New Zealand lawtech startup VXT has raised NZ$1.8 million (A$1.65 million) in a pre-Series A. The round was led by existing investor GD1 with follow on-investments from Startmate and Phase One too as well as Silicon Valley entrepreneur and former Lattice boss J Zac Stein joining the cap table. VXT has developed an AI-powered communications… Read more »
Ahead of Startmate Demo Day on May 2 in Sydney at Blackbird’s Sunrise, Startup Daily is profiling the 10 startups involved. We kick off with NOA The Brand. NOA The Brand is on a mission to untether humanity from the world of cords, and their breakthrough tech could change the way we power just about everything. … Read more »
No founder achieves greatness without getting spooked along the way. So the challenge is how you vanquish those demons, with the right ghostbusters by your side, that makes all the difference. Funding and customer growth may be the loudest concerns we hear from startups, but there’s a lot more happening beneath the surface that should… Read more »
The federal government will directly intervene to support and subsidise key growth areas such as clean energy and innovative technologies in a significant policy shift that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will take to the next election. In a speech to the Queensland Press Club on Thursday, Albanese set out a “more strategic and more sophisticated”… Read more »
Startups in Western Australia looking to address biodiversity and the environment will get a helping hand thanks to a $7.2 million grant from the state government. The global tech investor and accelerator Founders Factory is setting up shop in Perth, as its first Australian base, with the funding. The WA government’s investment of $2.4 million… Read more »
StartSomeGood, the pioneering platform helping social entrepreneurs succeed, has been acquired by social innovation business General Good, founded by media entrepreneur Piers Grove. StartSomeGood CEO and cofounder Tom Dawkins said the strategic move will continue the commitment he started 13 years ago to building a social entrepreneurship movement, partnering with circular economy accelerator Boomerang Labs under… Read more »
The text-to-image generator developed by Sydney startup Leonardo Ai has been used to create deepfake porn of celebrities. Journalist Emanuel Maiberg at US tech news website 404 Media reported that they had used prompt suggestions for Leonardo found on Reddit “and was able to produce nonconsensual sexual images of celebrities instantly”. He found a Telegram community… Read more »
The board of ASX-listed Dubber has fired cofounder Steve McGovern as CEO over $26.6 million in missing company funds. In a statement to the ASX late on Tuesday night, the company said they terminated McGovern’s employment yesterday after investigations over the last five weeks into the missing cash alleged that “McGovern and the trustee were… Read more »
Ola, the Indian rideshare company that rocked up in Australia in 2018 is reportedly leaving town at the end of the week News Corp titles and Sky News are reporting that customers were sent emails today saying the company will cease local operations at the end of the week. But Startup Daily, a former frequent… Read more »
Sydney startup Forage, which helps students move from study to the workforce with virtual job simulations, is being acquired by US education firm EAB. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Forage was founded in 2017 by Pasha Rayan and Tom Brunskill as InsideSherpa. They set out to help students from less advantaged backgrounds a… Read more »
Australian supermarket giant Woolworths has teamed up with four international retailers to create a global venture capital looking to back startups in the shopping space. Joining Woolies in W23 Global are Dutch-Belgian multinational Ahold Delhaize, which runs 16 brands in nine countries, the UK’s Tesco, Canada’s Empire Co. (best known for Sobeys, Foodland & Safeway)… Read more »
Founder and investor network Innovation Bay is holding a two day conference, Inspire, in Sydney next month to gaze into the crystal ball about what lies ahead for the startup ecosystem over the next 5-10 years. Inspire, May 22-23, will feature founders, VCs and high net worth investors, as well as prominent sector leaders and… Read more »
Three-year-old insurtech startup Honey Insurance has raised $108 million in a Series A that’s lured in US investors Founded by entrepreneur Richard Joffe, cofounder of US-based Park Assist and Stella.ai, Honey launched in 2021. It raised a record $15.5 million in a Seed round led by underwriting partner RACQ and other institutional investors, including AGL,… Read more »
Outside the world of open-source software, it’s likely few people would have heard about XZ Utils, a small but widely used tool for data compression in Linux systems. But late last month, security experts uncovered a serious and deliberate flaw that could leave networked Linux computers susceptible to malicious attacks. The flaw has since been… Read more »
There are a lot of people who this week are talking to their accountant about capital gains tax for the very first time. Canva confirmed on Friday that US$1.6 billion (A$2.43bn) worth of shares in the design software platform had changed hands in a secondary market sale, at a valuation of US$26 billion. The total… Read more »
Atlassian cofounder Scott Farquhar steps down as co-CEO 
The lessons from Uber, Ola and rideshare’s disruption is that in the end, the consumer still pays 
Kiwi tech skills startup NextWork pockets $2.3 million pre-Seed raise 
Logistics software startup Veyor Digital shifts $2.75 million pre-Series A for US plans 
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