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. 🚀

I'm super excited to get back to writing. As mentioned two weeks ago, the OS took a week off (and shifted this newsletter by 2 days) as I was climbing Mt Kilimanjaro, visiting the wonderful work that Forever Projects does and seeing first-hand the Tanzanian Tech ecosystem. I wrote an initial reflection on the trip here.

Next weekend, we’ll be back to normal Saturday morning sends. This newsletter covers the previous fortnight. I hope you enjoy it!

💰 Aussie VC exits surge to $2.9B in H1 2025, matching all of 2024 (AFR)

🫢 Seek pushes back in Employment Hero fight, alleging data misuse following legal clash between investor and startup, which both operate in increasingly similar fields. (Capital Brief) 

🏢 Tank Stream Labs acquired by Scalare Partners for up to $5.5M (Startup Daily)

🚀 Gilmour Space delays third Eris rocket launch with new window pushed to start on the 27th of July. (Innovation Aus)

🧠 Square Peg backs Mira Murati’s (former OpenAI CTO) $3B AI startup Thinking Machines (AFR)

📈 Queensland VC bounces back with $417M surge, up 37% YoY (Startup Daily)

Founders: Jack O'Donnell and Andy O'Connor

Sydney-based fintech JustFund has secured a $200 million debt warehouse facility from MA Financial to scale its fast-growing legal loan platform for people going through divorce. The facility adds to a $75 million debt deal from Global Credit Investments and $11 million in mezzanine funding secured last year.

Founded in 2022 by former lawyers Jack O’Donnell and Andy O’Connor, JustFund offers lines of credit to individuals locked out of traditional finance options due to frozen assets or financial control issues common in family law disputes. Loans are assessed based on expected property settlements, not credit scores or income, and repaid once legal proceedings are finalised.

JustFund has already approved $175 million in credit for over 2,000 clients, with nearly two-thirds of users reporting domestic or financial abuse. The company charges 9.85% interest, plus monthly and assessment fees, and offers legal oversight via in-house family lawyers. The new funding will power continued growth in what JustFund calls a “unique” niche. Co-founders retain majority ownership, but are joined on the cap table by Startmate, Up founder Dom Pym, and fintech veteran Luke Howes. 

Due Diligence: AFR

Founders: Chris Wirasinha, Andrew Chak and Adrian Fagerlund

Sydney-based adtech startup Linkby has landed a $23 million (US$15M) Series B round led by Boston’s Volition Capital, the firm’s first Australian deal, to accelerate its US expansion and product roadmap.

Founded in 2020 by Pedestrian.tv cofounder Chris Wirasinha, alongside Andrew Chak and Adrian Fagerlund, Linkby bridges the gap between branded content and affiliate marketing. Its platform enables over 3,800 brands to pitch content to more than 600 premium publishers, paying only when readers engage, using CPC or CPM pricing to deliver measurable outcomes.

Clients include Charlotte Tilbury, T-Mobile, and Lululemon, with publishers such as News Corp, Condé Nast and the Daily Mail in the mix. The platform gives advertisers control over how their campaigns drive conversions, awareness or traffic, and plans are underway to integrate AI-led tools, including Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO)..

The Series B follows a $4M Series A in 2024 and $5M seed in 2022, with backing from Perennial Private Investments and OIF Ventures. Linkby now operates in the US, UK and Australia, with the new capital focused on expanding its go-to-market team and platform capabilities.

Due Diligence: Startup Daily, SmartCompany

Founders: Liam Fuller and Yoan Gabison

Source, (also known as QuickFind AI), an AI-driven procurement platform for retail buyers based in Paris and founded by an Irish Australian teenager, Liam Fuller, and Yoan Gabison (25) has closed a $2.15 million (US$1.4M) pre-Seed round. 

The raise was led by Square Peg, making Fuller the youngest founder it has ever backed. Additionally, other investors included TEN13, ex-Stripe CTO David Singleton, Eucalyptus co-founder Charlie Gearside, and several other angels.

Built out of frustration with outdated stock ordering processes, Source helps retail teams forecast demand and generate purchase orders directly from Excel, email, and ERP data. The AI-assisted platform suggests what to buy and when, with humans reviewing and approving final decisions, streamlining a workflow still dominated by spreadsheets and back-and-forth emails.

The duo is now based in Paris and is set to launch pilots in the US, relocating to San Francisco later this year. Source is already incorporated in Delaware and aims to become a key AI tool for overlooked “real-world” problems like inventory management. 

