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. 🚀
Sponsor shoutout!
Super pleased to be working with Carta for the next few months. I’m teaming up with the Carta team on Wednesday, the 18th (the second morning of Southstart), to host a coffee catch-up between investors and founders. Register here! This week, Carta is inviting you to a great conversation including leaders from Blackbird, Fleet Space, KPMG and G+T.
👀 Headlines 👀
🎨 Canva's average gender pay gap more than doubled to 27.1% in 2024-25, up from 12.7% the prior year, driven largely by its $US1.6 billion secondary share sale in early 2024. (AFR)
Two-thirds of the employees who participated in the share sale were men, many of whom joined Canva in technical roles early on and had accumulated significant equity over time.
Excluding share sales, Canva's gender pay gap was stable at 11.7% across both years, suggesting the gap is primarily driven by who held the most stock rather than by base pay inequity. Canva's chief people officer, Jennie Rogerson, attributed the gap to the under-representation of women in highly paid technical roles and longer tenure among male employees who accumulated more equity.
The figures, published by the Government's Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), allow you to search ABNs directly to find gender pay gaps at specific companies. Here are a few I discovered:
Canva: The workforce is 38% women, with the average remuneration at $275,000 and a pay gap of 27.1%.
Employment Hero: The workforce is 51% women, with an average remuneration of $160,000 and a pay gap of 20.7%.
Airwallex: The workforce is 32% women, with an average remuneration of $226,000 and a pay gap of 14.7%.
Culture Amp: The workforce is 47% women, with an average remuneration of $196,000 and a pay gap of 6.4%.
Eucalyptus: The workforce is 54% women, with an average remuneration of $229,000 and a pay gap of 31.7%.
💽 Australia’s AI infrastructure rollout just got more certain with Firmus Technologies signing a deal worth $660 million annually with an unnamed global tech giant to deploy 18,400 Nvidia chips at a Melbourne facility. (AFR, Innovation Aus)
The deal is part of Project Southgate, a multi-year partnership with Nvidia and CDC Data Centres to build AI factories across Australia, with total costs expected to reach $73.3 billion by 2028.
Firmus claims its proprietary HyperCube liquid immersion cooling technology uses 30% less energy and 99% less water than traditional data centre competitors.
While Firmus declined to name the customer, rumours suggest it could be Meta. The contract is critical to Firmus meeting the terms of a $14 billion loan from private equity giant Blackstone, which is bankrolling the company's expansion.
Firmus was founded in 2019 by cousins Tim Rosenfield and Oliver Curtis, originally as a cooling-technology startup focused on crypto-mining chips, before pivoting to AI infrastructure in 2023.
The company is currently valued at around $6 billion following two funding rounds that raised more than $830 million last year, and is considered one of the hottest ASX listing prospects of 2026.
👀💰 Does where your VC’s money comes from matter? Capital Brief has published an investigation into Marbruck Investments, one of Australia's most active but deliberately low-profile VC firms, revealing deep ties to an online casino network generating more than €154 million in annual revenue.
The Sydney-based fund has backed 57 startups globally since 2013, including unicorn SafetyCulture and Eucalyptus. They also led the Series A into Veyor, one of the startups that I’ve covered below in the Startup Retro.
The consensus is that founders backed by Marbruck are under no illusions about where the money comes from and find the team valuable, hence happy to work with them.
While some founders may have moral concerns about accepting this capital, it might actually be healthy for the ecosystem. A few weeks ago, we saw that the Australian Government is seeking proposals to co-invest in local defence technology and startups, with half a billion dollars available for co-investment. The issue is that many VCs can't participate in this program because their investment mandates prohibit investments in gambling, defence, and alcohol companies.
By our reckoning, there are only a handful of investment firms that can actually lodge proposals for this defence initiative, such as Salus Ventures, Beaten Zone and Main Sequence. So perhaps having a VC with unique mandates, background, and LP stacks, we’ll be able to see and fund more differentiated startups across Australia.
🚀 “That’s not a knife” is the designation of the Australian-made 3D printed Hypersonix Launch Systems rocket, which launched its DART AE missile at Mach 8 from Virginia, aboard Rocket Lab's HASTE vehicle. (New Atlas)
The DART AE is the world's first hypersonic aircraft built entirely from 3D-printed high-temperature alloys, powered by a green hydrogen scramjet engine built by the Australian startup.
Hypersonic flight refers to speeds above Mach 5, more than five times the speed of sound. Hypersonix’s proprietary SPARTAN scramjet engine is fully 3D-printed, contains no moving parts and is designed to reach speeds of up to Mach 12.
The flight travelled ~1,000 km before splashing down in the Atlantic, validating propulsion, materials and autonomous guidance systems under real conditions. The mission was conducted under the US Department of Defence's Innovation Unit.
From Audit Stress to Fundraise Success
Have you thought about how an audit could impact your next raise or transaction? As startups scale, audits become mandatory to signal credibility and investability. However, many teams learn what “good” is too late.
Join Carta, KPMG High Growth Ventures, Blackbird, Fleet Space and G+T for a breakfast session next Wednesday (11 March) in Sydney where we'll unpack what investors and auditors are looking for in an audit. Best of all, we'll help you navigate the common mistakes that create delays.
