G’day and welcome to your weekly edition of Overnight Success - your download on all the important things that have happened in the Aussie startup ecosystem. 🚀
During the week, I collaborated with Notion for Startups to create an extensive resource for founders on their fundraising journey. It includes 50+ real pitch decks from AI startups that have raised, a database of 10,000+ angels/VCs, ANZ’s most active investors, and a complete fundraising workflow inside Notion. Plus, freebies and discounts from the likes of Notion, Carta, Hubspot. Grab yours for free here.
👀 Headlines 👀
🦥 Australian tech founders warn new merger laws will choke startup growth and push deals offshore (AFR)
The incoming mandatory merger rules, which take effect on January 1, require ACCC notification for deals involving stakes of over 20% and companies with a combined turnover of $200m or more, sparking backlash from tech founders and VCs who say the thresholds are far too low.
SafetyCulture’s Luke Anear, Catapult’s Adir Shiffman, Aconex founder Leigh Jasper and Honey Insurance’s Richard Joffe were pretty unanimous in warning that the red tape will stall low-risk acquisitions, complicate capital raises, and drive founders to raise overseas rather than risk delays.
The ACCC says it will fast-track 80% of deals within 20 business days, but industry leaders claim the scheme is “in disarray,” poorly communicated, and risks undermining Australia’s ability to produce globally competitive scale-ups.
📈 Firmus rockets to a $6B valuation after securing a fresh $500M, as tech CEOs warn that Australia must build its own sovereign AI and digital infrastructure. Full fundraising announcement below.
AI infrastructure startup Firmus has tripled its valuation to $6B after a fresh $500M raise, with capital now being deployed into its massive Project Southgate data-centre build in Tasmania and four new mainland regions — part of a national push to create sovereign AI capability. (AFR)
Backed by investors including Regal, Ellerston, Archibald Capital, Tectonic, Alex Waislitz and the Pratt family, Firmus says the raise enables rapid manufacturing of next-gen cooling and compute systems critical to Australia’s AI capability.
The raise follows Firmus’ deals with CDC Data Centres and Nvidia to construct “AI factories” across Australia, aligning with growing calls from tech leaders for the country to invest heavily in home-grown compute, cooling, and satellite infrastructure to safeguard economic and national security.
At the AFR Infrastructure Summit, DeepTech Ventures CEO Mani Thiru and CDC’s Greg Boorer warned Australia’s dependency on foreign satellite networks and offshore AI compute is unsustainable, arguing that sovereign token-generation, satellite access, and domestic data-centre capacity are now critical. (AFR)
📉 DroneShield tanks 31% after CEO discloses he sold entire $50m stake, spooking markets after botched contract announcement (AFR)
DroneShield’s year-long rally came to a sudden halt after CEO Oleg Vornik sold all his shares for nearly $50m, alongside ~$17m in sales from the chairman and another director — collectively wiping $1b off the company’s valuation in a single day.
The insider sell-off landed during a messy week: DroneShield mistakenly announced $7.6m in new US government contracts before retracting the statement hours later, fuelling investor confusion and accelerating the share price collapse.
😬 Women-led tech groups have been dumped from $4.9m federal FemTech program after an unpaid-invoice dispute with union partner, Professionals Australia. (Capital Brief)
Girl Geek Academy and Gender Lens Australia, who co-designed and secured the $4.9m FemTech grant, were removed from the project by lead contractor Professionals Australia amid a dispute over <$200k in unpaid invoices for completed work, including program design, governance frameworks and school-engagement planning.
Both groups allege the union stalled key agreements, changed MOUs at the last minute, and is now attempting to deliver a program built on their intellectual property; PA denies wrongdoing and says it cannot release funds without finalised contracts.
The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations has appointed an independent reviewer, while the women-led groups warn the program cannot operate as funded without their work.
🔬 New Cicada Innovations CEO sets global deep-tech agenda, pushing for offshore capital and stronger productivity focus.
Newly appointed Cicada Innovations CEO Liza Noonan says her priority is helping Australian deep-tech companies access patient capital, especially in Asia, while positioning Cicada as a leading Indo-Pacific bridge for science-based innovation.
