Eight ANZ startups that raised $20.9 million this week
This week has seen $20.9 million raised across ANZ startups for open source AI, growing food for space travel and more.
Clamping down on unnecessary meetings, open source AI and growing food for long space journeys. These are just some of the areas that ANZ startups that raised a collective $20.89 million this week are tackling.
This week also saw Carma close a $30 million convertible note. Carma won SmartCompany’s Smart50 innovator award in 2024 for its transformation of the used-car ecosystem.
Pluralis: $12 million
AI startup Pluralis has raised a $12 million seed round co-led by USV and CoinFund, with participation from Topology, Variant, Eden Block, and Bodhi Ventures. Angel investors Balaji Srinivasan and Hugging Face co-founder Clem Delangue also contributed to the round.
Pluralis is developing Protocol Learning, a framework that enables multiple contributors to train large-scale AI models collaboratively over open-source, permissionless networks.
Unlike traditional AI training methods that rely on centralised control, Pluralis says this approach allows foundation models to be built without any single entity having full ownership of the model weights.
“Pluralis paves the way to true collective ownership at the model layer, by training foundation models that are split across geographically separated devices connected only over the internet,” Alexander Long, founder and CEO of Pluralis, said.
“It guarantees public access to strong base models, the ability for anyone to participate in the economic benefits of AI, and unlocks open innovation.”
Project Manda: $2 million
Serial entrepreneurs Ed van Roosendaal and Ashley Farrugia are on a mission to clamp down on pointless and expensive meetings, and have raised more than $2 million in pre-seed funding to help them achieve that goal.
The duo are the founders of Project Manda, a new AI-powered startup that is helping organisations cut wasted time in meetings and boost work productivity.
The pre-seed funding comes from lead investors Tech Labs Capital and Black Sheep Capital, as well as Paul Limbrey, vice president of global agencies and partners at Google, and Melbourne-based investors Peter Yunghanns and David Williams.
Van Roosendaal, who founded RateMyAgent, and Farrugia, co-founder of ActivePipe, are already working with large companies like Domain, which has so far used the Project Manda platform to free up $600,000 worth of people’s time out of meetings across the organisation.
Unproductive meetings typically account for an $80 million annual investment for an organisation that employs 2000 people, according to van Roosendaal.
“It’s amazing — for all the businesses I’ve spoken to, very few have any internal process for what their meeting culture is, how to educate people to have better meetings, and the expectations of meeting organisers,” he says.
“It’s a big problem.”
Iceberg Quantum: $2 million
Sydney-based startup Iceberg Quantum has also revealed pre-seed funding this week, having secured $2 million in a funding round led by prominent Australian VC Blackbird.
UK-based investor LocalGlobe has also backed the startup, which has recently entered into its first major partnership with PsiQuantum, the tech company backed by both the Queensland and federal governments.
The partnership will see Iceberg Quantum apply its fault-tolerant quantum computing architectures to PsiQuantum’s photonic platform.
Iceberg Quantum was founded in mid-2024 by Felix Thomsen, Larry Cohen, and Sam Smith, who met while undertaking their PhDs at the University of Sydney. The three founders were supervised by Prof. Stephen Bartlett, a global expert in quantum error correction, who is also advising the company.
On a mission to accelerate the path to practical quantum computing, Iceberg Quantum is leveraging breakthroughs in quantum error-correcting codes to cut down the significant hardware overhead required for quantum error correction.
According to materials provided by Iceberg Quantum, current approaches to fault-tolerant architectures for quantum computers require vast amounts of qubits to continuously detect and correct errors, but the startup’s methods have the ability to cut this overhead by over an order of magnitude.
Blackbird partner Michael Tolo said in a statement that Australian innovators are “leading the charge” into the useful quantum computing era.
“Since the announcement that Brisbane will host the world’s first useful quantum computer, we have seen the next generation of local research talent emerge with the ambition to leave their mark,” he said.
“The technical progress that Felix, Larry and Sam have made over the last six months shows us that their approach could accelerate the timeline to useful quantum computing and push these systems to perform more valuable tasks, sooner.”
Bontia Bio: $1.14 million
New Zealand-based startup Bontia Bio has raised NZ$1.25 million ($1.14 million) for its tech that harnesses the protective power of plants to support animal health.
Founded in 2024 by Professor Emily Parker and Dr Matt Nicholson, Bontia Bio is developing natural anti-parasitic treatments to better protect animals and crops from pests and diseases, through the use of plant compounds.
In particular, the startup has developed a patented synthetic biology platform to produce compounds found in a fungus that inhabits the wild olive (Bontia daphnoides) shrub. The anti-parasitic properties of these compounds are well known, but until now, it has not been practical to produce them at scale.
