G'day (and Bonjourno) and welcome to your weekly edition of Overnight Success - your download on all the important things that have happened in the Aussie startup ecosystem. 🚀
This week’s edition comes all the way from Italy as I’m on holiday for a few weeks! Happy Grand Final day to those that celebrate. This week’s edition is a large one, with some massive capital raises and founder/investor Twitter drama. Entriamo nel vivo!
👀 Headlines 👀
🦄 Heidi, the Melbourne clinical AI scribe, has raised US$340 million (A$475 million) at a US$900 million (A$1.26 billion) valuation, making it Australia's fourth ACU unicorn of 2026. (Startup Daily, Forbes Australia)
The raise is a Series C made up of a US$100 million (A$140 million) led by Blackbird, with Phoenix Court, Point72 Private Investments, Glitch Capital and Headline, plus a US$240 million (A$335 million) non-dilutive growth investment from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund that pays for customer acquisition and works more like debt than equity.
Annual recurring revenue reached US$50 million in April, up from about US$1 million two years earlier. Full write-up in the Startup Retro below.
📈 Firmus has locked in the timetable for its $7 billion ASX IPO, with trading due to start on 22 October, targeting a market capitalisation of about $50 billion. (Bloomberg, The Australian, iTnews, Startup Daily)
The institutional bookbuild runs 6 to 7 October, and the retail offer runs 12 to 19 October. Including the over-allotment (if they get there), the raise could reach $7.7 billion, making it Australia's second-largest IPO after the 1997 Telstra float.
Founders' shares are escrowed in the IPO, with 10 per cent released after one year and 39.9 per cent after two. Firmus has more than 900MW of contracted capacity, of which 46MW is operating today across its Melbourne and Singapore sites.
Firmus has already locked in US$3 billion (A$4.2 billion) of cornerstone support from Nvidia, Blackstone, Coatue and Jane Street. Currently, the cap table comprises Coatue (8.4 per cent), Nvidia (7.2 per cent) and Blackstone (6.7 per cent) as existing shareholders, alongside co-founders Oliver Curtis (13.3 per cent), Nick Curtis (5.6 per cent) and Tim Rosenfield (5.4 per cent). (The Australian)
It incurred a US$68.2 million loss last financial year and forecasts a US$77 million loss for the first half of FY27. (The Australian) Nvidia has backed several of its rounds and is lined up as anchor tenant for the full 23MW at Firmus' Wesley Vale site in Tasmania. (Capital Brief)
🌏 Airwallex co-founder and CEO Jack Zhang has hit back at Ramp investors Keith Rabois and Joe Lonsdale, calling Rabois' claims “unhinged conspiratorial rants”, after a US congressional committee urged Treasury to review Airwallex’s company's China links. (Capital Brief)
House Select Committee on the CCP chair John Moolenaar wrote to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent asking for an assessment, saying Airwallex “presents significant national security risk”. The letter cites at least 712 mainland China-based staff and about US$130 billion in annualised volume for US firms, but concedes the committee has not concluded Airwallex acted unlawfully.
Ramp investors Keith Rabois and Joe Lonsdale shared the letter on X. Zhang replied that the allegations originated with investors in a direct competitor, noting that Ramp was valued at US$44 billion three months ago, compared with Airwallex's US$11 billion, and then went after Rabois directly.
Zhang cited a Coalfire security audit, and former US Attorney General Bill Barr has written to Moolenaar as an adviser to Airwallex. The company has published its response on its blog.
🏛️ 😬 NSW innovation minister Anoulack Chanthivong overruled Investment NSW's recommendation to fund Spark Festival, cutting a $40,000 grant to nothing. (Startup Daily)
Chanthivong handwrote “$0” on a brief recommending the grant for Spark events in regional NSW and Western Sydney. Investment NSW then returned to the minister's office regarding “reputational risks from the startup ecosystem” and was told the minister was “happy to stick with the original decision”. It is Spark's third straight year without state funding, and the documents surfaced through an FOI request by Spark.
Shadow Innovation Minister Jacqui Munro called the funding for the Spark festival “a no-brainer” and pledged to fund it if the Coalition wins the March 2027 NSW election.
🏛️ Employment Hero has proposed a sovereign frontier AI lab with a stake for every Australian, one of several local tech submissions to the parliamentary inquiry into AI. (Submission 249, Capital Brief)
In the EH submission, the government would seed the lab, recruit its founding team through a global talent competition and provide early compute and hosting, while the lab operates independently. Each Australian's stake would sit in super-linked accounts, with returns paid as dividends, super contributions or tax credits, and creators who supply training data could receive extra shares or royalties.
