Eight startups across Australia and New Zealand have raised a combined $50.1 million this week, with deals spanning hydrogen storage, fintech, clean energy, biotech, AI and more.
Keep reading to learn more about the startups with fresh cash to splash, led by Perth-based Carbon280’s $16.6 million raise for its hydrogen storage pilot.
Carbon280: $16.6 million
L-R: Carbon280 founder and CEO Mark Rheinlander and WA Minister for Energy Amber-Jade Sanderson. Source: Supplied.
Leading this week’s funding round-up is Perth startup Carbon280, which has secured $16.6 million to help it on its mission to offer a safer, cheaper and more scalable way to store and transport hydrogen.
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As reported by SmartCompany, the funding includes an $11.1 million seed round led by Woodside Energy, along with UK-based Hive Energy and a Singaporean family office, as well as federal R&D rebates.
Carbon280 is using the funding to help build a pilot plant in Kwinana, Western Australia, which will include laboratory facilities and a 100kW TRL6 prototype to test the startup’s technology at an industrially relevant scale.
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This technology, called Hydrilyte, aims to address one of the hydrogen sector’s biggest bottlenecks: safe, cost-effective storage and transport. It does this via a liquid suspension that allows hydrogen to be stored at ambient temperature and pressure, rather than being stored using high-pressure or cryogenic methods.
“Hydrilyte solves one of the biggest challenges for the hydrogen industry – at scale,” said CEO Mark Rheinlander
“Instead of transporting a highly flammable gas, you’re storing a stable, low-cost liquid under ambient conditions. That simplicity reduces cost, lowers risk and accelerates rollout globally.”
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One Stop Warehouse: $8.5 million
The team of One Stop Warehouse with Chris Bowen, Minister for Climate Change and Energy. Source: LinkedIn/One Stop Warehouse
Sydney-based solar wholesaler and distributor One Stop Warehouse (OSW) has raised $8.5 million in new funding from SparkEdge Capital, a venture capital firm in Shanghai focusing on the energy and technology sectors.
Founded in 2013 by Anson Zhang, the new funding will be used to power OSW’s next phase of international growth and accelerate the rollout of its world-first proprietary technology platform GreenSketch, which is capable of digitising and connecting all stages of the clean energy value chain.
Speaking on the investment, SparkEdge Capital partner Bin Wang, in a statement, said the VC was drawn to OSW’s unique ability to combine smart software with deep sector expertise.
“Tools like GreenSketch are setting a new standard for clean energy delivery – and we believe OSW is positioned to lead the next wave of global solar adoption,” Wang said.
According to the company, the key markets for its expansion include the United States, Mexico, Spain, and Romania. OSW already operates in several European markets, like the Netherlands and Poland.
“This investment marks a major milestone as we expand into new markets and continue developing the infrastructure needed to support the global energy transition,” Zhang said in the same statement.
“OSW is building an AI-driven distributed energy industry internet platform – our vision is to become the ‘Amazon’ of clean energy, delivering integrated solutions.”
Block Earner: $8 million
Block Earner CEO Charlie Karaboga and CCO James Coombes. Source: Supplied
Fintech Block Earner has raised $8 million to build out its Bitcoin-backed home loan deposits.
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The Series A capital raise was led by Hong Kong’s CMCC Global through its Titan Fund, with Australia’s King River Capital also participating.
It comes after Block Earner successfully appealed a court challenge by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission over the make-up of a separate financial product.
Block Earner users already use the cryptocurrency exchange’s existing lending product to secure personal loans, and the fintech now wants to roll out a fully-fledged home loan deposit product.
The proposed system would allow borrowers to use cryptocurrency to secure up to 60% of a property’s value for use as a deposit, with 9.5% interest on the loans able to be repaid in Australian dollars, extra Bitcoin, or both. A third-party lender would then provide the final mortgage.
Block Earner CEO Charlie Karaboga described the investment as a “very proud moment for us”.
“Our investors recognise that we will be the category leader, starting with Australia,” he said.
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RaptorTech: $8 million
Source: LinkedIn/RaptorTech
Perth-based mining tech startup RaptorTech has raised $8 million in a growth equity round led by Fifth Estate Asset Management and advised by Blackpeak Capital.
According to the Australian Financial Review (AFR), the investment, which was also supported by a global mining equipment manufacturer, values the seven-year-old startup at $40 million. It also marks the first time RaptorTech, whose annual turnover stands at $12 million, has taken on external funding.
Founded by former WesTrac Cat technology managers Jean Ferreira and Aaron Lockem in 2018, RaptorTech has been developing a SaaS-based fleet management and collision avoidance system capable of working across several equipment brands.
The external funding will be used to expand the company’s offering, which is already deployed at various mining sites in Australia, into overseas markets.
Aether: $3.5 million
L-R: Carsten Gruber, Ursula von Keisenberg, Daniel Alexander, and Rosanna Dedecius. Source: Supplied.
New Zealand-based AI-powered marketing platform Aether has also launched out of stealth this week, raising $3.5 million in seed funding led by Icehouse Ventures and backed by Brand Fund 2.
Aether is spun out of New+Improved, the venture studio founded by the team behind brand-tracking leader Tracksuit and insights platform Ideally.
Founded by former TikTok New Zealand country manager Carsten Grueber, alongside ex-Timely and Xero Ursula von Keisenberg and ex-Qualtrics Daniel Alexander-Head, Aether helps large organisations cut wasted time on repetitive slide decks and unlock siloed institutional knowledge.