Noonan argues “deep tech is productivity”, urging greater support for scale-stage companies facing manufacturing, team-growth and international-expansion hurdles, and calling for a more diversified investor base including angels, corporates and institutional capital.
Celebrating 25 years, Cicada says it has contributed an estimated $8B to the economy through companies like Morse Micro, Clarity Pharmaceuticals and SpeeDx.You can see their full list of current residents here.
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⚡ Startup Retro ⚡
Firmus lands $500M at $6B valuation to supercharge national AI-factory rollout
CEO’s: Oliver Curtis, Tim Rosenfield
AI data-centre startup Firmus has secured another $500 million to accelerate its nationwide build-out of Project Southgate, pushing its post-money valuation to about $6 billion just weeks after closing a $330 million round. The fresh capital will help the company hit its 1.6-gigawatt deployment target by 2028, fuelling one of Australia’s most ambitious AI infrastructure agendas.
Founded in Australia and now headquartered in Singapore, Firmus is moving fast. Last month it signed a blockbuster alliance with Nvidia and CDC to deliver more than $73 billion worth of AI data centres across Australia by 2028. The new raise will fund further site development, hardware deployment, and energy partnerships across Tasmania, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Perth.
Project Southgate centres on a flagship green AI-factory campus in Tasmania, with additional hyperscale facilities rolling out across the mainland. Firmus says its vertically integrated “AI factory” model is designed to support energy-intensive AI workloads more efficiently than traditional data-centre builds.
Co-CEO Oliver Curtis said the funding marks the next phase of national expansion and will strengthen Australia’s sovereign computing capability. Co-CEO Tim Rosenfield added that the company’s integrated platform allows it to scale rapidly while aligning with the country’s renewable-energy future.
Due diligence: AFR, Reuters, Capital Brief
Great Question raises $20M Series A to democratise UX research for enterprises
Founders: PJ Murray and Ned Dwyer
UX research platform Great Question has closed a USD $13 million (AUD $20 million) Series A led by Inovia Capital, with participation from Y Combinator, Character Capital and January Capital, bringing total funding to $25.4 million for the San Francisco–based, Australian-founded startup. In 2021, they raised a $2.5M seed round from Funders Club, January Capital, Nomo VC and Twenty-Two Ventures.
Founded in 2020 by Ned Dwyer and PJ Murray after their GoDaddy-acquired startup Elto in 2015, Great Question was born from Dwyer’s frustration at being blocked from basic customer research inside large organisations. The platform replaces a typical stack of a dozen fragmented research tools with an all-in-one system for recruitment, interviews, surveys, prototype testing and analysis.
Great Question now counts Amazon, Walmart, ServiceNow, Intuit, Canva, Rode and Flight Centre among its enterprise users. Dwyer says democratising research across product, design and marketing teams mirrors the impact Figma had on design, with Intuit running tens of thousands of interviews monthly — 80% led by non-researchers.
Locally, Great Question competes with Australian startup Dovetail, but positions itself as a full-stack research platform rather than just a repository. The Series A will accelerate AI-powered study design, automated moderation and insight synthesis, plus global hiring to support growing enterprise demand.
Due diligence: Capital Brief, Smart Company
Drone-Hand raises $720k pre-seed to bring autonomous livestock monitoring to Aussie farms
Founder: Edward Barraclough
Victorian agtech startup Drone-Hand has secured $720,000 in pre-seed funding to scale its autonomous livestock management platform, with US VC Radius Capital leading the round alongside three Australian agribusiness investors.
Founded in 2023 by Gippsland’s Edward Barraclough, inspired by his 80-year-old father’s remark that drones could keep farmers on the land longer, Drone-Hand builds offline-capable systems combining machine learning, drone automation and fixed cameras to track livestock, monitor welfare, check water and fences, and replace hours on the bike with minutes in the air.
