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. 🚀
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👀 Headlines 👀
😬 Sydney Startup Hub closes, and Investment NSW is still negotiating the operator for the new Tech Central Innovation Hub with a go-live date of September 1st. (Innovation Aus)
The York Street hub was operating at ~50% capacity and was reportedly commercially unviable. Now, the NSW Government is spending $5M to move and cluster startups near Atlassian, Canva and nearby research institutes
The anchor tenants have reshuffled, too. Stone & Chalk backs the move and is in late-stage talks to operate the new hub; Tank Stream Labs (sold to Scalare) won’t join; Fishburners is pivoting to a decentralised model and warns founders could be hurt by the switch.
What’s unclear for residents? Pricing and exact services at Tech Central remain commercially sensitive/undisclosed. Startup Daily’s Simon Thompsen wrote a pointed op-ed on the closure you should check out here.
🐦 Blackbird’s 2015 fund has dipped slightly below the 3.0x return expectation with an August 2026 return deadline approaching. (AFR)
Within the fund, the two space investments, Gilmour Space Technologies and Fleet Space Technologies, are the highest valued companies. Gilmour’s is currently marked at a 14x return Fleet is marked at 20x return on investment.
Blackbird didn’t say whether it will extend the fund or distribute capital in 2026 as scheduled.
💰Alternative VC models on the rise as several emerging managers innovate with new fund structures and specialisations. (Capital Brief)
Within the last few weeks, we’ve seen several new funds come to market, all focusing on very specialised areas, touting differentiated value adds.
To recap, the new funds that have entered the market are FB Ventures, which will be launching in September, allowing retail investors to participate in VC funds. Advance VC also went public with their secondaries strategies into LP stakes, offering LPs liquidity and investors discounted exposure to portfolios (e.g., Canva, Airwallex, Zeller). Ecotone Partners, a climate advisory firm, has launched the Planet Fund, a $25 million vehicle that combines debt and equity to support revenue-stage climate companies. Glitch, a fund with a traditional VC model, launched with the advantage of a strong bench of 40+ active founders who can provide hands-on expertise alongside money, addressing the “capital but little help” gripe.
This marks a notable moment of maturity for Australian startups, as there is now a large enough volume of startups for specific fund strategies to emerge, and new capital entering the space seeking differentiated exposure.
🤖 OpenAI to open first Australian office in Sydney by end-2025, reflecting rapid local user growth and some large enterprise clients like CBA. (Innovation Aus)
Australian users have more than doubled year-on-year; Australia is now a top-10 market for ChatGPT subscriptions.
The entity has been registered and hiring is underway for a sales & customer support team serving enterprise and education clients like large banks and universities
This Sydney outpost joins Singapore and Tokyo, taking APAC offices to three.
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⚡ Startup Retro ⚡
Vaxxas raises $49M of equity and $40M of debt at a $805M valuation to deliver vaccinations without needles
Founder: David Hoey
Needle-free vaccine-delivery scaleup Vaxxas has raised $49.2 million in Series D funding at an $805 million valuation. Alongside this raise, Vaxxas has also cut around 10% of its workforce and reshuffled the C-suite. Founding CEO David Hoey will move to a strategic adviser role after 13 years, while CFO Doug Cubbin departs amid roughly 15 redundancies.
The round was led by SPRIM Global Investments, joined by new investor LGT Crestone and existing backers OneVentures and Brandon Capital and Hostplus. The equity raise, believed to be shy of initial ambitions, is supplemented by a $40 million debt facility from SPRIM, with further commitments under discussion. Newly appointed chair Sarah Meibusch (OneVentures), replacing retiring director Paul Kelly, said the financing offers runway into the second half of 2027 in a tough biotech market.
Funds will accelerate market-readiness of Vaxxas’s HD-MAP patch, including semi-automated manufacturing lines and later-stage clinical programmes. The platform aims to reduce cold-chain requirements and enable at-home self-administration.
Vaxxas’ HD-MAP is a tiny patch with thousands of vaccine-coated microprojections that’s pressed onto the skin for a few seconds, delivering the dose directly to immune-rich layers just under the surface of the skin. That placement can trigger stronger protection with less antigen and makes vaccines easier to store, ship and give.
Debt drawdowns will align with eligible R&D under Australia’s tax rebate scheme. Vaxxas says the leadership transition reflects its shift from a high-potential university spin-out to a commercially focused biotech scaling for global impact.
Due Diligence: Capital Brief, Startup Daily, Vaxxas media release
Skutopia boxes up $38M to for AI-powered robotic fulfilment for third-party logistics and warehouses
Founders: Emily Townsend and Talea Bader
Skutopia, an automated e-commerce fulfilment startup from Alexandra, NSW, has banked $38 million to take on Amazon’s delivery dominance with same-day options for retailers. The round was led by Pemba Capital, with participation from MA Financial and Blackpeak Growth Partners, and includes a debt component but was primarily equity.
