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. 🚀

We’ve also partnered with Sip Ventures, the corporate venture studio of Asahi Beverages, to help promote their newest program. If you’re a seed-stage startup or later enhancing beverage experiences? Whether at home, in stores, venues, or digital? Sip Ventures wants to pilot your solution across the massive Asahi Beverages network. And they’re willing to pay you up to $150,000 in equity-free funding to be your customer. More information below!

Click here to read the newsletter in full

👀 Headlines 👀

🏛️Tech Council of Australia CEO Damian Kassabgi has resigned after just 16 months in the role. (AFR)

  • His exit follows member dissatisfaction with a lower public profile and concerns about leading from Byron Bay, alongside his desire to spend more time with family.

  • He will remain in the position while the board, chaired by Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar, finds a replacement.

  • Kassabgi’s tenure drew criticism over the handling of conduct issues, including the departures of policy chief Harry Godber and former board member Richard White.

  • Farquhar and Assistant Technology Minister Andrew Charlton publicly praised Kassabgi’s contribution and advocacy for the sector.

🥝 David Booth, a Kiwi-born investor, has joined Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) as Partner and Head of Ecosystem (a16z blog post by David)

  • David is returning to the Bay Area to lead firm-wide community, talent and customer networks that create compounding “preferential attachment” for founders.

  • David’s resume is impressive. He was the Entrepreneur in Residence at NZ Blackbird, fundraising operations lead at AngelList in 2014-16 and founded On Deck, now ODF, which helps startups launch, grow and scale.

⚕️Archangel Ventures is running a rare “community round” that lets eligible Heidi Health users invest alongside its recent USD65 million Series B via GXE. (Capital Brief)

  • Sophisticated or professional investors based in Australia can participate with a minimum cheque of USD5,000 via an SPV on GXE (you may remember GXE from last week's edition, where they announced a capital raise). You can express interest in the deal here. 

  • The two-week process is managed by Archangel, and expressions of interest close on 7 November. Participants will buy the same class of shares on the same terms as the Series B led by Point72 Private Investments, with Blackbird, Headline and Latitude Ventures also joining.

  • The Series B valued Heidi at USD465 million and lifted total funding to USD96.6 million, with Heidi now the fastest-growing company in Blackbird’s portfolio, surpassing Canva’s growth rate at a similar scale.
    Archangel expects the allocation to be capped at “hundreds of thousands” to “low millions” of dollars to limit additional dilution.

📕 ANZ Bank has shut down DataCo Technologies, a data insights startup built inside its now-defunct venture arm, 1835i. (Startup Daily)

  • The closure comes weeks after ANZ terminated 1835i entirely and follows other shutdowns, including fintech Cashrewards. 

  • DataCo provided secure “clean room” environments for companies to share and analyse consumer data while protecting privacy. Clients included Nine Entertainment, SBS and Southern Cross Media, with Nine forced to drop a major advertising pitch component after the shutdown. Here’s the original partnership press release from 2024.

  • The bank said the closure followed a “strategic review” and that DataCo is helping customers wind down current projects.

  • ANZ recently sold its Airwallex stake for $67 million and created a holding company to manage 1835i’s remaining portfolio, which includes Slyp, Lendi, Weel and DataMesh

🖊️ OpenAI deepens Canberra ties with a second no-tender federal contract and spruiks $142b AI 'opportunity' for Australia with new report, Australia’s AI Opportunities. (Information Age)

  • OpenAI has secured a second Australian government deal: a $25,000, 12-month contract with the Commonwealth Grants Commission. Its first federal contract was a $50,000, one-year SaaS deal with Treasury in June, also awarded without competition. Both contracts fell under the $80,000 tender threshold, so OpenAI was the only invited bidder.

  • At SXSW Sydney, OpenAI’s Chris Lehane said Australia could develop a sovereign, frontier-class inference model and highlighted “chips, data, energy and talent” as the new power stack.

🐨-> 🥛🏃 -> 🐨  Dany Milham returns to lead Koala after Milkrun’s fall. (Capital Brief)

  • Koala co-founder Dany Milham has returned as CEO after a turbulent period caring for his father and launching, then shuttering, rapid-delivery startup Milkrun in 2023.

  • He frames Milkrun as a crash course in scaling (0→1,000 staff in six months), discipline and culture, and worries its media fallout discouraged risk-taking by younger founders.

  • Milham helped launch Koala in the US before relocating to Sydney late last year to lead the company.

  • Koala posted record FY25 results: revenue up 42% to $276m; EBITDA nearly tripled to $13.5m; gross margin 62%; profitable across all markets.

  • An ASX listing was paused at the last minute due to tariff uncertainty and volatile markets, despite a completed (now framed) prospectus.

