After a strong January, Australian and New Zealand-based startups continued to attract investor attention this week, with five companies collectively securing $28.9 million in fresh capital.
Diraq: $20 million
Diraq founder Andrew Dzurak. Source: Wikipedia
Sydney-based quantum startup Diraq has secured $20 million in funding from the National Reconstruction Fund (NRF), as part of a broader, ongoing $75 million capital raise.
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Diraq, which was spun out of the University of NSW, has now raised more than $100 million since its launch in 2022, and founder Andrew Dzurak says the new funding will help it expand its 60-strong team further.
“Australia has one of the highest concentrations of talent pools in quantum computing anywhere in the world,” he told AAP earlier this week.
“(We’ll be) able to provide more high-paying, exciting jobs to Australians as well as making more pathways for our students into careers.”
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Dzurak said the company is planning to launch its first quantum computing products in early 2029, and the product will be assembled in Sydney.
National Reconstruction Fund chief executive David Gall said Diraq is a “wonderful example” of Australia’s leadership in the field of quantum technologies.
“It’s so important for us and our investment mandate to see the realisation of quantum computing potential in Australia,” he told AAP.
Read more.
CorePlan: $5 million
CorePlan founder Alex Goulios. Source: Supplied.
A Perth startup that helps mining companies plan and execute their exploration and drilling has raised $5 million in a follow-on round.
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The raise for CorePlan was led by existing investor EVP. The funds will help grow the global team, product expansion into drilling and geology workflows, scale regional support, and its presence in the Americas, as well as expand operations in Australia.
CorePlan’s software connects contractors and geology teams into a single system of record for planning, production, compliance, and invoicing in a sector where a fragmented mix of spreadsheets, messages and databases to manage complex operations is still common.
Record gold prices, critical minerals demand, and supply chain issues because of geopolitics have accelerated exploration activity.
Read more on Startup Daily.
Teacher’s Buddy: $2 million
L-R: Ben Sze and Matt Abraham of Teacher’s Buddy. Source: Supplied
New Zealand-founded AI startup Teacher’s Buddy has raised $2 million (NZD$2.3 million) in a round led by Auckland-based impact investment firm Soul Capital, alongside Australia’s Giant Leap.
Founded 18 months ago, the platform aims to address educator burnout and has been adopted by more than 12,000 teachers across 130 countries, the company said.
Co-founder Matt Abraham told Reseller News the new funding will be used to help Teacher’s Buddy support its goal of reaching more than 30,000 teachers and 200 school partners within 12 months across New Zealand, Australia and the UK.
He said data showed teachers using the platform could save an average of two hours a day, allowing more time for face-to-face student interaction.
Soul Capital venture principal Jon Sandbrook said AI-enabled technology had created an opportunity for the education sector to rethink how teachers were supported and learning delivered.
“The early adoption of the Teacher’s Buddy platform across so many countries demonstrates how urgent the need has become,” he said.
“We are backing Ben and Matt and the team because they have the clarity and discipline to deliver the model at scale, and we’re backing their solution because it empowers teachers to do what they do best – helping learners from all backgrounds and capabilities to realise their full potential.”
GrazeMate: $1.2 million
Teen founder Sam Rogers and one of his GrazeMate mustering drones. Source: supplied
Sam Rogers, a 19-year-old cattle farmer turned machine learning expert from North Queensland, was out testing GrazeMate, his autonomous drone startup, which can muster cattle without human intervention, when the call came from Y Combinator, the legendary US accelerator.
The reception was terrible, with the call dropping out intermittently, but the message from YC partner Tyler Bosmeny got through. “Welcome to Y Combinator”. The California VC, which turns 21 next month, was leading a $1.2 million pre-seed funding round, supported by Antler and NextGen Ventures.
Rogers has now swapped the Queensland outback for San Francisco for YC W26 and the hope that he can bring Aussie ingenuity to the $120 billion US livestock market, starting with California ranches.
Growing up on a cattle station, Rogers knows how time-consuming mustering is. Meanwhile, he was also working with CSIRO and the Australian Centre for Robotics and publishing machine learning and robotics research from the age of 15, before quitting university at 18 to take his idea from the lab to the land.
“Tools like ChatGPT showed what’s possible when AI handles cognitive work,” Rogers said.
“The exciting opportunity now is bringing that into the physical world. For people like my dad, the work doesn’t happen behind a screen – it happens in the paddock, where time and labour are always in short supply. GrazeMate exists to meet farmers where they are and gives them leverage to do more with less, so they don’t have to carry the entire load on their own.”
Read more on Startup Daily.
Agentsy: $700,000
Agentsy founder Tim Morris. Source: Supplied
Also revealing new funding this week was proptech startup Agentsy, which quietly closed a $700,000 pre-seed funding round led by Empress Capital in late December.
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As reported by SmartCompany, the announcement was timed to coincide with Agentsy moving its AI platform from closed beta into full commercial release.
Founded by Tim Morris, Agentsy has built an AI platform specifically for the Australian residential real estate market, and access is now available to agencies nationwide.
The platform can help real estate professionals automate tasks such as email responses, compliance communications and marketing collateral, helping to reduce administration burdens and improve productivity.
Designed around local legislation and data, the platform has been in development for the past 12 months and tested with early design partners including Jellis Craig, Laing+Simmons, OCRE and BresicWhitney.
Read more.
