Very similar to the previous two years, December is proving to be common for VC funding. This week noticed $93.1 million unfold throughout vitality infrastructure, agtech, authorized AI and extra.
IND Know-how: $50 million
Main this week’s funding round-up is vitality expertise startup IND Know-how, which has raised $50 million in its first institutional funding spherical.
IND Know-how was based by RMIT professor Alan Wong following the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires. The startup is creating sensor-based monitoring methods that may detect early indicators {of electrical} faults in vitality networks in actual time, earlier than they flip into outages, incidents or fires.
The funding spherical was co-led by US vitality specialists Angeleno Group and Vitality Affect Companions. Virescent Ventures participated because the Australian companion, whereas Edison Worldwide, one of many world’s largest electrical utility holding firms, additionally backed the corporate.
IND Know-how says its flagship Early Fault Detection system has already helped forestall greater than 500 fireplace occasions globally, with the corporate having offered round 15,000 detection items throughout deployments in Australia, North America and components of Europe.
MEQ Options: $23 million
Purple meat evaluation and verification platform MEQ Options has raised US$15 million (AU$23 million) in a Sequence A spherical from New York software program VC Perception Companions.
The agtech startup started life in Adelaide in 2016, with its first product, MEQ Probe, going on to raise $500,000 in late 2018 for business trials.
MEQ has constructed the world’s solely built-in {hardware} and AI software program system to measure purple meat high quality and yield, digitising a course of that up till now has been achieved manually utilizing subjective visible grading.
The $1.5 trillion a 12 months world purple meat market is among the few worldwide provide chains nonetheless counting on guide, subjective inspections.
MEQ developed a variety of tech merchandise, together with probes, cameras and evaluation insights, utilizing AI fashions and proprietary imaging to supply real-time knowledge on high quality, yield, and consuming attributes of beef, all the way in which from stay animal to the buyer product. Its video-based app, MEQ Digicam, was lately licensed by the US Division of Agriculture for beef grading in a world-first.
The funding shall be used to develop the group and deepen collaboration with business companions.
LawVu: $9 million
New Zealand Authorized expertise platform LawVu has raised round $9 million in contemporary funding as a part of a development milestone that additionally contains the acquisition of European contract automation firm ClauseBase.
In accordance with the corporate, the funding got here from present traders Movac and US-based Perception Companions. The corporate is now valued at roughly $350 million.
The elevate coincides with LawVu’s acquisition of ClauseBase, which shall be rebranded as LawVu Draft, and the launch of LawVu Lens, an AI-powered contract evaluation engine embedded straight into its platform.
LawVu gives a single workspace for in-house authorized groups, combining consumption, matter administration, contract workflows, doc administration and spend monitoring, with AI now embedded throughout the platform.
The corporate says it recorded greater than 50% world income development in 2025, together with 30% year-on-year development in Australia, the place clients embody the AFL, Monash College, Tennis Australia and AMP.
The capital and acquisition will help LawVu’s worldwide enlargement and its push to supply an end-to-end AI authorized workspace for giant enterprise clients.
Ferronova: $6 million
Medical startup Ferronova has raised $6 million in a top-up to its five-year-old Sequence A to $17.5 million.
The contemporary funding was led by present traders Uniseed/UniSuper, South Australian Enterprise Capital Fund, Artesian Enterprise Companions, and Renew Prescription drugs, a subsidiary of Singapore-based Ultragreen.ai.
The Adelaide biotech, based in 2016 as a spin-out from the College of South Australia and Victoria College of Wellington, NZ, makes use of magnetic nanoparticles for higher most cancers detection throughout surgical procedure. The Sequence A started in 2020, with $3.5 million funding led by Uniseed, topped up in January 2023 with another $8 million, alongside a $1 million seed spherical and several other million {dollars} in grant funding from the federal and South Australian governments.
Ferronova is pioneering a novel, image-guided surgical procedure tracer to assist pre-operatively establish areas the place most cancers might have metastasised.
Tiny magnetic particles, referred to as SPIONs (superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles), bind to cells present in lymph nodes to assist establish tissue that might comprise cancerous cells. These assist docs tackle the issue that most cancers cells are sometimes not noticed by present imaging, and rogue cells might stay undetected in surgical procedure.
The capital will go in the direction of ongoing medical trials and the commercialisation of the expertise.
Actual Circulate Finance: $3.5 million
Property lending startup Actual Circulate Finance has secured $3.5 million to help product growth and enlargement.
The Sydney-based firm, which operates a property cashflow finance platform, obtained the funding from actual property fintech Lyte in a deal organized by Advert Astra Company Advisory.
Based in 2013 by CEO Justin Steer, Actual Circulate gives financing to householders to cowl upfront prices related to promoting a property, together with itemizing charges, styling and minor renovations. It additionally provides fee advance merchandise for actual property brokers.
Actual Circulate says selling-related bills can usually vary from $5,000 to $10,000, creating cashflow stress for distributors earlier than a property settles.
As a part of the deal, Lyte will combine its expertise into Actual Circulate’s platform whereas additionally offering capital to help ongoing product growth.
The corporate has constructed a community of round 40,000 actual property brokers by way of relationships with 2,000 property brokers throughout Australia and New Zealand.
Since launching, it has written greater than 30,000 loans with a mixed worth of $250 million, and generated $7.5 million in income within the 2025 monetary 12 months.
Atrium: $1.3 million
Former Airtree investor Kevin Lu has secured $1.3 million in pre-seed funding for his private CRM startup Atrium, together with from his former employer.
In accordance with Capital Brief, Airtree has backed Atrium alongside TEN13 and a bunch of unnamed US and Australian angel traders.
The thought for Atrium got here to Lu whereas working at Airtree and seeing firsthand how difficult it may be for particular person traders, founders and executives to handle networks with tens of 1000’s of contacts throughout a number of communications channels.
Atrium needs to finally construct what’s being known as a ‘private chief of workers’, powered by AI. The platform would carry collectively an built-in inbox and buyer relationship administration (CRM) device with agentic automations, to assist customers get probably the most out of their networks.
Lu has based the corporate alongside his brother Gerry Lu, who beforehand labored at Immutable, and Daniel Lum, a knowledge engineer.
“AI will get louder these days; we’d like one thing to defend our time and assist us deal with the individuals that basically matter,” Lu advised Capital Transient.
GenAqua: $300,000
Gold Coast-based healthtech startup GenAqua has raised $300,000 in pre-seed funding to help the commercialisation of its point-of-use water disinfection expertise for hospitals and care services.
The elevate was backed by angel traders, business supporters and LX Well being, a healthtech funding syndicate and accelerator.
Based in 2023 by Scott Goulter, GenAqua is creating a compact UVC LED system that disinfects water straight on the faucet, addressing bacterial contamination that may persist inside inside plumbing methods.
The startup was a part of LX Well being’s LuminaX Accelerator and was named Startup of the Yr within the 2025 cohort.
GenAqua will use the funding to progress Watermark certification, put together for manufacturing and help ongoing trials with Queensland Well being’s Metro North Public Well being Unit. The corporate can also be exploring alternatives in Southeast Asia and plans to open its subsequent capital elevate in June 2026.
- This story first appeared on SmartCompany. You may read the original here.