Compliance for Startups: Download the Checklist

As a startup founder, finding product-market fit is your top priority. But landing bigger customers requires ISO 27001 or SOC 2 compliance—a time-consuming process that pulls you away from building and shipping. 

That’s where Vanta comes in. Join over 10,000 companies, including hundreds of startups like Atlassian, Relevance AI, FireAnt and Everlab who streamline compliance with Vanta’s automation and trusted network of security experts. Start with our ISO 27001 compliance checklist, which breaks down the process into clear steps—so you can spend less time on compliance and more time growing your business.

Download the Checklist

⚡ Startup Retro ⚡

ROLLER lands US$50m to turbocharge AI and fintech for attractions venues

Founders: Luke and Mark Finn

ROLLER, a Melbourne-born venue management platform for leisure and attractions, has raised an additional US$50 million to speed up product and market expansion. The round was led by existing backer Insight Partners, with J.P. Morgan joining as a new funding provider, and follows ROLLER’s prior US$50 million in November 2023.

The company plans to pour the cash into AI-powered features that automate ops and boost revenue, an expanded financial services suite, deeper core products (ticketing, POS, memberships, payments, kiosks, guest experience tools), and a bigger partner ecosystem. ROLLER says it shipped 100+ enhancements in the past year and will also scale global support — already 24/7/365 with 95% of calls answered in under a minute — including premium support, expanded chat and a new hardware lab.

With 3,000+ customers across 30+ countries and ~300 employees, ROLLER positions itself as a category platform for theme parks, trampoline parks, family entertainment centres and other attractions. CEO Luke Finn says the goal is to help operators “grow, delight guests and thrive” amid rising competition, while Insight’s Rachel Geller frames the raise as fuel for continued global expansion.

Why it matters: AI-driven yield, dynamic pricing, fraud controls and embedded finance are now table stakes in ticketing/attractions — this war chest helps ROLLER keep pace and consolidate share.

Due Diligence: Roller Press Release

2cloudnine raises $7.5m to take its Salesforce-native workforce OS global 

Founder: Adam Edmondson

Melbourne startup 2cloudnine has raised more than $7.5 million, led by private equity firm Blackpeak Growth Partners, to accelerate international expansion of its unified workforce management platform for staffing and healthcare enterprises. Founded in 2009 by CEO Adam Edmondson, 2cloudnine runs natively on Salesforce, bundling assignment management, onboarding, pay compliance, payroll, billing and analytics into a single system intended to replace fragmented point solutions that erode margins and increase risk.

The company already serves customers including Adecco, Allegis, Alliance Nursing, Cornerstone Medical Recruitment, Epic Staffing Group, New Chapter and PeopleIN, and operates across Australia, the UK and APAC. 

With fresh capital, 2cloudnine plans to scale local teams in North America, the UK and Europe and push its product roadmap, leveraging Salesforce for enterprise-grade security, reliability and scalability.

For global staffing firms with thousands of placements and aged-care/disability providers coordinating complex rosters, 2cloudnine pitches a “single source of truth” that streamlines operations and underpins agentic-AI decision-making. 

The long-term goal? A full-stack, Salesforce-powered platform can out-execute stitched-together workflows, giving customers operational leverage and compliance confidence as they expand across jurisdictions.

Due diligence: Business News Australia, AU Manufacturing

Relectrify raises $28m to scale grid-compliant battery cells 

Founders: Valentin Muenzel and Daniel Crowley

Relectrify has landed $28 million in federal support to scale its inverter-less battery system, edging Australia’s grid closer to a cheaper, more resilient future. ARENA is putting in $25 million to deploy up to 100MWh of Relectrify’s AC1 across commercial, industrial and small front-of-meter sites, generating real-world data, case studies and a knowledge-sharing programme for the sector. 

The AC1 outputs grid-compliant AC directly from battery cells, no standalone inverter, thanks to Relectrify’s CellSwitch platform, which independently monitors and controls nearly 4,000 cells to boost safety, uptime and lifetime energy delivered. Relectrify claims its architecture can deliver around 20% more energy over a system’s life; AC1 is a 250kW/1 MWh unit with a minimalist, modular design.

Separately, the company secured a $2.9 million Industry Growth Programme grant to advance CellSwitch, its cell-level control tech that underpins the AC1 and future products. 

If AC1 performs as advertised, expect to see inverter costs and integration complexity fall, while asset life and usable energy rise, which is exactly the combo Australia needs as renewables scale and grid stability tightens.

Due diligence: Business News Australia, AU Manufacturing

SeaStock nets $740k to turn red seaweed into a clean-label food dye

Founders: Tom Puddy, Bryant Mclarty

Fremantle-based SeaStock has secured $740,000 from Australia’s Food and Beverage Accelerator (FaBA) to fast-track RUBY SEA, a high-purity red pigment (R-phycoerythrin, R-PE) extracted from sustainably cultivated asparagopsis. 