⚡ Startup Retro ⚡
Lyka raises $67M for healthy pet food at scale and the science behind it
Founders: Anna Podolsky and Dr Matthew Muir
Sydney-based Lyka, a direct-to-consumer fresh dog food subscription company, has raised $67 million in a Series C round led by New York-based VC firm LGVP to accelerate that trend. The raise follows a Series B that grew from $30 million in 2022 to $55 million in 2023, bringing Lyka's total capital raised to well over $150 million. Australian pet owners now spend an estimated $21.3 billion annually on their animals, and a growing share of that is flowing toward food that looks less like kibble and more like a meal.
Founded by former Bain & Company consultant Anna Podolsky and veterinarian Dr Matthew Muir, Lyka delivers personalised, freshly prepared meals to dogs via a subscription model. The company controls the full stack, recipe development, manufacturing, and distribution, using platform data to tailor portion sizes and dietary profiles for individual dogs. Lyka has tipped over $200M in ARR with 100,000+ active dogs on subscription across Australia.
Lyka sees itself as less as a pet food brand and more as a technology-enabled, vertically integrated operation. The company holds B Corp certification and describes itself as carbon-negative, which forms part of its differentiation pitch in a market that has attracted increasing competition from both local and international players.
International growth is the longer game. Lyka's primary market remains Australia, but the company has flagged new product categories and overseas expansion as medium-term objectives. Refrigerated manufacturing and last-mile delivery are capital-intensive to replicate abroad, which suggests any offshore push will require localised production or supply chain partnerships rather than a simple geographic rollout.
Previous backers from the Series B included StepStone Group, AfterWork Ventures, Shearwater, and Point King Capital.
Due Diligence: SmartCompany, The Australian
Firmable finds $14M Series A to scale AI sales intelligence platform into the US
Founders: Leigh Jasper (Co-CEO), Paul Perrett (Co-CEO), and Karthik Venkatasubramanian (Chief Product & Technology Officer)
Melbourne-based Firmable, an AI-powered sales platform built on proprietary APAC data, has raised $14 million in a Series A led by Airtree, with participation from existing investors. The capital will fund a US expansion, continued data development, and the build-out of AI agents that execute sales tasks autonomously.
Firmable was co-founded by Leigh Jasper, Paul Perrett, and Karthik Venkatasubramanian — the same team that built Aconex, the construction project management platform acquired by Oracle for $1.6 billion.
Most sales intelligence software is built on the same underlying data: a recycled, US-centric dataset licensed to dozens of vendors and repackaged with a fresh interface. For sales teams operating outside North America, it means stale records, thin coverage, and workflows built for a go-to-market motion that doesn't translate.
Firmable's architecture spans three core reinforcing layers. Proprietary data comprises account and contact information gathered and regularly updated through AI-powered web aggregation, LLM-based extraction, and entity resolution, all developed internally rather than licensed from third parties. Buying signals include targeted triggers such as leadership changes, hiring surges, funding rounds, and technological shifts that signal purchase intent. AI agents perform autonomous tasks, including enriching CRM records, prioritising accounts, drafting outreach messages, and coordinating sales activities based on the signals identified.
Firmable has surpassed more than 1,000 customers across Australia, New Zealand, and eight APAC markets. Clients include CBRE, Monday.com, Robert Half, Marsh, and Canon.
Due Diligence: AFR, SmartCompany, PRNewswire
PlasmaLeap secures $30M Series A to deploy zero-emissions fertiliser technology on Australian farms.
CEO: Frere Byrne
Sydney-based PlasmaLeap Technologies, a deep tech spinout from the University of Sydney developing zero-emissions ammonia and nitric acid production, has closed a $30 million AUD (approximately US$20 million) Series A. The round was led by the Gates Foundation, Investible, and Yara Growth Ventures, the venture arm of Yara International, one of the world's largest integrated nitrogen fertiliser producers, with additional participation from Twynam, GrainCorp Ventures, Uniseed/UniSuper, Artesian, SVG Ventures, and Agnition Ventures, the investment arm of New Zealand fertiliser co-operative Ravensdown.
Nitrogen fertiliser sits at an uncomfortable intersection of food security and climate impact. Its production, transport, and application account for around 2.5% of global CO2-equivalent emissions, which is almost entirely driven by fossil-fuel-intensive manufacturing and long-haul supply chains. PlasmaLeap's patented reactor technology sidesteps that entirely, producing ammonia and nitrate using only air, water and renewable electricity. The modular systems are designed to be deployed directly on farms or at local distribution hubs, cutting transport dependency and enabling farmers to produce fertiliser where it's needed.
The fresh capital will fund first-of-a-kind fertiliser hubs in New South Wales and Tasmania, an expansion of field trials, and continued development of the core technology platform. The company is also exploring longer-term applications in sustainable fuels and eFuels. This is because the same underlying reactor chemistry has the potential to produce synthetic hydrocarbons from biogas and other low-carbon feedstocks. PlasmaLeap is also progressing carbon credit generation, with several methodology frameworks under evaluation that could make the technology commercially attractive beyond fertiliser economics alone.