The platform has already demonstrated 99.9% identification accuracy in JBS Australia trials. Drone-Hand emerged from the Farmers2Founders accelerator and has collected wins, including AIIA Victoria Startup of the Year and a LaunchVic agtech grant. More than 200 producers have registered interest, and the new capital will fund team expansion, sales, marketing and wider commercial deployment over the next 6–18 months.
The modular system ranges from portable quadcopters to long-range VTOL drones and “drone-in-a-box” units for continuous monitoring. After its Australian rollout, Drone-Hand plans to expand into the Americas, targeting large-scale operations in regions such as Texas and Brazil, where offline autonomy offers a strong competitive edge.
Due Diligence: Overnight Success
Keeyu raises $2.3m to stop retail order chaos with proactive AI that fixes problems before customers complain
Founders: Jevon Le Roux, Tahir Rauf and Tracy Godtschalk
Keeyu, a Sydney-based retail ops startup, has raised $2.3 million to scale its “proactive AI agent” — a system built to monitor the entire post-purchase journey and prevent order failures before they become customer complaints. The round was led by Rampersand with backing from Archangel, Startmate, Empress Capital, Exhort Ventures, Sydney Angels, Southern Angels and a roster of well-known operators, including Jason Wyatt (Marketplacer) and Paul Greenberg (DealsDirect/Afterpay).
Founded in 2024 by retail veterans Jevon Le Roux, Tahir Rauf and Tracy Godtschalk, Keeyu plugs into Shopify, ERPs, WMS, 3PLs, carriers and returns platforms to provide a single real-time view of every order. Its AI flags issues such as failed payments, warehouse delays or stockouts — and with Phase 2 rolling out in beta, the system will also automatically resolve predictable problems, from reprocessing payments to rerouting delayed parcels.
Launched in July 2024, Keeyu is already used by 15 retailers across 25 brands, including Decjuba, Rebel Sport NZ, Camilla, EHP Labs and Budgy Smuggler. Early results include up to 90% fewer “Where is my order?” tickets, 50% less manual workload and a 9% uplift in customer retention, delivering what the company claims is 10–20x ROI during peak periods. A full public launch of its automation layer is set for October 2025.
Due Diligence: Overnight Success, Rampersand Investment Notes
University biotech spinout Rage lands $29m Series A to take on chronic inflammatory disease
CEO: Dr Siro Perez
Rage Biotech, a university spinout developing therapies for chronic inflammatory diseases, has raised $29 million in a Series A led by IP Group Australia and super fund Hostplus, with participation from Monash Ventures and existing backers. The funding will support first-in-human clinical trials of RB042, an inhaled therapy targeting inflammatory lung conditions such as COPD.
Named after the RAGE receptor (Receptor for Advanced Glycation End-products), the startup was formed through a collaboration between several Australian universities and medical research institutes to commercialise novel treatments for inflammation-driven diseases. RB042, developed within Monash University’s Faculty of Medicine, has shown strong pre-clinical signals as a potential disease-modifying therapy rather than mere symptom relief.
RAGE exists in two forms: one that drives inflammation and one that helps resolve it. Our approach uses splice-switching oligonucleotides to shift the balance, converting RAGE from its harmful, pro-inflammatory form to its protective, anti-inflammatory form.
New CEO Dr Siro Perez, who helped establish Rage while leading life sciences at IP Group Australia, said millions of COPD patients lack effective treatment options, positioning RB042 for substantial global impact. Founding CEO Dr Chris Wraight moves into the chief scientific officer role as the company expands its pipeline, with Dr Edwin Tucker joining as chief medical and development officer and IP Group’s Dr Mike Molinari joining the board.
Due Diligence: Innovation Aus
Livestock methane-reduction startup Number 8 Bio raises $11m Series A
Founders: Dr Tom Williams & Dr Alex Carpenter
Sydney-based climate biotech Number 8 Bio has raised $11 million in a Series A to scale its synthetic-biology platform designed to slash methane emissions from livestock. The round was led by New Zealand’s Icehouse Ventures with support from Main Sequence and Japanese climate fund One Innovators, expanding the startup’s international backing ahead of commercial rollout.
