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. 🚀
Quick announcement: I recently joined venture firm, Glitch Capital, Australia’s first founders fund. The fund partners and LPs have generated $10B+ in value through their startups, and started the fund around the idea of helping the next generation of founders navigate the imperfect journey of building a global business.
This week, I’m so excited to announce Imperfect Company, the content platform where we share insights on scaling to $100M+ in revenue. You can read more about the strategy here or subscribe below. Also, check out the podcast hosted by unicorn founders Leigh Jasper and Sam Kroonenburg. Episode one is here.
👀 Headlines 👀
🏦 Labour’s Capital Gains Tax Reforms, specifically the arrangements for innovative startups, remain open for submission until July 10 (this coming Friday), and they’re looking for answers to the questions below. You can find the consultation paper in full here:
Does the concession help attract investment to innovative startups?
Do the 10-year age limit and $50 million turnover cap target the right businesses?
What conditions should apply to extend the age limit to 15 years for sectors that take longer to commercialise (such as biotech, medtech, or deep tech)?
Are the innovation criteria appropriate?
Is the 5-year holding period appropriate for long-term investment?
Is the $10 million lifetime cap set at the right level?
Do the transition rules for shares issued before June 30 2027, work well?
If you're not up for doing a submission personally, Allegra Spender, the Member for Wentworth and now the co-founder of Australia’s newest party, Community Strong Australia, is seeking additional insights from Founders and Startup Employees for a submission on the CGT reforms. You can fill in her 5-question survey here. (Allegra Spender LinkedIn Post)
🏛️ LaunchVic has been folded into Breakthrough Victoria, ending a decade-long run, and the merged entity was launched as Innovation Victoria on July 1. The Victorian government is pitching it as a single “front door" for founders, researchers and investors.
Rod Bristow (former Breakthrough Victoria) has stepped into the CEO role at Innovation Victoria. Leigh Jasper has left as LaunchVic chair, with Payapps cofounder Geoff Tarrant stepping up to chair the new board and Flexicar cofounder Monique Conheady as deputy chair.
Victoria is now home to 4,400+ startups valued at $139 billion, with Melbourne ranked third globally for startup creation, ahead of Sydney, Singapore and Berlin, apparently. LaunchVic is credited with growing the number of local startups nearly 20-fold.
🦈 Ghost Shark, Anduril's Australian-developed, advanced, extra-large autonomous underwater vehicle (XL-AUV), has been added as a "new export priority" under the Australian Defence Strategic Sales Office, as the government looks to turn its investment into an export earner. (Innovation Aus)
Announced by Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy alongside the 2026 National Defence Industry Strategy, the extra-large autonomous undersea vehicle is backed by a $1.7 billion production contract, is being built at Anduril's first Australian facility in Sydney, and already supports work across 42 local suppliers with around 1,000 jobs expected.
🏛️ Legislation preventing gambling and tobacco companies from claiming the Research and Development Tax Incentive has passed Parliament, more than 18 months after Treasurer Jim Chalmers flagged the crackdown. (Innovation Aus)
The move follows 2024 transparency data showing TabCorp claimed almost $40 million in R&D expenditure in 2021-22, outpacing the likes of WiseTech and Gilmour Space, with Aristocrat claiming over $22 million; the change applies from July and saves around $20 million, part of broader RDTI reforms expected to save $650 million over five years.
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 ⚡
MAKO nabs $28M Series A to slap shark skin on planes for better aerodynamics and fuel efficiency
Founder: Henry Bilinsky
Sydney-based aerospace startup MAKO has landed $28 million in Series A funding to commercialise Flightfilm, an adhesive coating that mimics the microscopic texture of shark skin to cut aircraft drag. Climate tech investor Virescent Ventures led the round, with IAGi Ventures, Grok Ventures, Skip Capital, IP Group, Zero Infinity Partners and TreeArc chipping in.
Flightfilm delivers fuel savings of approximately 4% per plane, with installation during standard maintenance cycles and no airframe modifications required. The technology mitigates skin-friction drag at the surface, enhancing aerodynamic performance without requiring redesigns of propulsion systems or structural components.
The microstructured surface is precision-engineered for each aircraft type, with microstructures tailored to local airflow conditions, and computational fluid dynamics is used to map exactly where the film should and shouldn't be applied. It's manufactured using a proprietary Direct Contactless Microfabrication process (effectively "printed with light"), finished with aviation-grade adhesive, and installed during scheduled maintenance using proven aviation decal techniques, with zero additional downtime.
The company, formerly known as MicroTau, previously raised a $5.6 million in seed funding in 2022 and earlier this year, in March, secured a $3 million Industry Growth Program grant, just before the government gutted the program and paused new applications.
MAKO is working with Delta Air Lines via the carrier's Sustainable Skies Lab and has flight-tested with the US Air Force on a C-130J Super Hercules.
The fresh capital funds manufacturing expansion, commercial and defence pre-orders, and certification across Australia, Europe and the US. "We're flight-proven, manufacturing-ready, and have commercial and defence customers lined up," said CEO Henry Bilinsky.
