Companies building tech solutions for retailers, lawyers and even the military are among those that raised fresh funding this week, along with the 19 startups selected for Startmate’s latest cohort.
Keep reading to learn more about the 24 Australian startups that collectively raised $91 million this week.
Fluent Commerce: $46 million
Sydney-based tech company Fluent Commerce has raised $46 million in fresh funding to help it scale its AI-powered retail order management tools.
The funding round was led by Bain Capital and comes nearly seven years after a $33 million Series B raise, which was led by US progress fairness fund Arrowroot Capital.
Working with retailers corresponding to JD Sports activities, L’Oréal, and LVMH, Fluent Commerce helps its prospects observe their stock and deliveries.
Whereas it initially targeted on cloud-based companies for retailers, it’s now additionally integrating synthetic intelligence into its providing.
CEO Graham Jackson stated the brand new funding will permit the corporate to “supercharge our worldwide progress and develop into the AI powerhouse for world manufacturers”.
“Whether or not it’s into a brand new market or launching a brand new model or expertise, we offer the decision-making engine for AI-ready commerce operations,” he stated in an announcement offered to SmartCompany.
Affinda: $25 million
Melbourne-based tech startup Affinda has raised $25 million from current buyers in a capital increase that values the corporate at $220 million.
Based in 2012 by brothers Tim Toner and Dr Ben Toner, and chosen by LaunchVic for its 30×30 program in 2025, Affinda has developed software program that helps regulation corporations extra simply evaluate paperwork, make adjustments, and organise knowledge from these paperwork in a uniform approach.
The brand new tranche of funding comes from current backers, together with Toll Group founder Paul Little, Ellerston Capital co-founder Ashok Jacob and former MYOB and REA Group boss Greg Ellis.
It follows a $10 million funding spherical in mid-2024 that valued the company at $120 million on the time.
Extra just lately, Affinda accomplished its first acquisition, snapping up AI coaching consultancy startup Pathfindr in 2025 in a deal worth $15 million.
Breaker: $9 million
Sydney-based defence expertise startup Breaker has secured $9 million in seed funding in a spherical led by world VC outfit Bessemer Enterprise Companions, which has beforehand backed the likes of Canva, Rocket Lab, Shopify, Anthropic and Perplexity.
Present investor Most important Sequence, which led a $2 million pre-seed round for Breaker in March 2025, additionally participated within the spherical.
The corporate stated it plans to make use of the seed funding to speed up the event and adoption of its AI agent software program, following the institution of its US headquarters in Austin, Texas, in the course of the previous 12 months.
The startup’s platform-agnostic software program is designed to assist army operators coordinate groups of drones and different autonomous robots throughout air, land and sea utilizing solely their voice.
Matthew Buffa, who based Breaker in 2023 with Michael Irwin and Vanja Videnovic, stated within the assertion that an “operator bottleneck” represents one of many Australian Defence Power’s “most costly functionality gaps”.
“At present, autonomy nonetheless means one operator controlling one robotic, with distant controls or laptops, which considerably limits the variety of autonomous programs that may be deployed,” he stated.
Appetise: $7 million
New Zealand meal planning and grocery insights platform Appetise (previously MenuAid) has raised $7 million in Sequence A funding lower than a 12 months after launching in Australia.
The oversubscribed spherical was led by Icehouse Ventures with participation from current buyers OIF Ventures, Model Fund, NZVC and K1W1. It additionally follows a $3.6 million raise back in 2024.
Appetise operates a free client meal planning and procuring app whereas monetising a separate B2B insights product, Appetise Insights, which analyses how households truly plan and purchase meals.
The corporate switched its client product to a free mannequin to gasoline the information engine behind the insights platform, positioning itself as an alternative choice to conventional survey-based market analysis constructed on reported behaviour slightly than noticed behaviour.
Greater than 110,000 lively customers throughout Australia and New Zealand now contribute to what the corporate says is the most important meals and beverage behavioural analysis panel within the area.
Parachute: $1.8 million
Authorized AI startup Parachute has raised $1.8 million in a pre-seed spherical at an $8.5 million valuation to construct what it describes as an AI working system for small- and medium-sized regulation corporations.
The spherical was led by Rampersand associate Andrew Poesaste, with backing from Maxine Minter of Co Ventures, Aussie Angels’ Cheryl Mack and different strategic buyers.
Based by former Zed Legislation principal Ryan Zahrai alongside Vivienne Chan, Dave Berner, Reed Li and Peter Phanouvong, the corporate is concentrating on the lengthy tail of authorized practices it argues have been ignored by enterprise-focused authorized AI distributors.
Parachute’s platform goals to behave as a single workspace the place corporations can draft and assessment paperwork, collaborate with purchasers and white-label AI-assisted authorized instruments, with attorneys remaining “human within the loop”.
The startup plans to make use of the funding to speed up product growth, broaden its AI capabilities and develop its go-to-market presence throughout Australia and New Zealand.
19 startups in Startmate’s accelerator: $2.28 million
The brand new Startmate accelerator program to kick off the 12 months options a formidable 19 startups in Summer time ’26.
Startmate has invested $2.28 million within the cohort, giving every startup $120,000 for a 7% stake.
New CEO Phoebe Pincus stated the recent investments usually are not about hypotheticals, however slightly founders constructing the infrastructure behind the world we stay in and the instruments that take away friction from the programs we depend on daily.
“At a time when there’s debate about whether or not Australia can produce globally aggressive expertise corporations, this cohort speaks for itself. 19 corporations. 42 founders,” she stated.
“The ambition is greater, the issues are tougher, and the expertise pool is deeper than ever.”
The concepts vary from decreasing building and manufacturing waste to automating authorized diligence and authorities tenders, and rethinking psychological well being care.
The 19 startups within the cohort are: Alloovium, Ascenda, Brainwaves, Cascayd, CheckGen, CrossCourtAI, Deeligence, FlowGo, IBnkVault, Lockii, Neuralindex, Guin, Superstat, Talentsheet, Tendor, Thermal Daybreak, Vixia, Wiingman, and Zabidou.
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