The federal government-backed Australian Business Growth Fund (ABGF) has backed it second business run by a woman, tipping $10 million into clothing brand Solbari, which produces clothing, hats and accessories focused on sun protection. Founder and CEO Johanna Young launched Solbari in 2014, having moved to Melbourne from Europe in 2011 following a career in… Read more »
More than 1,100 investors have backed crowd-sourced funding (CSF) platform Birchal in its own CSF campaign, raising $2.39 million. Alongside a range of retail investors, the cap table includes existing investor Dom Pym, cofounder of Up; Mckeage Cole Foundation MD Connie Mckeage; Giant Leap venture partner Peter Cameron; TodayPay founder Peter Cameron; Doshii founder Sean… Read more »
Australia’s online safety regulator, the eSafety Commission, has launched legal action against the Elon Musk’s rebranded Twitter company, X Corp, for its alleged failure to comply appropriately to requests to explain how the social media site was dealing with child sexual exploitation and abuse material. The civil case in the Federal Court of Victoria follows… Read more »
Victoria’s startup ecosystem has grown in value by $12 billion to surpass $100 billion according to a new report from LaunchVic. The size and scope of their success is revealed in the Victoriaʼs startup ecosystem report 2023, produced in partnership with dealroom.co, which found the combined value rose from $91 billion to $103bn in the… Read more »
WiseTech Global founder and CEO Richard White has returned to his rock n roll roots investing $11 million in ASX-listed music company, Vinyl Group (ASX: VNL) as part of a deal to acquire Australia’s largest youth publisher The Brag Media, publishers of local editions of Rolling Stone and Variety. The billionaire, who made his fortune… Read more »
Listed fintech Identitii (ASX: ID8) has sold nearly half its stake in its payments subsidiary Payble for $1 million, alongside a $2.5 million raise for the startup. Identitii sold 48% of its Payble shareholding to OIF Ventures for $1 million. The Sydney VC also tipped $2.5 million in additional capital into the fintech, founded in… Read more »
Up to 63,000 Australians who used Airbnb between January 2018 and August 2021 may be eligible for compensation after the platform admitted it misled people by quoting prices for Australian accomodation in US dollars. The Federal Court has also hit Airbnb Ireland – the parent company that runs the Australian operations, including the website and… Read more »
Australia link-in-bio platform Linktree has acquired two-year-old competitor Koji from its parent company GoMeta for an undisclosed figure. In the tortured syntax beloved of tech titans. Linktree said in a blog post that Koji’s link-in-bio product “will be sunset” on January 31. We take that to mean shut down rather than a glowing golden light… Read more »
AI-based workflow automation startup has raised $15 million in a Series A as it looks to ramp up its international presence. The round was led by King River Capital along with support from Peak XV’s Surge (the former Sequoia Capital India), and existing backers Galileo Ventures and Insight Partners. Relevance AI previously raised $4 million… Read more »
Perth startup Omni Biotech has raised a $300,000 in pre-Seed funding from Melbourne VC Skalata Ventures to help develop its hydration monitoring platform. Curtin and Stanford University graduates Will Poot and Zac Farrow are Omni’s cofounders and are using the existing optical sensors in smartphones and wearable devices to monitor a wearer’s hydration levels in… Read more »
Sydney-based decision intelligence startup SourseAI has raised $3 million in Series A as it looks to expand in Europe. The round was led by enterprise technology investors Centerstone Capital, with cofounder Luc Maasdorp joining the SourseAI board. The startup, which now raised $5 million in total, has honed its focus since raising $1.5 million to… Read more »
Six Australian and New Zealand startups have scored funding from private health fund Bupa as part of its Eco Disruptive program, to help them develop pilot solutions that improve people’s health, as well as the planet’s. The program gives the startups involved the chance to work with Bupa’s expert teams to build their ideas faster… Read more »
If you’ve ever stared at your fridge contents like a Masterchef mystery box, wondering how to turn it all into dinner, then a new recipe platform, which just scored $4.15 million in Seed funding from the likes of Blackbird Ventures, could be the answer. Called Clove, it’s been developed by two former Canva employees, the… Read more »
A generative AI content production platform that has created more than 700 million images, and trained more than 470,000 custom generative AI models, since launching a year ago has raised $47 million, The next level version of OpenAi’s DALL-E, Leonardo.Ai was backed by Blackbird, Side Stage Ventures, Smash Capital, TIRTA Ventures, Gaorong Capital and Samsung… Read more »
A virtual reality startup which has developed the medical version of a flight simulator for doctors has raised $7 million in a round described as a pre-series A. The round for Vantari VR was led by Co:Act Capital with support from Acova Capital, Significant Early Venture Capital and Sirius Capital, as well as several investors… Read more »
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