While most local asparagopsis ventures chase methane-cutting feed supplements, SeaStock is targeting the colourants aisle with “safe, high-purity” ingredients designed to meet Australian and international food standards.

The FaBA-backed project covers end-to-end commercial readiness: optimising extraction, scoping co-products, generating data for FSANZ and overseas regulators, and scaling from bench to pilot production. 

SeaStock licenses core IP from FutureFeed, the CSIRO-originated platform that underpins much of the asparagopsis industry, joining a cohort of 9 licensees globally. If SeaStock can hit purity, safety and cost targets at pilot scale, RUBY SEA could give food and beverage manufacturers a natural, traceable alternative to petrochemical dyes, with bonus sustainability optics. The next important milestones include regulatory approvals, manufacturability at scale, and proving the unit economics stack against entrenched synthetic reds.

Due Diligence: AUManufacturing

🍻 Last week to apply for Asahi Beverages: Sip Ventures Pilot Program

Applications close in 6 days, October 31st.

Last chance to secure up to $150K non-dilutive funding + a commercial pilot with Asahi Beverages through their new program, Sip Ventures.

They're looking for: Startups, from Seed to scale-up, that are enhancing beverage experiences through smart dispensing, loyalty tech, frictionless checkout, venue solutions, delivery innovation, subscription services, personalisation platforms & more.

What's at stake:

  • $150K equity-free funding

  • 12-20 week trial across Asahi's network

  • Direct access to major retail & venue partners

Apply in 5 minutes here

🤝 M&A 🤝

🎉 Redactive, the enterprise-grade data management tool that HESTA and PEXA used as flagship clients, has been acquired by RecordPoint within 2 years of launching

  • Redactive was founded in September 2023 by former Atlassian product managers (Lucas Sargent, Andrew Pankevicius and Alex Valente) and has raised US$19m from Blackbird, Felicis, Atlassian Ventures and Zapier.

  • The deal strengthens RecordPoint’s AI security and governance offering for highly regulated customers, including Westpac, NAB, Macquarie, APRA, ASIC, and the City of New York.

  • The Redactive founders will depart and are already building a new AI venture in stealth, citing a pain point they encountered while scaling Redactive.

🥳 Wins 🥳

🌳 The University of Newcastle have announced the winners for their Circular Economy Grand Challenge, which tasked multidisciplinary teams to cut waste, lower emissions, and maximise resource efficiency by extending product and material lifecycles. (University of Newcastle)

  • Every Blade Counts: Recycles decommissioned wind turbine blades by recovering and reusing silica, creating circular construction materials and reducing reliance on virgin mining.

  • Zyora – Upcycled Skincare: Turns spent yeast from breweries, wineries, and biotech into science-backed skincare ingredients to meet demand for sustainable, evidence-based beauty.

  • ReCrete: Repurposes waste concrete as a circular substitute for agricultural lime, neutralising acidic soils while diverting millions of tonnes of concrete from landfill.

  • Best Student Team: Grounds to Growth: Converts spent coffee grounds into gourmet mushrooms via a container farm, then returns substrate as compost—closing the loop from cup to crop.

  • Rising Star: Heavy Matters: Builds a digital platform for residents and councils to reclaim bulky household items before landfill, using photo uploads, AI hazard checks, and real-time mapping.

  • People’s Choice: Bingage: Gamifies recycling with an app and smart bins so students earn rewards for correct sorting while the university gets real-time contamination data.

📆 Notice Board 📆

University of Melbourne’s Master of Entrepreneurship students are showcasing their achievements and talent at the Master of Entrepreneurship Showcase pitch night

  • Join them on the 29th of October! Tickets are free

Want to see the best of regional Australia’s founders, after an intensive 13-week journey the I2N Accelerator Demo Night is hosting their pitch night.

Australia’s longest-running tech and innovation festival, hosted in Perth, is kicking off on the 8th of December.

  • With speakers including Lars Rasmussen, Bill Tai, Julia Reisser (Uluu), and Rayn Ong (friend of the newsletter), why wouldn’t you want to attend? Learn more about the event here.

The best place to find upcoming events to attend and promote any events you’re hosting is the ANZ Startup Events Calendar.

Check it out

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 💁 The Startup Launch Playbook notion doc that can be used to launch anything on LinkedIn

  • I was sent this launch playbook document, conveniently, 1 week after my own launch for Overnight Success! 🤦 Thanks to everyone who supported it!

  • This document is a great resource, though it walks through building connections with your core ICP and then launching your product on LinkedIn to generate more adoption and virality.

Have we missed something? Got some feedback? We love emails, so send one over!

‘Til next time,

👋 Will

Reply

or to participate