Founded in 2022 and accelerated through UNSW’s SynBio 10X program, Number 8 Bio has developed a cost-effective organic small molecule that reduces enteric methane, the burps responsible for roughly 10% of Australia’s reportable emissions. Early trials show reductions of up to 90%, alongside improved rumen fermentation. Unlike seaweed-based additives, the molecule can be manufactured locally at scale, addressing the cost and supply-chain challenges that have slowed other solutions.
The Series A will fund large-scale animal trials, regulatory approvals across New Zealand, Europe and the US, and preparation for a 2026 commercial launch of both a feed additive and a six-month slow-release capsule for cattle. The company also plans a carbon-insetting program to help farmers and supply chains claim verified emissions reductions, positioning Number 8 as a scalable alternative in the booming climate-agtech space.
Due Diligence: Overnight Success, Capital Brief, Smart Company, Agfundernews
SunDrive lands $25.3m from ARENA to accelerate copper-based solar manufacturing
Founders: Vince Allen & David Hu
SunDrive, the Sydney startup pioneering copper-based solar cells, has secured a further $25.3 million from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), bringing the agency’s total support to nearly $40 million. The decade-old company, founded in a Wollongong garage by Vince Allen and David Hu, is developing a cheaper alternative to silver-based solar cells, with copper offering the potential to slash module costs by up to 30%.
SunDrive’s backers include Blackbird, Mike Cannon-Brookes, the CEFC, Canva’s Cameron Adams, Malcolm Turnbull and Tesla chair Robyn Denholm. The startup operates an R&D facility in Kurnell, where the new funding will support upgrades, cost modelling, and production of modules for field testing and early licensing revenue.
ARENA’s Advancing Renewables Program will also fund SunDrive’s work with manufacturing partners Maxwell and Vistar to scale its technology toward a 300MW commercial production tool.
Due Diligence: ARENA Announcement
Raising capital isn’t about the perfect pitch deck — it’s about precision.
After four years tracking the ANZ startup ecosystem, one pattern is clear: the founders who close quickly are the ones who know exactly which investors align with their thesis, research portfolios before reaching out, and run a disciplined, organised process.
So I’ve teamed up with Notion for Startups to build a system that helps you do exactly that: 50+ real pitch decks, a database of 10,000+ angels/VCs, ANZ’s most active investors, and a complete fundraising workflow inside Notion.
It also comes with Notion free for 6 months, plus goodies from Carta, Hubspot, OS and more!
💰New Fund, Who’s This?💰
💰 Canberra launches ACTivate Capital, a new $50m early-stage VC fund to keep local innovation at home (Startup Daily)
ACTivate Capital has opened with a $23 million first close toward its $50 million target, creating a dedicated early-stage fund to commercialise Canberra’s research and support startups from pre-seed to early Series A.
The fund aims to back 10–15 companies over the next decade, with the goal of stopping top founders and ideas from leaving the ACT in search of capital.
The ACT Government is the cornerstone investor, with Epicorp as general partner and UNSW Canberra, plus several family offices joining as LPs.
The sector-agnostic fund will invest across defence, quantum, clean energy, advanced manufacturing and AI, with a mandate to translate institutional IP into globally competitive businesses.
🤝M&A🤝
🔗Linktree snaps up Melbourne startup Fingertip as it continues to expand its creator-tools empire. (Capital Brief, Startup Daily)
Social media unicorn Linktree has acquired Melbourne-based Fingertip, absorbing its five-person team and founders Olly Hoffman and Matthew Blode as it continues an acquisitive push to broaden its creator and small-business toolkit.
Fingertip, launched last year, built a landing-page and workflow platform for freelancers and creators with booking tools, invoicing, newsletters and embeddable content blocks such as Spotify playlists, Instagram feeds and product links.
Linktree, which hit unicorn status in 2022 and now serves more than 70 million users, says Fingertip’s product design and focus on creator workflows align with its push to expand the LinkApps ecosystem and become a full-stack digital presence platform.