Due Diligence: AFR, PRNewswire
Veyor raises $10.5 million Series A to scale construction logistics platform into the US
Founders: Richard Fifita (CEO), Stephen Rockett (COO/CFO), Anil Roychoudhury (CTO)
Veyor, an operational platform that digitises site logistics and materials coordination for construction projects, has raised $10.5 million in a Series A round led by Marbruck Investments, with participation from CoAct and returning investors Investible and SpringCapital. The round values the business at $50 million to $75 million and follows a $2.75 million pre-Series A round in 2024.
Construction logistics remains one of the more undigitised corners of the built environment. Deliveries, material flows, and coordination between contractors, suppliers, tenants and operators are still routinely managed via email chains and spreadsheets on major projects. Veyor's platform serves as a real-time system of record across that entire layer, providing visibility and coordination in an area where delays and miscommunication carry a high cost.
American revenue now accounts for more than 30% of total revenue, growing at over 150% year on year, across more than 60 customers in 30-plus states. The company expects the US to account for more than 50% of total revenue within 12 to 24 months. CEO Fifita will relocate to the US as part of the next phase, with the capital funding senior go-to-market hires and a product expansion beyond delivery scheduling into procurement, inventory and warehouse management.
Due Diligence: SmartCompany
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🚀 Wins 🚀
🏆 A consortium of Australian and international firms has been awarded a $2.1 million federal grant to develop a quantum-enabled brain-on-chip platform for neurological disease research. (Innovation Aus)
The consortium includes Melbourne-based biotechs Chromos Labs and Tessara Therapeutics, UK stem cell firm Axol Biosciences, National Reconstruction Fund-backed quantum startup Quantum Brilliance, and the University of Melbourne. You can read more about the research here.
The platform uses diamond quantum sensors to measure electrical activity in lab-grown human brain tissue, enabling researchers to identify healthy, diseased, and toxin-exposed cells with greater precision than existing methods.
The technology is designed to accelerate neurological drug development for conditions including Alzheimer's, epilepsy and schizophrenia, by identifying effective treatments faster.
Quantum Brilliance began manufacturing synthetic diamonds for quantum devices at its Melbourne foundry late last year. Co-founder and CTO Dr Marcus Doherty said the project validates the pathway toward making diamond-based chips commercially accessible at scale.
A handful of quantum brain-on-chip devices are operating globally, but none have moved beyond research into commercialisation.
🏆 Future Minds Network has raised $650,000 to expand its accredited entrepreneurship program to 80,000 students in low-income and regional communities across Australia. (SmartCompany)
Founded in 2018 by Nathaniel Diong, then 16, Future Minds Network is a social enterprise that runs a 6-week, industry-backed program in which students aged 15–18 launch real businesses, earn formal academic credit from a Top 8 Australian university, and save $3,000 on tuition fees.
The program prioritises schools with an ICSEA score below 1000 (a national indicator of socio-educational disadvantage), targeting students in communities like Geelong, Greater Shepparton, Newcastle, Wollongong, and Gosford.
The raise will fund a new online platform, deeper industry partnerships, and expanded reach. The next intake kicks off in May 2026, with a target of 5,000 students by 2028. Top teams receive microgrants to continue building, plus access to a retail activation program offering free physical space at shopping centres, festivals, and retailers to sell their products.
📆 Notice Board 📆
South Australia’s premier startup conference, Southstart Resonance 2026, is only 2 weeks away! If you’re heading to the conference or are in Adelaide, here are the fringe events that could be worth checking out!
Day One is community day; I’m on the “Mastering Community-Led Growth with 0 Budget & Time” with Paz Pisarskim, Mark Dombkins, Vinisha Rathod and Desmond John at 1:30 PM!
Come have a knock off at the AFTER DARK: SOUTHSTART Edn from 7 PM onwards is bringing together the tech founders, builders and connectors, often from the spaces not discussed - the taboo, the sub-culture, and the wild frontiers.
Day Two: Community Coffee for Founders & Investors - Overnight Success x Carta. For the founder and investors to connect over some morning caffeine. We’ve almost hit capacity on this one!
Would you like to promote an event or an opportunity? Enquire about a Notice Board promotion by replying to this email.
🧠 KaaS (Knowledge as a Service)
Will’s Pick #1 Labour market impacts of AI: A new measure and early evidence by Anthropic
The research shows AI is far from reaching its theoretical capability — actual coverage remains a fraction of what's feasible. Even in Computer & Math, Claude currently covers just 33% of all tasks despite 94% being theoretically feasible. For founders and investors, perhaps you can think about this gap as essentially a potential product roadmap.
I’m wondering, "Why hasn't AI been deployed here yet?" and answers are generally things like (legal constraints, software requirements, human verification steps, physical hardware) are exactly the kinds of problems startups can solve.
Will’s Pick #2 Friend of the newsletter, Yaniv Bernstein - host of The Startup Podcast, shared with me his newest side project, a database of companies that have AI-friendly benefits, like unlimited tokens, etc. Check it out here.
Have we missed something? Got some feedback? We love emails, so send one over!
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‘Til next time,
👋 Will