Due Diligence: SmartCompany, Australian Manufacturing
Southern Launch raises $25M to scale Australia's spaceport ambitions
Founder: Lloyd Damp
Southern Launch, the company behind Australia's first commercial rocket launch and the world's first commercial spacecraft re-entry, has closed a $25 million Series A to expand its spaceport infrastructure, grow its workforce, and accelerate launch, re-entry and range services.
National security-focused Brindabella and Company led the round, which included a $10 million cheque from the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation, Australia's sovereign manufacturing investor. Former Macquarie Group chiefs Nicholas Moore and Alex Harvey also participated, alongside Coupland Asset Management.
Southern Launch operates spaceports and provides launch-related services to space mission customers. Its model rests on owning and operating physical range assets in South Australia, the Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex and Koonibba Test Range, and monetising access to them.
Lloyd Damp founded Southern Launch in 2017. Prior to this, he spent over 12 years working as an aerospace engineer for the Australian Government's Defence Science and Technology Group
Revenue comes from 4 services. Orbital launch; providing launch trajectories to orbit (polar, sun-synchronous and other inclinations) from Whalers Way. Sub-orbital missions; hosting launch-vehicle development testing, microgravity experiments, and hypersonic flight from its two spaceports. Orbital re-entries — an end-to-end service bringing spacecraft capsules back to Earth, either overland to Koonibba or overwater. This has become a clear commercial strength: they cite themselves as leading the world for orbital re-entries after welcoming a fourth Varda capsule, and recently signed a US company, SpaceWorks, for multiple orbital re-entries to the Koonibba Test Range. Range services, renting out over 41,000 square kilometres of secure, uninhabited land for technology testing, with regulatory approvals and range management bundled in.
The South Australia-based company has been busy since its 2020 debut launch. It pulled off the world's first commercial spacecraft re-entry at its Koonibba Test Range in February 2025, has since completed three more, and supported NASA's Artemis II lunar mission earlier this year.
The fresh funding will help the company position Australia as a global launch-and-re-entry hub in a trillion-dollar space economy, while delivering jobs to regional communities.
Due Diligence: AFR, Lot Fourteen Announcement, Business News Australia
Emesent raises $15M equity, $10M debt for mine mapping technology
Founder: Stefan Hrabar and Farid Kendoul
Brisbane's Emesent, a drone-mapping scaleup spun out of Australia's CSIRO in 2018, has raised $15 million to expand its underground autonomous mapping business. The round also includes an additional $10 million venture debt facility, marking the first such deal from the country's National Reconstruction Fund.
The $15 million came via a SAFE note rather than a priced round; the company pointedly declined to call it a Series B. Backers include existing investor Main Sequence, New York's Orion Resource Partners, Queensland's QIC, and super funds NGS and Hostplus. It follows a $32 million Series A in 2022.
Emesent's flagship product, Hovermap, uses LiDAR to build 3D maps of hazardous, GPS-denied environments like mine shafts. It's been deployed across 200-plus mine sites globally, with clients including Rio Tinto, BHP and Glencore, and extends into defence, infrastructure and construction.
Emesent sells 3D spatial capture as an integrated hardware-plus-software ecosystem, layering recurring revenue onto device sales. Customers buy the scanning hardware (GX1, Hovermap) and then operate within Emesent's software stack
The government debt will fund batch manufacturing at a facility west of Brisbane and development of Emesent's Cortex AI platform for third-party hardware. Emesent employs 109 people and plans to add 21 roles with the fresh funding.
Due Diligence: Startup Daily, SmartCompany, Forbes
Fluent raises $2M Pre-Seed for a brain-computer interface to help speech-impaired people communicate
Founders: Dr Tim Mahoney & Dr Dean Freestone.
Fluent, a brain-computer interface startup spun out of the University of Melbourne, has raised $2 million to build a device that translates silent thoughts into speech, without the invasive skull surgery that rivals like Neuralink require.
Backers include Melbourne University's Genesis Pre-Seed Fund, Pacific Channel, Galileo Ventures, New York's Jumpspace Ventures and London's Founders Factory. The target users are people losing speech to motor neurone disease and multiple sclerosis. Clinical trials are slated for later this year.
Fluent's interface sits under the scalp but outside the skull, resting above the motor cortex to read the neural signals that control speech muscles. Cofounder and biomedical engineer Dr Tim Mahoney likens the signals to QR codes: every attempted mouth and jaw movement produces a distinct pattern that the device captures and machine learning converts to text or audio. He compares the implant's risk profile to that of a routine cochlear implant, arguing that it could reach a far broader population than deep brain implants can.
The approach comes from Mahoney's PhD, which showed signal quality outside the skull rivals that of electrodes placed inside it. Preliminary testing at St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, later paired with a Japanese dataset, hit 96% accuracy, isolating the right phrase from 128 options.