🥳 Wins 🥳
⚡EV charging and advertising, Jolt, enters the US market with the major acquisition of Shell’s Volta network (AFR)
Sydney-based EV charging startup JOLT will acquire up to 3,000 chargers from Shell’s Volta network, a massive jump from the 250 chargers it currently operates across Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK, marking its entry into the US market.
Backed by BlackRock, JOLT plans to deploy a new pricing model for the slower AC chargers it inherits, charging a connection fee and per-kWh rates to prevent long occupancy times while expanding its ad-supported charging model that underwrites 90% of its revenue.
The acquisition gives JOLT an instant footprint across 64 cities and 34 states, accelerating CEO Doug McNamee’s long-planned US expansion as EV adoption surges, with 1.5 million electric cars sold in the US in 2024.
Jolt will double down on its global advertising partnerships — including Uber, Amazon, Target and McDonald’s, as it builds out the Volta network and continues to scale its fast-charging infrastructure.
The company, founded in 2020, has grown its Australian footprint 45% in the past year, raised over $100 million from BlackRock, and recently secured a $C194 million loan from the Canada Infrastructure Bank to expand in North America.
🎢 Theme-park software startup ROLLER hits 3,000 customers worldwide. (LinkedIn)
Just weeks after announcing a US$50 million round, ROLLER has surpassed 3,000 attraction customers across 30+ countries, with its 300-person team powering more than 113 million guest experiences this year.
♻ UPPAREL has unveiled Australia's largest onshore textile recycling facility in Victoria, a 10,500sqm plant capable of processing over 10,000 tonnes of material annually. (Overnight Success)
At its core is Australia's first completely automated line featuring a custom-built metal and hardware remover that strips contaminants like zippers and buttons.
The 30m-long system transforms a garment into reusable fibre in 3 minutes and can process complex blends (from <10% to >70% polyester) without adjustment, achieving a 90% recovery rate.
Waste textiles are turned into "Uptex," a versatile recycled material used as a sustainable alternative in construction, packaging, and other goods.
The company, which started as an "at-home concept," states it has already diverted and recycled more than 50 million items from landfills.
📆 Notice Board 📆
🌏Demo the Future: Techstars Tech Central Sydney Accelerator Demo Day is bringing 2,500+ founders, investors, and innovators together for one epic night. They’ve landed an amazing keynote speaker. Get your ticket before they sell out.
🚀 See 12 bold startups take the stage, Mon, 8 Dec 2025 | 6–8pm | Darling Harbour Theatre, ICC Sydney 👉 Register now
💰 Mighty Partners is collaborating with Cut Through Ventures to run a survey to understand how founders and operators are thinking about venture debt heading into 2026 — covering awareness, attitudes, experience and future plans.
You don’t need to have used venture debt to participate, and key insights will be published in Cut Through Venture to help shape alternative funding options or for founders. If you can spare a few minutes, they’d love your input: Take the survey here!
The best place to find upcoming events to attend and promote any events you’re hosting is the ANZ Startup Events Calendar.
Would you like to promote an event or an opportunity? Enquire about a Notice Board promotion here.
🧠 KaaS (Knowledge as a Service)
Will’s Pick 💁 Mastering The Founder Letter by Bill Kerr (blog post)
Bill breaks down the founder letter, a direct message from the founder/CEO to the team and the world. Bill runs through examples from new age software founders, to Jeff Bezos from Amazon, to Buffett’s shareholder letters.
When should you write a founder letter? Ideally, write a founder letter whenever something big and notable happens with your startup. Positive or negative. Like a new venture round, hitting $1m ARR, winning a big award, or hiring a big-time CTO. But also be transparent and authentic during the not-so-good. Your software went down. You were hacked. A key member of the team left.
Have we missed something? Got some feedback? We love emails, so send one over!
👔 Connect with me on LinkedIn: Overnight Success, Will Richards
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Have you just raised capital and you’re looking for a hand with PR and comms to make a splash, hire the best talent and get on the radar of your next investors? The team at Encour and I would be happy to help. Book in with me for a chat here.
‘Til next time,
👋 Will