The Tech Council of Australia tabled 34 recommendations in its submission. Atlassian, SEEK, Airwallex and FinTech Australia also made submissions.
The Tech Council's submission, which I’ve abbreviated, included the following;
Australia should focus on developing AI, particularly in the middleware and application layers, leveraging local expertise to compete globally.
Instead of competing with frontier models like ChatGPT, Australia should develop domain-specific models using local data in sectors such as defence, health, agriculture, and resources.
To address the capital gap, the government should improve tax, R&D, VC, and procurement policies to support AI startups.
Key priorities include opening national datasets, treating data centres as essential infrastructure, and resolving copyright issues for AI training.
With only 5% of SMEs using AI and low public trust, national efforts are needed to improve AI literacy and adoption, with the government leading by example.
AI is more likely to assist workers than replace them, highlighting the need for skilled AI engineers and supportive migration policies.
Regulation should be risk-based, co-designed with industry, and aligned with international standards, avoiding blanket bans.
Finally, AI's dual role as a cyber threat and defence tool underscores the importance of investing in sovereign security capabilities for both safety and export opportunities.
🌱 About 80 climate tech founders, manufacturers and investors met Industry Minister Tim Ayres and Energy Minister Chris Bowen at a Climate Salad summit at Parliament House, asking for $100 million from the Net Zero Fund for early-stage deep tech. (Capital Brief)
They also want procurement mandates for low-carbon technologies, support for first-of-a-kind projects, and incentives to attract more institutional capital into NRF priority sectors, warning that Relectrify, Earthodic, and v2food have already moved or closed their local manufacturing.
The group points to an onshore base that includes startups like Hysata, Sicona, MGA Thermal, SunDrive, 5B, MCi Carbon, and Samsara Eco, which it says supports more than 500 manufacturing jobs and has attracted $8 billion in private investment.
If you’re ready to make the bet on expanding to global markets as your next growth lever, you’re probably starting to map out what go-to-market, operations or compliance will look like as you tackle the US or European markets.
This checklist from Vanta is a guide on how to validate demand, build a repeatable GTM engine and meet global compliance requirements early, so you can build trust with customers and unlock new deals from day one.
Use it to spot gaps, reduce risk and nail your expansion to global markets.
⚡ Startup Retro ⚡
Heidi raises US$340M ($100M Equity, $240M debt) to bring AI to healthcare and hospitals
Founders: Dr Thomas Kelly, Yu Liu, Waleed Mussa
Heidi, the Melbourne clinical AI scribe that grew from about US$1 million to US$50 million in annual recurring revenue in two years, has raised US$340 million (A$475 million) at a US$900 million (A$1.26 billion) post-money valuation.
The package combines a US$100 million (A$140 million) Series C led by Blackbird, with existing investors Phoenix Court, Point72 Private Investments, Glitch Capital and Headline following on, and a US$240 million (A$335 million) growth investment led by General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund. That second tranche can only be spent on sales and marketing, with revenue from the customers it wins flowing back to General Catalyst with interest, so it works more like debt than equity.
Founded as Oscer in 2019 and renamed in 2021, Heidi says it has now supported more than 175 million patient visits across 190 countries and 110 languages, up from 73 million at its Series B in October 2025, and handles around 2.8 million patient interactions a week. It is the sole supplier to NHS England Midlands and counts Beth Israel Lahey Health among its US customers.
Its AI medical scribe listens to a consultation, in person or via telehealth, through a phone, desktop app, browser extension, or its own clip-on microphone, and transcribes the conversation without retaining the audio.
It turns the transcript into a draft note using the clinician's chosen template from a library of more than 200 specialty templates and, from the same session, can produce referral letters, patient handouts, suggested billing codes, and follow-up tasks for the clinician to review and sign off on.
In clinics, it is largely self-serve, with a free tier and paid plans, and notes are usually copied or pushed into practice software such as Best Practice, where Heidi says rollouts have cut documentation time per consult by about 51 per cent. In hospitals, it runs as a panel within Epic, pulling in patient details and writing draft notes back into the record across emergency departments, wards, outpatient clinics, and same-day emergency care, with administrators controlling staged rollouts.
The funds will go into supervised clinical AI agents, clinical evidence, quality management systems and regulatory submissions, as Heidi moves from documenting care to helping clinicians act on it. The lion's share of the new funding will be spent in new markets such as France and Germany. Heidi has now raised US$436.6 million in total.