In a statement provided to SmartCompany, CEO Grueber said: “They say measure twice, cut once, and this should also be true of marketing workflows. As it stands, most slide decks are recut every time a presentation happens, wasting valuable resources from internal teams.”
The platform integrates live business data directly into presentations, turning them into “living assets” that stay accurate and up to date, saving up to 40% of marketers’ time. Current use cases include board packs, campaign reports and quarterly reviews.
“In minutes, Aether can take 150 marketing reports, in 12 different languages and distill it all down to the 10 slides that actually matter; assess and strengthen your latest idea, plan or brief against your marketing strategy; or create exec-ready presentations reporting last month’s performance with key charts and commentary,” added Grueber.
According to the startup, it is already generating $600,000 in annual recurring revenue and counts major enterprise customers across Australia, New Zealand and the US.
The startup, headquartered across Auckland and Melbourne, will use the funding to expand its team and accelerate product development, with aspirations to take its SaaS platform global.
OneMRI: $2.5 million
The co-founders of OneMRI. Source: Supplied.
The co-founders of edtech unicorn Go1, Dr Vu Tran and Andrew Barnes, alongside Gopi Sara, have also revealed funding for their new healthcare startup OneMRI. The oversubscribed $2.5 million seed round was led by a suite of investors, including OIF Ventures, Antler, several other VCs, clinicians and radiologists.
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As reported by SmartCompany, OneMRI has created what it terms Australia’s first national provider of whole-body MRI scans. The service is designed as a preventive health tool for the “health curious”, capable of detecting more than 500 conditions — from cancers and metabolic disorders to brain aneurysms — through a single, radiation-free scan.
“Wellness and preventive health are only going to grow as sectors – and technology will play a critical role in that evolution,” Tran said.
OneMRI says its scans have already helped Australians detect life-threatening conditions, and emphasises the service is intended to complement, not replace, traditional diagnostic tests.
The startup emphasised it is expanding access to its offering without straining existing healthcare resources by partnering with underutilised radiology clinics. These are clinics where MRI machines often run at just 30% capacity.
Further, each patient undergoes pre- and post-scan consultations to ensure results are clearly understood and what the potential next steps could look like.
OneMRI is already operating across Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Perth, Sydney, Newcastle and Melbourne, with plans to expand into Asia-Pacific.
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Lucia Bio: $2 million
The team of Lucia Bio. Source: Molecule to Medicine.
Queensland biotech Lucia Bio has raised an additional $2 million in seed funding to continue developing its spleen tyrosine kinase (Syk) inhibitors. The new investment, split equally between UniQuest Extension Fund and Uniseed-managed funds, brings the company’s total seed investment to $3 million.
Lucio Bio was formed in 2024 through a partnership between Molecule to Medicine and the University of Queensland’s QEDDI team, leveraging foundational Australian science to target neuroinflammatory, autoimmune, and haematology oncology indications.
The fresh capital will support the development of Lucia Bio’s lead assets QED-701 and QED-121, advancing them toward clinical trial-enabling studies and expanding their therapeutic potential from neuroinflammation to the treatment of autoimmune diseases.
“With UniQuest’s significant prior investment in the discovery of best-in-class Syk inhibitors, Lucia Bio is well poised to deliver molecules that fully exploit the potential of inhibiting this critical node in human immunology,” co-founder and executive chair Dr Tom McCarthy said in a statement.
The funding will accelerate clinical programs, laying the groundwork for Phase 1 trials and future Phase 2 proof-of-concept studies, he added.
Syk inhibitors, critical in immune signalling, remain largely underexploited despite their validated clinical potential. Lucia Bio aims to capitalise on this with highly selective molecules that minimise adverse events seen in earlier drugs.
John Kurek, investment director at Uniseed, said, “The Lucia Bio Syk inhibitor program is focused on an important node in human immunology and in therapeutic areas where new treatment options targeting novel mechanisms of action are needed”.
The Laundry Lady: $1 million
The Laundry Lady founder and CEO Susan Toft. Source: Supplied.
Queensland-founded door-to-door mobile laundry service The Laundry Lady has secured $1 million in seed funding to drive its international expansion into the UK and Canada.
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The oversubscribed round was led by Karl Jacoby of Techniche, with support from Brisbane Angels, AngelLoop, AI entrepreneur Dr Catriona Wallace, and other local investors. The investment also includes backing from the Queensland Government’s Female Founders Co-Investment Fund and Austrade’s Export Market Development Grant.
Founded in 2012 by CEO Susan Toft, The Laundry Lady operates across Australia and New Zealand, providing on-demand pick-up and delivery laundry services through its proprietary TimeBoss platform, which connects customers with home-based contractors.
“The $1 million in seed funding will be used on developing the next stage of our AI-powered platform and app development, helping to streamline the experience for our valued residential, business and NDIS customers even further,” Toft told SmartCompany earlier this week.
The business, which employs 375 team members, plans to increase head office staff by five and aims to grow its contractor network tenfold as it enters new international markets. Toft says both the UK and Canadian markets align with the brand’s values of flexibility and freedom, and the company will showcase its services at the National Women’s Show in Vancouver and Toronto this November.
“There is very limited competition and no one operating like us with the work-from-home model supported by a scalable online platform,” she said.
The Laundry Lady’s expansion follows its recognition on the 2024 Smart50 list, where it also took home the Marketing and People Power Awards.
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