Due Diligence: Startup Daily, SmartCompany, Forbes
🚀 Wins 🚀
🔋 Sicona Battery Technologies has won $45 million in grant funding from ARENA's Battery Breakthrough Initiative to build its first commercial-scale manufacturing facility in Wollongong. (Startup Daily, ARENA Announcement)
The scaleup, founded in 2019 by Christiaan Jordaan and Andrew Minett, produces silicon-carbon anode material that lifts lithium-ion battery performance for EVs by over 20% and charging speeds by more than 40%, and will manufacture up to 230 tonnes annually at BlueScope's Port Kembla precinct.
💄 Wrinkles Schminkles has been acquired by Avenir Collective (formerly Olsam Group) in an undisclosed eight-figure deal, capping a run that took the beauty brand from a Shark Tank rejection in 2018 to $20 million in annual revenue.
Founded in 2014 by former management consultant Gabrielle Requena with an $80,000 investment, the brand sells overnight anti-ageing patches, grew 66% over the past financial year, and generates three-quarters of its revenue direct-to-consumer with the US as its biggest market.
🟢 GreenPay has won $50K by winning the Hatch: Taronga Accelerator Program pitch prize, backed by a judging panel including Trevor Long, Imche Veiga, Katerina Kimmorley and Charlie Ill. (LinkedIn)
Founded by Glenn Bartlett and Maddi Ingham, the Australian-owned payments company donates 50% of profits to conservation projects, turning everyday business transactions into a funding source for Australian nature.
Plante took the People's Choice Award, and Bruny Island SeaFarms won the LG Life's Good Award.
The 2026 Proptech of the Year hosted by Proptech Australia this week, drawing nearly 300 industry leaders, entrepreneurs and sponsors.
Now in their sixth year, the awards presented 34 awards plus two Highly Commended certificates across 13 functional categories, with finalists chosen by a panel of senior industry judges. The full list of the winners can be found here, but below are the major award winners.
Asseti: the night's biggest winner with four awards, including Scale-Up Proptech of the Year and Commercial Proptech of the Year. It's an AI-powered asset condition-monitoring platform that uses drone imagery and digital replicas.
Dynamic Methods was named Established Proptech of the Year, plus two divisional wins for its Inspect Live and Forms Live products. Its platforms are used by more than 8,500 agencies and 50,000 professionals across Australia.
Settld won Startup Proptech of the Year, a settlement management platform that also won the Off the Plan category.
Vinny won the Residential Proptech of the Year award for their AI-powered property management platform.
Build HQ was named Proptech to Watch and won the Construction category.
💰 New Fund, Who’s This? 💰
🧑⚕ Medical Angels, a doctor-led syndicate that has been running since 2017, is graduating to its first institutional fund, Medical Angels Venture Fund I, targeting $40 million to back healthtech that generalist VCs overlook.
Co-founded by emergency physician Dr Bi Mian and Dr Amandeep Hansra, the fund channels clinician capital into companies focused on protecting Australia's universal model of care against a US-style multi-tiered system.
The syndicate has already deployed $18 million across 30+ healthtech companies over nine years, with portfolio names including Smileyscope, Coviu, and Clean Slate Clinic. Medical Angels has been the second-biggest backer of Australian healthtech since 2020 by number of deals, with 32 deals, ahead of UNSW Founders (28) and Blackbird Ventures (16), per Clinical Advisors data.
Investment criteria rest on three questions: does the product solve a real clinical pain point, who pays for it, and does it help the whole health system?
The fund will be structured as an ESVCLP and target a 20–25% net-of-fees return. 50 investors committing close to $4 million. Michael Batko, former CEO of Startmate, has joined Medical Angels as Venture Partner (Startup Daily)
📆 Notice Board 📆
🌍 Google for Startups Accelerator is now for all of ANZ, having opened applications to New Zealand AI and ML startups for the first time.
The equity-free 10-week program includes a Sydney-based bootcamp for around 10 to 15 seed-to-Series A companies. Application closes July 19. More information here.
🎓 The Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship's Impact Catalyst is a 10-day hybrid impact investing program (two 5-day online sprints plus in-person events, with 3 months of follow-on mentoring) led by Dan Madhavan of Ecotone Ventures.
It teaches the frameworks, judgment, and networks to invest for measurable social and environmental impact alongside financial return, covering impact measurement, theory of change, blended finance and risk-return-impact portfolio construction.
The program is for sophisticated and angel investors, family office managers, emerging/future fund managers, corporate venturing and strategy teams, foundation and philanthropic leaders, and operators moving into investing.
The program kicks off on August 5. More information here!
🧠 KaaS (Knowledge as a Service)
Will’s Pick: Two Unicorn Founders, Two New AI Startups: Why They Couldn't Stay Retired by Imperfect Company (YouTube)
I’m very biased, but considering I was in the live recording, I have listened several times since, and am still picking up new insights. I wanted to share this podcast again.
Leigh and Sam have both built and exited unicorns with Aconex and A Cloud Guru, and started their journeys at wildly different times. Now, they’re building in the era of AI with Cuttable and Firmable. Some things are very different, but some insights stayed true through to the AI era, and they’re both a wealth of knowledge.
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‘Til next time,
👋 Will