Founded in 2018 as Workit Spaces, a Sydney coworking hub for online brands, Skutopia pivoted during Covid into software for online retail, then vertically integrated into warehousing and fulfilment. The company now operates centres in Sydney and Melbourne, handling the pick, pack and ship logistics for e-commerce businesses. It previously secured $900,000 in federal funding in mid-2021 and later raised $12 million, but, according to cofounder Talea Bader, the model was initially shunned by venture funds as “too complex”.
The fresh capital will fuel domestic expansion and a US push, with Skutopia targeting coverage of 90% of Australia within three years. The pitch: a tech-led network that lets retailers offer Prime-like speed without ceding customer data or margin to the larger marketplaces. With automation across inventory, batching and carrier selection, Skutopia argues it can shrink delivery windows while improving unit economics.
Skutopia offers two main products: robotic fulfilment 3PL and a shipping platform software. The 3PL consists of robot-powered fulfilment centres that automate warehousing, aiming for same-day dispatch and reduced error rates. Their software is used to book couriers, track orders, and integrate with sales channels such as Shopify, BigCommerce, eBay, WooCommerce, and more. The software can be used as a standalone or sync up their fulfilment centres.
Due Diligence: AFR, Startup Daily
Apate.ai raises $2.5M Seed to stop scammers by collecting intelligence and wasting scammers' time through AI
Founder: Dali Kaafar
Apate.ai, a Macquarie University spin-out building an AI “bot army” to fight scams, has raised a $2.5 million Seed round led by OIF Ventures, with Investible joining. The Sydney startup develops thousands of conversational bots that tie up scammers on calls and messaging apps (WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS), extracting near real-time threat intelligence that’s fed to banks, telcos and government agencies. Apate is also the Greek mythological goddess of deceit.
The capital will fund product development, hiring across engineering and go-to-market, and international expansion. Apate.ai is already working with Commonwealth Bank on AI “victim bots” that decoy scammers while gathering data, and with telco TPG Telecom.
To date, the bots have diverted more than 280,000 scam calls, over 100 days of scammer time, preventing an estimated $7.6 million in potential losses and identifying 20,000+ impersonated organisations, from banks and telcos to MyGov and the ATO.
Apate has three main products and touchpoints. Apate Voice, conversational bots that engage scammers on live calls, prolonging conversations and extracting actionable details. Apate Text, which is the same concept for WhatsApp, Telegram and SMS: text-native bots that engage scammers, gather intel (e.g., wallet and bank details), and auto-source targets in relevant channels. And finally, Apate Insights, a dashboard layer delivering real-time threat intelligence, trends, and custom reports to fraud teams
Why it matters: Australians lost more than $2 billion to scams in 2024 across 494,000 incidents. Apate’s platform leans into that scale, using conversational AI and machine learning to mimic accents, emotions and behaviours, keeping criminals engaged longer to surface new typologies for faster takedowns.
Due Diligence: Startup Daily
Coursebox raises $750K Seed to make creating corporate training more efficient and effective
Founder: Travis Clapp and marketer Alex Hey
Perth-based Coursebox has raised a A$750,000 Seed round from Purpose Ventures to speed up AI-assisted corporate training. Founded by educational designer Travis Clapp and marketer Alex Hey, the startup’s pitch is simple: generate compliant, engaging courses in minutes, globally, in any language, and ship them straight to learners.
The fresh capital will accelerate the product roadmap and go-to-market with HR teams, training providers and learning designers, keeping the company anchored in Western Australia while scaling abroad. The startup is also a 2024 alum of WA’s Plus Eight accelerator.
Launched in mid-2023, Coursebox says it’s attracted 100,000+ sign-ups across 180 countries, with ~90% of sales arriving via organic SEO, a tidy signal of product–market fit.
The product includes the AI Course Creator which turns PDFs, docs, videos or rough outlines into structured courses in minutes by auto-generating lessons, quizzes, voice-overs, images and rubrics. It also builds in an AI marking system and a course tutor. On the platform side, Coursebox offers a white-label platform that can deliver and sell courses under your own domain, complete with certificates, mobile apps, and payments.
Early adopters include Germany’s TeamWorks alongside Australian customers such as Academy Xi and Grower Group Alliance.
Due Diligence: Startup Daily
Diag-Nose and Human Health receive $3M from the government for RhinoMAP project
Diag-Nose CEO: Eldin Rostom Human Health Founders: Georgia Vidler & Kate Lambridis
Australian startups Diag-Nose.io and Human Health have landed a $3 million CRC-P grant to fast-track RhinoMAP, an AI-powered biomarker platform that aims to personalise respiratory care. The award under the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P) program anchors an $8.4 million collaboration spanning Monash University, Mater Research, ENT Clinic Melbourne, Manse Medical and Invetech, blending startup speed with clinical and manufacturing muscle.