Due Diligence: Startup Daily

Founders: Siobhan Coster

Brisbane-based biotech startup Eclipse Ingredients has raised $7 million to scale the production of human-identical lactoferrin using precision fermentation. The round includes $2.9 million in Commonwealth Government funding via the Food and Beverage Accelerator (FaBA), alongside backing from AgFunder and support from CSIRO and QUT.

Founded by dietitian and MBA graduate Siobhan Coster, Eclipse aims to commercialise lactoferrin, a multifunctional “wonder protein” found in breast milk and immune cells, for use in skincare, supplements, and immune-boosting nutrition. Unlike traditional bovine-sourced alternatives, the company’s fermentation process produces a bio-identical, scalable alternative that avoids the inefficiencies and costs associated with dairy extraction.

Operating out of Queensland University of Technology’s advanced facilities, Eclipse is capital-efficient by design, avoiding the need for costly R&D infrastructure. Its first product, a skincare-grade lactoferrin, is set to launch in 2027.

AgFunder’s Michael Dean said Eclipse addresses a “critical bottleneck” in producing complex functional proteins, with potential to reshape the global wellness and functional foods markets. While lactoferrin is the flagship, Eclipse is developing a broader ingredient pipeline targeting hard-to-access compounds through its fermentation platform.

Due Diligence: Innovation Aus, SmartCompany

Founders: Marc Hermann, Anshul Jain, Dr. Steven Lu and Sam Kothari

Melbourne-based healthtech startup Everlab has raised a US$10 million (A$15.3M) seed round led by Left Lane Capital to expand its AI-driven preventive care platform globally. The platform, which has already detected life-threatening conditions in 2.5% of users, helps patients uncover blocked arteries, aneurysms, and early-stage cancers through deep biomarker analysis and decades of medical history.

Founded by exited entrepreneur Marc Hermann, alongside Anshul Jain, Dr. Steven Lu, and Sam Kothari, Everlab utilises proprietary AI to automate medical record analysis and diagnostics, replacing 15–20 hours of GP work per patient with real-time insights. It’s built to be inclusive, factoring in ethnicity-specific risks often overlooked by standard pathology ranges.

Everlab offers subscription-based care starting at $1,200/year, with a $3,000 premium plan. Customers are typically aged 40–60 and motivated by personal experiences with sudden illness. The startup is exploring partnerships with insurers and recently signed its first enterprise contract. With 2,500 users and 20x growth expected this year, the team plans to expand into the US, UK, and Asia-Pacific by 2026. Hermann calls the ultimate goal “autonomous healthcare,” which is AI-led care that is affordable, accessible, and deeply integrated with national health systems.

Due Diligence: Capital Brief

Founders: Adam Ma

Sydney-based Voqo AI has raised an $800,000 pre-Seed round led by Blackbird Ventures, with support from Mark Bouris and the University of New South Wales, as it looks to eliminate missed phone calls in Australia’s massive real estate market.

Founded by Gen-Z engineer Adam Ma, along with a team of recent graduates from UNSW and the University of Melbourne, Voqo AI is tackling one of property’s biggest inefficiencies and sources of frustration: unanswered calls. Up to 60% of real estate calls go unanswered, often outside business hours. 

Voqo’s AI-powered voice agents mimic natural human conversation to answer inbound phone calls in real time, 24/7. The system captures caller intent, handles FAQs, pitches property listings, schedules viewings, escalates urgent issues, and transcribes and summarises calls, all without human intervention. Setup is plug-and-play and integrates with existing phone systems with no extra hardware, and delivers call summaries via SMS or email; voice agents can be customised via prompt templates and knowledge bases

The company has already onboarded early adopters like Barry Plant and Yellow Brick Road, aiming to replace legacy call centres and manual admin with always-on voice support. Voqo’s system is built entirely in-house and is already live in pilot agencies. With fresh funding, the team is now accelerating product development and expanding its rollout, targeting a future where no real estate call goes unanswered.

Due Diligence: The Australian

Founders: 

Sydney-based Visionary Machines has raised $3.5 million from existing backers Folklore, OIF, Salus Ventures, and Significant VC as it pivots fully into defence tech and moves from R&D into commercial rollout. The round marks its first raise since 2021, when it secured $7.5M from In-Q-Tel, the CIA-backed VC.

At the core of its offering is Pandion Sentinel, a cluster of passive camera sensors that enable autonomous navigation and drone detection, without emitting signals like Lidar or Radar, making it ideal for covert military operations. The CEO, Sonny Foster, a 20-year aerospace veteran, was appointed to shift the company from lab to battlefield.

The startup scored a $2.5 million defence contract in 2024 and recently inked an MoU with $14B South Korean defence giant Hanwha Systems to co-develop products for international deployment. It has also hosted the Estonian ambassador, hinting at growing interest from nations close to drone warfare.