Due Diligence: Business Wire, Startup Daily, Forbes Australia, Capital Brief
Amber raises $78.5 million Series E to take home battery automation to Europe
Founders: Chris Thompson, Dan Adams
Amber, the Melbourne platform that automatically runs home batteries and EVs against wholesale electricity prices, has raised a $78.5 million (€49 million) Series E, almost double the round it set out to raise. Chris Thompson and Dan Adams founded the company in 2017 and run it as co-CEOs.
The round was led by Morgan Stanley Investment Management's 1GT private climate equity strategy, with E.ON, ETF Partners and Innovation Victoria also participating. Amber's previous raise was $45 million in June 2025, led by ETF Partners.
Amber says it manages more than half of all automated home batteries in Australia. The product helps its customers with solar and home battery setups to ensure they use their own power as effectively as possible, and sell back into the grid at opportune times when it needs it.
Its technology already powers E.ON Next's Next Optimise product in the UK, launched in March, and the new money goes into product development, hiring, and European expansion beyond the UK, as well as vehicle-to-grid, for which it received a $13.6 million ARENA grant in June.
Due Diligence: Business Wire, Startup Daily, RenewEconomy
HEO raises $37M Series B to photograph other satellites in orbit
Founders: Dr Will Crowe, Dr Hiranya Jayakody
HEO, the Sydney company that photographs satellites using sensors carried on other satellites, has raised US$25 million (A$37 million) in a Series B.
Beaten Zone led the round, with the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation putting in $10 million. Dcode Capital and Wunala Capital also joined, alongside existing investors Airtree and Salus.
HEO is a UNSW Founders spinout that went through Y Combinator in 2021. It is about to enter the second year of a five-year contract worth more than US$100 million with its largest customer, which it hasn't named, and its customers include Defence, Japan's Ministry of Defense and the US National Reconnaissance Office. Revenue has tripled each year since its A$12 million Series A in 2023.
The raise funds more sensors, its first two launches into geostationary orbit from late 2026, and growth of its product and technology team from 36 to 85 by 2028.
Due Diligence: Startup Daily, Forbes Australia, Payload, Space & Defense
Kinoxis Therapeutics raises $6.75 million to take its dementia agitation drug through Phase 2
Founders: Hugh Alsop, Michael Bowen
Kinoxis Therapeutics, a Melbourne-based University of Sydney spinout developing treatments for agitation associated with dementia and for pain, has raised $6.75 million. A $2.5 million CUREator+ grant, which will fund its second drug candidate KNX101, takes the total to $9.25 million.
Main Sequence put in $5 million as a new investor, with the balance from existing shareholders. The cap table also includes Uniseed, UniSuper, the University of Sydney, Stoic VC, Avicella Capital, and Main Sequence's Elaine Stead, who joins the board.
The Phase 2 CARES-X trial of lead candidate KNX100 has passed 50 per cent recruitment, with results due in mid-2027. IND-enabling toxicology work on KNX101 starts before the end of 2026. Kinoxis previously raised a $14.5 million Series B in 2024 and signed a licence deal with Boehringer Ingelheim in 2023 worth up to US$181 million.
Due Diligence: Kinoxis, Startup Daily
OpenDebt raises $2M pre-seed to build AI-powered debt recovery
Founders: Norman Yan, Jonas Tischer
OpenDebt, a Sydney fintech that uses AI-powered voice and digital agents to recover debts, has raised a $2 million pre-seed round. Co-founder and CEO Norman Yan is a former Westpac data and AI executive, and started the company about a year ago with CTO Jonas Tischer.
It targets high-volume, low-value debts such as buy-now, pay-later, utilities, and credit cards, which collectors often write off because they cost too much to chase by hand. It is already live with a national collection agency and has signed several ASX-listed customers.
Blackbird led the round with Antler also investing. The money will go towards growing the team and exploring partnerships in the US.
Due Diligence: Startup Daily, Business News Australia, insideARM
Medcast raises $5.4M for AI search engine for clinicians
Founders: Dr Stephen Barnett, Justin Lewis
Medcast, the Sydney clinician education company founded in 2013 by GP Dr Stephen Barnett, has raised $5.4 million in a round led by GP practice software maker Best Practice Software, which is 49 per cent owned by Sonic Healthcare. The rest came from private investors, and Medcast is planning a Series A in 2027.
The money goes into MedLuma, Medcast's AI search engine for clinicians, which answers clinical and MBS questions from validated Australian guidelines while logging continuing professional development.
The product will be built into Best Practice's software from mid- to late October, and Best Practice CTO Jessica White will join Medcast's board.
Due Diligence: AFR, Health Services Daily, Tech Business News
💸 New Fund, Who Dis? 💸
💰 Significant Ventures, the Hindmarsh family's Canberra tech investment firm, is raising a $50 million Fund IV and has $18 million committed so far. (AFR)
Commitments include the family of the late Terry Snow, CDC Data Centres founder Greg Boorer, and the founders of Intelledox (Michelle Melbourne and Phil Williamson) and Instaclustr (Peter Lilley and Doug Stuart).
