Seven Aussie startups that raised $206 million this week (sort of)

It’s been a busy week of capital raises in the Australian startup sector, with unicorn SafetyCulture leading the charge with one of the biggest funding events of the year.

Keep reading to learn more about seven local startups that shared details of their capital raises this week.

SafetyCulture: $165 million

Aussie unicorn SafetyCulture leads this week’s funding round-up with a massive $165 million funding event, which founder Luke Anear has labeled a success in a “tough environment” for fundraising.

As reported by SmartCompany earlier this week, the round is one of the largest for an Australian company this year. It also represents the biggest single initial investment in the history of VC companies Airtree.

Alongside Airtree, the round also included participation by repeat investors Blackbird and Morpheus Ventures, as well as Hostplus and HESTA.

Overall, the round included $75 million in new capital and $90 million in secondary share sales, and valued SafetyCulture at $2.5 billion. This is down from the company’s valuation of $2.7 billion in August 2023.

Anear told SmartCompany that SafetyCulture is transitioning from a workplace safety and compliance toolkit to a fully-featured operations platform, and this new investment is an endorsement of this expansion.

With its investment, Airtree recognizes “the opportunity in front of us, that we’re now solving a much broader problem than we were 12 months ago,” said Anear.

The Townsville-born company plans to use the new funding to develop solutions for major multinational enterprises, as well as expand the use of AI for frontline workers.

Read more.

Allegro Energy: $17.5 million

Newcastle-based battery storage startup Allegro Energy has raised $17.5 million in a Series A funding round led by global climate- investor focused, the Grantham Foundation.

Allegro Energy was founded by Dr Thomas Nann, Fraser Hughson and Rohan Borah in 2021, and counts Origin Energy among its investors, after the energy provider took a 5% stake in the company in 2023.

Origin Energy also participated in the Series A round, along with fellow Australian investors Melt Ventures and Impact Ventures.

Allegro has developed a proprietary water-based energy storage solution, in the form of redox flow batteries (RFB) and super-capacitors. The units are described as “clean, non-flammable (and) fully recyclable” and do not rely on scarce materials or complex supply chains.

The company plans to use the new funding to “rapidly accelerate” its manufacturing capacity, according to Nann.

“We are thrilled to be among the companies to have been given global recognition by The Grantham Foundation while also successfully drawing critical local capital and strategic support from some of the leading names in the renewable energy space,” Nunn added in a statement provided to SmartCompany.

Allegro and Origin Energy are working on an 800 kWh pilot redox flow storage solution at Origin’s Eraring site, which the companies expect to complete later this year.

Renewable Metals: $8.1 million

Western Australian-based battery recycling startup Renewable Metals has topped up its seed funding round with an additional $8.1 million.

The new funding adds to an $8 million investment in 2023, which was led by led by Investible through its Climate Tech Fund and The Clean Energy Finance Corporation via Virescent Ventures, and included participation from the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment.

The same investors have participated in the $8.1 million seed extension round, which is set to help the startup continue to scale its recycling process that recovers critical minerals from end-of-life lithium-ion batteries.

Renewable Metals says its technology represents a more sustainable approach to recycling by recovering valuable materials such as nickel, copper, cobalt, lithium and manganese, eliminating sodium sulfate as a byproduct, and handling a full range of lithium battery types.

The startup is focused on its R&D and growth plans, which include building and operating a demonstration-scale lithium battery recycling plant in the UK.

Read more.

Number 8 Bio: $7 million

Biotech startup Number 8 Bio has secured $7 million in seed funding, in a round led by CSIRO’s Main Sequence.

The deep tech fund last year participated in a $1.8 million pre-seed funding round for the startup, which is developing methane-reducing livestock feed to help lower the greenhouse gas emissions produced by the global agriculture industry.

The latest funding round includes $1.7 million from Breakthrough Victoria and participation from The March Group.

Founded by Dr Tom Williams and Dr Alex Carpenter in 2022, Number 8 Bio has a two-fold approach that involves bio-engineering yeast strains, which can be mass fermented in scalable operations, and providing farmers with feed additives for their livestock.