Visionary Machines is part of a rising cohort of Australian defence tech players, buoyed by global instability and soaring valuations in the sector.

Due Diligence: Capital Brief

Founders: Paloma Newton and Jackson Gritching. Special advisor:  Edgar Allan Paws

Melbourne-based biotech startup Elita has closed a $1.1 million pre-Seed round to scale its pet stem cell banking platform, with backing from LaunchVic’s Alice Anderson Fund, Startmate, Side Stage Ventures, Archangel Ventures, M8 Ventures, and XA Network, marking the latter’s first Australian investment.

Founded by Paloma Newton and biomedical engineer Jackson Gritching, Elita enables pet owners to store their dog’s healthiest cells during routine procedures like desexing or dental work. These cells can later be used in regenerative treatments for arthritis, hip dysplasia, and other chronic conditions that affect up to 80% of dogs by age 8.

Elita charges a one-time fee of $3,899 for cell banking, plus a monthly subscription of $16.50. Elita aims to evolve into a full longevity platform that integrates stem cell storage with predictive health data for proactive pet care.

The idea was sparked when Newton, a former brand strategist, discovered that her dog, Edgar Allan Paws, was genetically predisposed to arthritis. Elita’s preventive approach is already reshaping how veterinarians and pet owners think about pet health. With new capital, the team plans to expand its operations and grow nationally.

Due Diligence: Startup Daily 

Founders: Nir Davidson and Lucinda Hartley

Melbourne-based proptech Mondus has secured a $100 million wholesale debt facility from an institutional lender and WLTH, alongside a new equity raise backed by Gold Coast-based VC Admiralty Capital Group and family offices, to scale its 0% deposit shared equity home loan platform. The raise follows the startup’s recent win as “Startup of the Year” in the Buying and Owning category at the 2025 Proptech Awards.

Founded by Nir Davidson and Lucinda Hartley, Mondus aims to eliminate the biggest barrier to homeownership in Australia: the deposit. Its model funds the entire purchase price through a blended mortgage structure, requiring only a 2.2% upfront fee to cover legal and settlement costs. Homeowners repay Mondus by refinancing after five years, at which point the company takes a 13% share of the appreciated value.

What sets Mondus apart is its AI-powered tech stack, which forecasts suburb-level capital growth across 80+ data points to help buyers choose high-growth locations. The startup is already housing customers in growth suburbs, with demand surging from first-home buyers shut out by rising prices and the decline of the “Bank of Mum and Dad.”

With fresh capital and a national rollout underway, Mondus is offering a new path to ownership for the next generation.

Due Diligence: Startup Daily, Capital Brief

Founder: Nusqe Spanton

Queensland-based biotech Provectus Algae has raised a $10.1 million Series A round and secured a $2.5 million grant from the Australian government to scale its breakthrough algae biomanufacturing platform. The round was led by At One Ventures, with support from Methane Mitigation Ventures, beef giant Mort & Co, Hitachi Ventures, and others. This raise brings the company’s total funding to $33.5 million.

Founded by marine biotechnologist Nusqe Spanton, Provectus is tackling livestock methane emissions with a next-gen system that grows Asparagopsis, a red seaweed proven to reduce cattle methane output, in closed, AI-powered bioreactors. Unlike traditional ocean farming, the startup’s modular platform offers rapid, controlled, and contamination-resistant production, making seaweed-based feed additives commercially viable at scale.

The flagship product, Surf ‘n’ Turf, is a shelf-stable powder that can be added to animal feed and is currently undergoing large-scale trials with Mort & Co. Provectus plans to reach 30,000–50,000 animals per day by early 2026 and expand into international markets soon after. Cattle farmers are excited by the potential for Provectus Algae’s product to reduce the carbon emissions of their herds while increasing the yield of their animals. 

Due Diligence: Ag Funder News

🐨 The Industry Growth Program (IGP), administered by the Department of Industry, Science, and Resources, supports companies that advance sovereign capabilities in critical sectors and transition novel technologies from prototype to market. A total of $16 million in grants has been deployed. Here’s who they funded! (Innovation Aus)

🥝 Icehouse Ventures launches NZ$30M Seed Fund IV, aiming to back 30 Kiwi startups over the next 3-4 years. (Startup Daily)

✌️ Victoria’s startup agency, LaunchVic, has announced a $3.75 million investment to strengthen early-stage capital, university entrepreneurship, and community engagement. The package includes $2.1M for new VC funds, $1.45M for university pre-accelerator programs, and $200K for community startup events. (Capital Brief)

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Will’s Pick 💁‍♂ Africa’s Tech Pyramid by Tech Safari

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‘Til next time,

👋 Will