It is the firm's largest fund yet and will back early-stage applied tech such as hardware and robotics. Fund III launched in 2020 at $38 million, including a co-investment trust, and is fully invested. Earlier funds backed Instaclustr, which was sold to NetApp for $500 million in 2022, and Liquid Instruments, now valued at more than $400 million.
🔬 Main Sequence is targeting $400 million for Fund IV, and CSIRO has quadrupled its backing of the firm's Atmosphere pre-seed fund to $20 million. (Forbes Australia, Capital Brief)
Fund IV has $75 million of government capital pre-committed and aims to close by the end of 2026. Fund III raised $450 million against a $300 million target in 2023.
CSIRO's commitment to Atmosphere lifts from $5 million in Fund III to $20 million in Fund IV. Led by Grace Bird, Atmosphere invests around $500,000 at the point where there may be little more than promising research.
It has backed 11 companies in two years, and three have moved into Main Sequence's core funds, including quantum sensing startup Deteqt and cyber deception startup Liarbird.
🇺🇸 Airtree is offering ANZ founders in San Francisco a US$250,000 (about A$350,000) uncapped SAFE through its Frontier Residency. (Startup Daily)
It is open to founders already in the US with ties to Australia or New Zealand, including those who are pre-idea or without a co-founder, and comes with AI and cloud credits. There is no closing date. Apply here.
🚀 Wins 🚀
🏦 Constantinople has completed its first full bank migration, moving Queensland mutual MoveBank's entire operation onto its platform. (Capital Brief, FinTech Futures)
Co-founded in 2022 by former Westpac executives Dianne Challenor and Macgregor Duncan, Constantinople has raised $140 million. It now has four banks on its platform, and aims to have 10 by the end of the year, and expects to sign its first international client, a mid-market UK bank, by the end of the month.
The 18-month project migrated everything from MoveBank's customer app to its regulatory reporting and compliance, and the team is now working to reduce future migrations to as little as 6 months.
Co-CEO Macgregor Duncan: “What we did with Move was like Tesla's first Roadster: you prove you can build the car by hand, then you build the factory to mass-produce it.”
🧬 Seven dementia startups have shared $15.6 million in the latest round of CUREator+ grants. (Startup Daily)
Kinoxis (Melbourne, $2.5 million), TasTest (Tasmania, $2.5 million), Synerva Therapeutics (Victoria, $2.49 million), Quinthera (Queensland, $2.43 million), CodeBreakers (WA, $2.13 million), Healthily (Victoria, $1.93 million, AI voice detection of cognitive decline) and Intracellica Bio (Queensland, $1.61 million).
CUREator+ is run by Brandon BioCatalyst in partnership with ANDHealth and is funded by the Medical Research Future Fund. This is the second round of its dementia and cognitive decline program.
🎓 UNSW Founders has wrapped the 26th Peter Farrell Cup, with ten student-led teams pitching at the Roundhouse for a $90,000 equity-free prize pool. (UNSW Founders)
Billed as the biggest student pitch night in NSW, the competition has previously featured Yellowbox (2013) and Harrison.ai (2018). Teams keep 100 per cent of their equity and IP, and this year's finalists spanned medtech, AI infrastructure, spatial computing and accessibility. Winners include:
OsseoThread (Dr Max John Lloyd, Dr Vedran Lovric and Prof William Robert Walsh) won $15,000 across the Trailblazer and Dean of Medicine & Health awards for a biomaterial for ACL reconstruction and tendon-to-bone fixation that promotes bone healing at the implant site without changing existing surgical techniques.
Prockets (Guntas Sandhu, Charlotte Rogers, Kavin Maran, Chandara Oeng and Felix Matthews) won $15,000 in the Next Big Thing and Dean of Engineering awards for a modular, low-cost lower-limb prosthetic system designed to broaden access to mobility for people with limb loss.
Civly (Yash Mittal and Hassaan Shamshiri) took second place in the general award and $4,000 for generative software that turns design briefs into coordinated, compliant 3D BIM models, automating compliance and structural checks for architects.
The full list of winners is here.
🤑 Aussie Raisins 🤑
🤖 Future Secure AI, the Australian-founded, Texas-headquartered developer of AI agents for corporate back-office work, is raising US$75 million to US$85 million in convertible notes that convert at a maximum US$1.3 billion (A$1.8 billion) valuation when it lists on the ASX, expected as early as the second half of 2027. (AFR)
AirTrunk founder Robin Khuda, Square Peg, Yarra Capital Management, Firetrail and existing investor Macquarie Asset Management have led the round, which JPMorgan and Macquarie Capital are arranging. Morgans' high-net-worth clients have also invested.
