This week noticed extra $24 million in VC funding go in the direction of AI onboarding instruments, seaweed tech and extra.
Preserve studying to study extra concerning the six Australian startups with contemporary capital to deploy.
Bodd: $15 million
Bodd cofounders Rob Fisher and Dave McLaughlin. Supply: provided
3D physique scanning platform Bodd has raised $15 million because it seems to broaden globally.
The spherical was led by US-based strategic investor Blue Sky Capital, with help from Ellerston Capital. Present traders, together with chairman Tim Allison, director Peter Leonard, Sydney Swans director John Gerahty and his household workplace Liangrove Group, commodities dealer Ken Loughnan, and trend retailers Nick and Candice Hirons, additionally chipped in.
The increase had an preliminary goal of $10 million, however elevated by 50% attributable to investor demand, growing Bodd’s valuation to $110 million.
The capital is for growth into the US, the place the corporate will open an workplace, in addition to the UK and Center East, plus growing the headcount to 40, up from 15 when Bodd final raised $5 million in early 2023.
Bodd’s clients embrace United Airways and Brooks Brothers in North America and workwear producer Portwest in Dublin, in addition to Australian Defence Attire, the New Zealand Defence Power, and uniform producer Stewart & Heaton.
Bodd started life in 2016 as a clothes tech startup co-founded by Rob Fisher and David McLaughlin. Its 3D physique scanning know-how collects the information wanted for clothes fittings – dubbed a physique “passport” – in simply 60 seconds, lowering sizing instances for organisations with massive workforce uniform or gear necessities.
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Hachiko: $2.5 million
Hachiko founder Rakhesh Martyn and Archangel’s Rayn Ong. Supply: provided
Hachiko, an optimisation software program startup for industrial battery vitality storage programs (BESS), has raised $2.5 million in a seed spherical.
The spherical was led by Archangel Ventures, with help from Twynam, Investible, Movement Capital, Electrifi Ventures, and Wattle Hill Capital.
The funding shall be used to assist construct Hachiko’s technical and go-to-market groups in addition to deepen and broaden platform capabilities.
Whereas large-scale battery tasks can take as much as six years from idea to charge-up to develop, industrial and industrial (C&I) BESS developments may be inbuilt round two years, and in the final three, greater than $4.5 billion has been earmarked for these sorts of tasks.
Hachiko’s software program, designed for C&I and similar-sized battery storage tasks, is an optimisation portfolio administration platform that permits customers to double portfolio viability and ship a 75% income uplift throughout a number of vitality markets.
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Fremantle Seaweed: $2.2 million
Freemantle Seaweed co-founder Chris de Cuyper attaches asparagopsis seaweed develop ropes to longline off the WA shoreline. Supply: Ryan Chatfield
One other startup seeking to take care of cattle methane emissions utilizing seaweed has raised $2.176 million in seed funding.
The spherical for Fremantle Seaweed, at an $11 million pre-money valuation, comes every week after the seven-year-old Sea Forest listed on the ASX. The Tasmanian startup raised $20.5 million at $2 per share for a $112 million market cap. Since final Wednesday, Sea Forest’s share worth soared, rising greater than 72% to $3.88 in Monday morning commerce.
Like Sea Forest, Fremantle Seaweed is targeted on a local purple seaweed, asparagopsis, as an answer to enteric (ie, brought on by digestion) methane emissions from livestock, that are chargeable for round 10% of Australia’s complete emissions. CSIRO-backed FutureFeed is engaged on an analogous resolution, having raised $13 million from 5 of the most important names in agriculture.
The WA startup spent the previous 4 years constructing the tech, engineering, and ocean-based infrastructure to develop and course of asparagopsis at scale, designing and constructing longline cultivation programs (ropes within the ocean to develop the seaweed), modular, containerised hatcheries, and even a purpose-built harvesting vessel.
The increase got here from 676 traders by way of an OnMarket crowdfunding marketing campaign, which closed in October.
The startup is hoping to boost one other $4.32 million from refined traders, to take the entire funds raised from the seed spherical to $6.5 million.
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Cor: $2 million
Cor cofounders Luke Hodkinson and Mantas Aleksiejevas. Supply: Provided
Melbourne-based Cor has raised $2 million in pre-seed funding to proceed growing its AI coach ‘Obi’, which helps firms onboard new software program customers.
Obi, which is already being utilized by SMEs within the building sector, makes use of generative video AI to create interactive brokers, which may then onboard new customers in actual time whereas watching their screens.
The funding spherical was led by Rampersand, with Archangel, Skalata, and Black Sheep Capital additionally taking part.
It represents the primary formal financing spherical for Cor, which was based and bootstrapped by former Google worker Mantas Aleksiejevas and Uptick chief know-how officer Luke Hodkinson.
“We built Obi because we saw companies struggling with a fundamental problem: existing AI tools can’t maintain context long enough to guide someone through complex product workflows,” Aleksiejevas stated in an announcement offered to SmartCompany.
Cor plans to make use of its new funding to scale its operations, specializing in gross sales and development investments.
Element Earth: $1.5 million
Element Earth has raised $1.5 million in seed funding to construct what it calls the subsequent technology of ultra-high-resolution imagery throughout the Asia–Pacific. The spherical was led by Perth-based VC FundWA, with extra backing from personal traders in Australia and Southeast Asia.
The comparatively new aerial mapping startup is led by veterans of Nearmap, Aerometrex, and Soar Atlas.
Element Earth goals to disrupt the $6 billion world mapping market with a brand new distribution mannequin, AI-enhanced options, and imagery designed particularly for the agentic period. It’s constructing a platform that claims to supply unprecedented decision, accessible by way of Soar — a mapping atlas with multiple million maps already out there.
The startup is presently growing its tech in Australia, concentrating on ultra-high-resolution protection of Australia and Southeast Asia by 2027. It already has a waitlist throughout authorities, insurance coverage, actual property, and AI firms, and plans to launch its first imagery totally free later this yr, spanning at the very least three metro areas in Australia and Southeast Asia.
Recovr: $1 million
AI health platform Recovr has closed a $1 million seed spherical led by JWW Capital’s Jordan Walsh.
Recovr builds AI instruments to assist health studios establish early behavioural patterns that point out a member could also be prone to churning. Over the previous yr, the platform has reportedly grown quickly in Australia, with the founders arguing that retention stays one of many trade’s largest and most common challenges.
The brand new spherical shall be used to rent, add additional product capabilities, and lay the muse for a US launch subsequent yr.
“It’s a huge step forward for Recovr as we continue to scale our AI member retention platform across the fitness industry… The problem we’re solving is universal,” the corporate stated on LinkedIn.
This story first appeared on SmartCompany. You possibly can learn the unique right here.