The startup will direct the new funding towards product trials, establishing manufacturing capacity at its Sydney site, and building relationships with early adopters.

There are also plans to collaborate with Agriculture Victoria on further trials at the Ellinbank SmartFarm dairy research facility; conduct research in partnership with Monash University; and establish another manufacturing site in regional Australia in 2026.

Read more.

Neurode: $5.3 million

Sydney-based startup Neurode has raised $5.3 million to accelerate the development of its non-invasive ADHD headband. The wearable device delivers mild electrical stimulation to the prefrontal cortex to help manage symptoms like focus, memory and impulse control.

Co-founded by neuroscientist Nathalie Gouailhardou, who was diagnosed with ADHD herself, Neurode offers a drug-free alternative to traditional ADHD treatments like Ritalin and Adderall.

The company, founded in 2021, plans to use the new funding to support clinical trials and further refine the headband. Neurode’s solution is currently in a private beta, with plans to eventually seek FDA approval.

The headband could also be used to track other conditions, such as cognitive decline and depression, expanding its potential market beyond ADHD.

Read more.

Direct: $2 million

Directo, a digital business-to-business marketplace for the pharmacy sector, has raised $2 million from sophisticated investors to drive its next phase of growth.

Founded by managing director Gavin Upiter in 2017, Directo works with more than 50% of Australian pharmacies through its platform, which is designed to improve the transparency, management and interactions of the pharmacy wholesale supply chain.

More than 3000 pharmacy retailers use the two-sided platform to order from a range of around 45,000 products, provided by more than 200 suppliers and wholesalers.

The platform itself allows users to consolidate invoices, credits, payments and payment terms from all suppliers, while the customer portal also offer white-labelled solutions to cater for individual businesses in a highly fragmented sector.

Directo plans to use the new funding to expand its supplier and pharmacy user base, while continuing to develop additional value-added services and revenue streams.

The capital injection comes after what the company says was record trading results in the final quarter of the 2024 financial year, and the first month of the 2025 financial year. Directo increased its active pharmacy customers by 57% and suppliers by 40% in the 2024 financial year, and has doubled net revenue each year for the past two years.

In a statement provided to SmartCompanyUpiter said the company is now recorded $40 million in annualized revenue.

“The strong support from existing investors, including pharmacy owners, in this capital raise is an endorsement of Directo and places our company in a strong position to accelerate the growth of the business,” he said.

Algenie: $1.1 million

Sydney-based biotech startup Algenie launched this week with $1.1 million in funding from UTS, Better Bite Ventures and strategic investors.

Founded by serial entrepreneur Nick Hazell, along with Mathieu Pernice and John Martin, Algenie is building a platform that will allow algae to be grown efficiently and affordably at scale, in a bid to replace fossil fuels as the raw material for plastics and fuels and significantly reduce the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

When it reaches a commercial scale, Algenie expects to be able to harvest 100 tonnes of algae per year in a space the size of a shipping container. According to the startup, this would be enough to sustainably produce 2.5 million carbon-positive plastic bottles.

Algenie has partnered with the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and co-founder Pernice is one of the UTS researchers working on the technology. The startup is also using the biological resources and automation equipment within UTS’ Climate Change Cluster to develop and optimize algae strains.

Hazell played a key role in the growth of plant-based protein company v2food, as co-founder and CEO, and he describes Algenie’s helix design and technology as a “true breakthrough” that is “paving the way for algae-based solutions to become economically competitive with and ultimately replace traditional fossil fuel-based products.

Algae already captures more carbon than anything else on Earth, according to Algenie, however, producing it at scale has previously been too difficult and expensive.

Algenie says its proprietary technology, which employs a helix-shaped photobioreactor that overcomes these obstacles, has the potential to significantly reduce production costs, down to around $1 per kilogram of algae.

“Algae offers enormous potential to address climate change and transform multiple industries, but until now, scalable and economical production has remained elusive,” added Hazell in a statement provided to SmartCompany.

Read more.

Never miss a story: sign up to SmartCompany’s free daily newsletter and find our best stories on LinkedIn.