RhinoMAP combines protein signatures from a minimally invasive nasal fluid sample with patient-reported data to provide clinicians with a real-time read on airway inflammation, helping them determine sooner whether high-cost treatments, such as biologics, are effective.
The project will fund R&D, clinical validation and local manufacturing, with the ABEL Microsampler used to capture samples at scale. Diag-Nose.io CEO Eldin Rostom says the platform acts like a “radar for the respiratory system,” reducing trial-and-error and unlocking earlier, data-driven treatment decisions. Human Health will power the patient-reported data layer across real-world settings.
Respiratory disease hits one in five Australians and affects 545 million people globally, yet up to half of patients don’t respond adequately to current therapies. By wiring AI, proteomics and patient data into a single decision layer, the consortium is betting Australia can lead in AI-driven precision respiratory medicine.
Due Diligence: Capital Brief
💸 Wins💸
⛑️ A 24/7 Concussion Hotline has launched in Australia, powered by Hola Health’s tech
The platform lets anyone book a video consult with an Australian GP trained in concussion, typically within ~15 minutes.
It’s designed to help people who’ve had a head knock see a doctor within the recommended 72 hours, no matter whether they’re in a metro, regional or rural area. Concussion rates are high in Australia, with tens of thousands of ED presentations and hospitalisations each year, and many community-sport cases going undocumented.
🛰️ Melbourne startup Akula Tech has reached orbit with its first mission, flying its Nexus-01 smart satellite on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare launched from Vandenberg SFB. (Startup Daily)
The payload used Dhruva Space’s hosted-payload platform (LEAP-1), which also carried Melbourne rival Esper Satellites’ next-gen hyperspectral imager, OTR-2.
Akula pitches Nexus-01 as Australia’s most advanced AI-powered smart satellite, designed to process hyperspectral data on-orbit and deliver near-real-time insights (e.g., bushfire detection, flood mapping).
🐶 Heidi Health has rolled out its AI medical scribe across Greencross Vets clinics and the Animal Referral & Emergency Network (AREN). (SmartCompany)
Since launching in June, it’s been supporting 5,000+ consults per week, with some vets saving up to a full working day otherwise lost to paperwork.
It targets a capacity crunch. There are 15,000 registered vets for ~28.7m pets in Australia which equates to ~1 vet per 2,000 animals, driving longer waits and clinician burnout.
The scribe automates consultation transcription so vets and specialists can focus on animal care and client communication.
💰 Aussie Raisins 💰
☄️Space Machines Company looks to raise $39M as demand for its maneuverable space clearing satellites spikes. (Innovation Aus)
The fresh capital will be used to scale the cale its Optimus Viper rapid-response spacecraft after its debut eight months ago, following demand surging from the US & allies for affordable, highly manoeuvrable satellites; target 100+ units.
The company is also months into the fit-out of the OF-1 factory (800 m²) at UTS Tech Lab, localising ~70% of design, testing, and production in Australia.
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📆 Notice Board 📆
🚀 Startmate is hosting an Alumni Demo Day with Stripe on the 11th of September
Live pitches from standout alumni across AI, climate, health tech, FMCG and space, with 2,000+ investors, founders and operators in the room. 👉 Free rego here
🥼 CSIRO is inviting startups and SMEs to apply for its free, eight-week online Innovate to Grow: Critical Minerals programme, designed to turn promising ideas into investment-ready propositions.
You’ll get expert guidance on R&D, help refining your concept, and connections to researchers and partners. Applications close 21 September; the first workshop is 16 October. Apply here.
📈 ResetData has launched a national AI competition to mark its first AI Factory in Melbourne, offering $1 million of AI compute (≈200 billion tokens on NVIDIA H200s) plus mentorship to the winning project.
Open to innovators, startups, researchers and organisations, entries will be judged on Australian sovereignty, real-world impact (health, housing, sustainability), technology readiness and team strength, with the winner announced at SXSW Sydney in October. Entries close 30 September. Apply here.
The best place to find upcoming events to attend and promote any events you’re hosting is the ANZ Startup Events Calendar.
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 💁 Are We Underestimating How AI Will Change Private Markets? By Donald Lee-Brown, Terran Mott
I love the Colossus network, in particular their Business Breakdowns and Making Media podcasts. While they produce great podcasts, they’ve also started creating really good articles.
This piece focuses on the AI opportunity in private market investment. Think Venture Capital and PE. They make the case for where AI is manifest for private investors and what differentiators these AI products will need to be successful. If you’re an investor, I think you’ll enjoy the read.
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‘Til next time,
👋 Will