Bontia Bio is using a microbial fermentation process, based on research from The Ferrier Research Institute at Victoria University Wellington, to produce the compounds and bring a flea and tick treatment to market.
The startup’s new seed funding round was led by Sprout Agritech and supported by the Booster Innovation Fund. The startup has also obtained a repayable grant of $750,000 from Callaghan Innovation.
In a statement provided to SmartCompany, co-founder and CEO Dr Matt Nicholson said the company is “uniquely positioned” to provide treatments for animals that are both safe and environmentally sustainable.
“Veterinarians and pet owners are increasingly noticing problems with existing flea and tick treatments, including emerging drug resistance, adverse side effects and negative environmental impacts,” he explained.
“Coupled to this, the animal health market is calling for environmentally friendly compounds with novel modes of action and larger therapeutic windows.”
EntroMat: $1 million
Breakthrough Victoria and Swinburne University have co-invested $1 million in materials startup EntroMat.
The Melbourne-based company is developing advanced metal powders known as High Entropy Materials (HEMs) for use in sectors including aerospace, mining, energy and medical technology.
EntroMat’s powders, which are engineered by combining multiple principal elements into a single alloy, are designed to be used in advanced manufacturing process, such as additive manufacturing, surface coatings and powder metallurgy.
Potential applications could include hydrogen systems and fuel cells, surgical implants, and high-temperature aerospace components.
Swinburne and Breakthrough Victoria are each investing $500,000 in the startup, with the latter’s portion coming from its $100 million University Innovation Platform.
“EntroMat’s technology represents a game-changer for industries that demand stronger, more resilient, and sustainable materials,” said Breakthrough Victoria CEO Rod Bristow in a statement provided to SmartCompany.
Gaia Project Australia: $1 million
In a similar co-funding project to the above, Breakthrough Victoria has also teamed up with La Trobe to co-invest $1 million in Gaia Project Australia.
The Victorian agtech startup was founded in 2020 in order to help fill the gap in sustainable food production.
Gaia Project Australia specialises in Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) and has developed a patented technology — the Omni-System — which increases leafy green vegetable yields by up to 40% without complex robotic systems.
La Trobe University has been the company’s R&D partner and both were finalists in NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge. This involved a project designed to grow food for long space journeys.
“We are backing Gaia Project Australia’s innovative technology because agriculture is one of Victoria’s great strengths and this technology has the potential to turbocharge production in our agriculture sector,” Victorian Minister for Economic Growth and Jobs Danny Pearson said.
Hachiko : $1 million
Sydney-based startup Hachiko has exclusively confirmed with SmartCompany that it has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding, led by Twynam Ventures.
Hachiko is developing a battery optimisation and portfolio management platform for the unscheduled sector, which includes commercial and industrial energy storage projects.
The platform provides multi-market optimisation across all parts of the value stack, helping portfolio owners, traders, and developers improve the operational profitability of their battery assets by up to 50%.
“Distributed storage is seen by many to represent the fastest pathway to deploying batteries at scale both in Australia and overseas,” Rakhesh Martyn, founder and CEO of Hachiko, said.
“Savvy project investors and developers are wise to this and capital is flowing, but their software needs are not met by the products in the market today. We are excited to help them supercharge their growth with our platform.”
Twynam Ventures’ investment director Jonathan Green said Hachiko’s technology could play a key role in scaling renewables and battery storage in Australia and beyond.
“By enabling the more effective rollout of energy storage solutions at scale, Hachiko has the potential to facilitate the displacement of up to 157 million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually by 2050 – a testament to the platform’s scalability and environmental impact,” Green said.
DeteQt: $750,000
Sydney-based quantum startup DeteQt has locked in $750,000 in pre-seed funding for its patented diamond-on-silicon sending technology.
DeteQt is targeting what it says is a US$19 billion global market for sensors in the navigation, mining and health sectors. Its quantum magnetometers are highly sensitive, portable and scalable.
The pre-seed funding comes from deep tech-focused VC Main Sequence Ventures and US deep tech investor ATP Fund.
The startup was founded by adjunct professor Jim Rabeau and professor Omid Kavehei from the University of Sydney Nano Institute and Faculty of Engineering. The startup is a spin-out from the institute.
“Our technology is designed to address some of the world’s biggest challenges – navigation in GPS-denied environments, more effective critical mineral exploration and next-generation medical imaging,” said Professor Rabeau in a statement provided to SmartCompany.
“By integrating quantum sensors with scalable semiconductor processes, we’re delivering the sensitivity of quantum with the manufacturability and low cost of silicon.”
DeteQt has previously secured a number of partnerships in Australia and the US, including a $3 million contract with the Australia Defence Force for GPS-denied navigation systems and a partnership with Adelaide-based Fleet Space for critical minerals detection.
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