Co-founders Mehrdad Baghai (ex-McKinsey) and Michael Hunter (ex-Macquarie) expect annual recurring revenue to pass US$100 million by Christmas, up from US$17 million at the end of 2025, and have grown headcount from 20 to more than 500 in 18 months.
🩺 Akeeko Medical, the Melbourne medtech developing a way to insert kidney-stone stents under local anaesthetic rather than in an operating theatre, is raising $8 million at a $30 million pre-money valuation, led by Morgans and backed by veteran stockbroker Hugh Robertson. (AFR)
Co-founded by urologist Associate Professor Joseph Ischia and engineer Don Fry, and previously known as JiffyStent. It hopes to cut treatment from more than two days to two hours.
The money will go toward TGA and FDA clearances, both expected in the second quarter of 2027. Akeeko forecasts $1.6 million in revenue in 2027, rising to $25.1 million in 2030.
💰 M&A 💰
✈️ Catch Group co-founders Gabby and Hezi Leibovich are selling their stake in Adam Schwab's Luxury Escapes to Ellerston Capital, in a deal valuing the travel platform at $525 million. (AFR)
Ellerston is buying around 12 per cent of the company's existing shares, securing a board seat, and expects to more than double its money, plus a 5 per cent dividend yield, before exiting in two to three years. The price is 6.4 times budgeted earnings of $81 million.
Schwab founded Luxury Escapes in 2013. It has no debt and forecasts $1.3 billion in transactions and $269 million in revenue this financial year.
🔎 People Moves 🔍️
👤 Kate Farr has been confirmed as NSW's permanent Director of Innovation and Collaboration in the Premier's Department, after acting in the role since April. (InnovationAus)
She is responsible for delivering the state's 10-year Innovation Blueprint. “Helping to implement NSW's Innovation Blueprint 2035 during the AI revolution is sure to be a pinnacle of my career,” she said on LinkedIn.
📆 Notice Board 📆
⏰ Treasury consultations on the startup CGT concession, R&D Tax Incentive and ESVCLP thresholds close this Monday, 28 September.
Innovative Business CGT Concession: a 50 per cent discount for eligible startup shares, a 15-year eligibility window, a three-year minimum hold and no lifetime cap.
R&D Tax Incentive: from 1 July 2028, the refundable threshold lifts from $20 million to $50 million, with refunds generally limited to companies under 10 years old.
Venture capital schemes: from 1 July 2027, the ESVCLP maximum fund size increases from $200 million to $270 million, and the investee asset cap increases from $50 million to $80 million, with no indexation.
📋 Startup Muster's 2026 survey has been extended to 5 October, and this is the final extension.
Early signals: female founders are at their highest level since the first survey in 2013; more founders are in financial distress; median runway and fundraising success rates are down; and Anthropic has overtaken OpenAI as the leading AI provider for Australian startups.
The full report is due in November. Take the survey here.
🌊 West Tech Pitch expressions of interest close 12 October, ahead of West Tech Fest from 7 to 11 December across Perth, Fremantle and Wadjemup.
Open to startups under five years old that have raised less than $5 million and have at least an MVP. Founders must pitch in person on 8 December to Bill Tai and a panel of local and global investors. Apply here.
Overnight Success readers get 10 per cent off early bird and general admission tickets to West Tech Main with the code OVERNIGHT. Get tickets here.
🚀 Startmate Winter '26 Demo Day is on Tuesday 20 October at The Timber Yard, Port Melbourne.
This demo day will see 16 companies pitching. Doors open at 6 pm, and pitches start at 6:30 pm. I’ll cya there! Get tickets here.
🎓 Curtin Accelerate 2027 applications close at 7 am on Monday 2 November.
A free 12-week in-person program in Perth, with at least $500,000 of investment from Melt Ventures through an embedded investment process, $5,000 equity-free per venture and up to $25,000 in AWS credits. At least one team member needs a Curtin connection, such as an alumnus, staff member, student, or researcher. Apply here.
🧠 KaaS (Knowledge as a Service)
Dom is probably one of the most prolific founders in Australia, and this episode of Imperfect Company unveiled parts of his story I’ve never heard before. What impressed me most about Dom was his unwavering belief that he can always build more, do more, and make things better. This podcast spans early internet companies, acquisitions that went poorly and then ones that went well and building a user interface that set the standard for fintech applications globally.
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‘Til next time,
👋 Will