newly created role of chief operations officer (COO). Booth joined Biza in September 2023, having previously worked at cloud enterprise software startup Mastt, as well as holding… Read more »
Logistics scheduling software startup Veyor Digital has raised $2.75 million in a pre-Series A with its eyes on US market expansion. The round was led by Sydney VC Investible via its Early Stage Fund 2 alongside members of its Club Investible syndicate and other angel investors, as well as Aconex cofounders Leigh Jasper and Rob… Read more »
Melbourne startup WorkRex has raised $220,000 from early stage VC Skalata for its all-in-one customer marketing platform for small business. Cofounders Jing Chen, Lance Qian, and Myron Liu – an optometrist, ex-McKinsey consultant, and software engineer respectively – developed the platform after a deep dive into how small-to-medium-sized are struggling to keep up with growing… Read more »
FinTech Australia has announced the finalists for Australia’s most prestigious annual fintech business awards, The Finnies. This year’s awards attracted more than 322 entries across 19 categories, resulting in shortlist of 154 finalists. The Finnies are judged over two rounds by more than 70 experts from the fintech ecosystem. The first round saw around 30 judges… Read more »
One way South by Southwest (SXSW) Sydney is different to most tech and startup festivals is how it chooses its panels in a Survivor-meets-Eurovision way, with people asked to vote on the 1,100-odd submissions received to choose their favourite. The fortnight of voting in Session Select leads to LinkedIn being flooded with “please like me”posts… Read more »
Food distribution startup Prep has raised $200,000 from Melbourne VC Skalata to connect major food retailers, corporates and restaurants with emerging food brands. Prep enables food producers and brands to efficiently scale B2B distribution – anywhere – for a low margin. The platform integrates with a producer’s existing ordering systems, and is five times more… Read more »
One of Australia’s most-loved startup festivals _SOUTHSTART has forged a strategic partnership with the Adelaide Economic Development Agency to launch a new accelerator program. MASTERM!ND is a 5-month accelerator for up to 10 startups based in the South Australian capital. _SOUTHSTART co-director Danielle Seymour said the accelerator builds on the organisation’s commitment to catalysing innovation and… Read more »
Sydney startup Heatseeker, which uses AI to simplify business idea validation and market research, has launched the alpha version of its testing platform to help founders speed up the time to product launch. Heatseeker.ai was cofounded in 2023 by serial entrepreneurs Kate O’Keeffe and Fiona Triaca. They set out to develop a way to understand… Read more »
US climate tech investor Sophie Purdom has made her first international investment via her New York VC fund Planeteer Capital, leading a $5.3 million Seed round. Purdom visited Sydney late last year as a keynote speaker at Climate Salad‘s Climate Tech Festival, which featured more than 50 Australian climate tech startups. The one she’s picked… Read more »
A startup turning agricultural waste into activated carbon, which is used to filter environmental toxins, has raised $2.6 million in a Series A. Government-backed investment fund Breakthrough Victoria chipped in $1 million, joined by VCs Alberts Impact Ventures, Investible, Artesian and Startmate. The funds will support the testing and establishment of Bygen’s large-scale production plant,… Read more »
Western Australian self-manage care platform PlanCare has topped up its Seed round to $2.5 million from existing backer Purpose Ventures. The new Perth VC originally backed PlanCare in July 2023, and the additional funding is the first follow-on investment from Purpose. PlanCare founder Dave Newman previously ran Morning Startup for more than a decade and… Read more »
Victorian startup Diversity Atlas, a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) data analytics platform, has raised $6 million in a bridge round. The capital came via Canadian impact investment platform Gener8 VC. The Melbourne-based startup is looking to double the size of its current team of 35 as it expands into new markets in the EU and… Read more »
China’s Qitian Dasheng Network Technology is expanding its 72 Byte AI System for smart hotels and commercial buildings into Australia, with the help of a local AI expert. Launched in 2014 by entrepreneur Qi Wu (Allen), the Beijing and Shanghai-based company’s AI-powered IoT services are used by some of China’s leading hotel and real estate… Read more »
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Here are the finalists in Fintech Australia’s 2024 Finnies awards 
Atlassian cofounder Scott Farquhar steps down as co-CEO 
Unicorn dehorned: Nasdaq-listed Brisbane EV charging venture Tritium collapses into receivership 
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