15 ANZ startups that raised $67.2 million this week

Sydney-based startups have dominated this week’s funding deals, raising almost all of the $67.2 million secured.

Keep reading to learn more about new funding deals for Sydney-based Gridsight, Pearler and Apate.AI, along with fresh capital for Auckland-based Drumbeat, Victorian startup GonGlobal, and the first cohort of Airwallex’s Latitude 37 program.

An AI-powered capacity management platform for energy grids in the renewables era has raised US$26 million (AU$36 million) in a Series B round.

The investment for Gridsight was led by Insight Partners, with support from Galvanize and existing investors Airtree, Energy Transition Ventures and Aera VC.

It follows a $7.5 million Series A round 16 months ago led by Airtree, with cricketer Pat Cummins among the investors.

Founded in Sydney in 2020, Gridsight now operates in Australia, New Zealand, the US, and the UK. Its customers include Endeavour Energy, which used the platform’s real-time solar management to double household solar export capacity from 5kW to 10kW in a program that’s expected to unlock more than $100 million in value for customers and 600MW of additional solar capacity for the grid.

Endeavour CEO Danny Cooper said Gridsight has been an invaluable strategic partner since 2021, helping them embrace AI and make data-led decisions.

“We’ve doubled customers’ solar export capacity within our existing poles and wires, are operating the grid closer to its full potential, and delivering better value for our customers,” he said.

The capital injection will be used for further US expansion alongside Australian growth, as the sudden and dramatic rise of AI data centres once again places new demands on electricity networks.

Sydney-based investing platform Pearler has raised $16 million in Series A funding to roll out a suite of new financial products over the next 18 months.

The funding round was led by Canada’s Portage Ventures, which also backed Pearler in its $7.8 million seed round in 2022, alongside New Zealand-based Altered Capital and Sydney-based family office No Brand.

Co-founder Hayden Smith also thanked local investors Ten13, Archangel Investors and Eucalyptus co-founder Charlie Gearside when earlier this week.

“This funding is going to help us launch even more financial products in our ecosystem over the next 6-18 months,” Smith said in the post.

“This means more products in the hands of hardworking Australians, creating more chances to get ahead and start making sense of this complicated world of finance we all reluctantly have to participate in.”

Smith founded Pearler with Nick Nicolaides and Kurt Walkom in 2018 with a mission to provide tools and education to “everyday” Australians to help them build their wealth.

According to the Pearler website, the startup now has close to 200,000 users and $3.5 billion in client assets.

“There is no greater feeling than building helpful things for hardworking Australians,” Smith added on LinkedIn.

“Even though we’ve been doing this for a long time, knowing that every single week we’re helping hundreds (or sometimes thousands) of Aussies get on top of their finances is such a privilege.”

Apate.AI, the Sydney-born AI bots platform used by the Commonwealth Bank to engage with and gather intelligence on scammers, has raised a US$8.15 million (AU$11.4 million) seed round as it relocates to the US to support its global ambitions.

The round was led by Silicon Valley VC Lobby Capital, with support from OIF Ventures, Investible, Concept Ventures and Baobab Ventures.

Apate previously raised $2.5 million, led by OIF, a year ago. It now has operations in Australia, Europe, Asia and Africa.

The new capital will go towards international expansion and platform development, with a London office opening in the next quarter to serve the European market, having become US-incorporated as a Delaware company. Co-founder and chief product officer Peter Eckermann will relocate to the US to lead Apate’s North American expansion. The tech and research teams are also growing and will remain Sydney-based.

The cyber intelligence platform turns the tables on the scam industry, which costs around $1.4 trillion a year globally, by flipping the script and disrupting their business model. It builds and deploys armies of adversarial conversational AI agents to infiltrate fraud networks, engaging the fraudsters across all communication channels to extract real-time intelligence and develop countermeasures.

An Auckland PR and communications tech startup helping other founders find, tell and measure their stories has raised $1.64 million (NZ$2 million) in seed funding.

The round for Drumbeat was led by Icehouse Ventures, with support from Brand Fund. Prominent Australian marketers Adam Ferrier from Thinkerbell and Mutinex’s Henry Innis are also backers.

The cash will help scale the platform’s proprietary “awareness-building system”, which includes media relations management, content generation, campaign tracking and media clipping tools, alongside expanding in Australia and the United States.

Drumbeat launched in March 2026 and now has more than 50 customers in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and US, serviced by a team of eight. The martech startup was developed at venture studio New+Improved Ventures, creators of the brand tracking platform Tracksuit and market research platform Ideally.

Its founders are Barney Chunn, co-founder of CONQA; Fallon Savery, formerly SVP Revenue at Timely; and Aaron Croft, the ex-head of product at Hectre.

Their thesis is that brand awareness comes from consistency, not isolated PR and one-off announcements.

One of the many tough experiences women face while undergoing IVF treatment is the countless drug injections required to improve fertility.

Biotech startup GonGlobal is hoping to change that after raising $1.2 million to develop a new form of IVF treatment.

The raise was backed by Innovation Victoria – the newly merged Breakthrough Victoria and LaunchVic – via its University Innovation Platform, with RMIT University matching that $500,000 investment. A private investor also tipped in $200,000, taking the total raised in three years to $3 million.

The idea was inspired by co-founder Ellen Gonda’s own experience of IVF, which left her feeling like “a human pincushion”. Her co-founder is her father, Dr Igor Gonda.

“I know firsthand for patients experiencing infertility and navigating IVF that the physical, emotional, logistical and financial tolls can be overwhelming,” she said.

“Our mission is simple – to radically improve the IVF patient experience and success rates by making treatments less painful, more precise and far more joyful.”

Ten Australian startups have been awarded a combined $1 million in funding from Airwallex, in the first cohort of the fintech’s Latitude 37 program.

Announced by Airwallex co-founder and CEO Jack Zhang in April, Latitude 37 offers $100,000 in equity-free funding to AI-focused startups.

The program also promises ongoing support to those startups, including on-site visits to Singapore and San Francisco, where Airwallex is co-headquartered, and access to Airwallex’s broad network of customers and investors.

Businesses included in the first cohort are working in diverse fields, spanning robotics to on-road hazard detection, and financial services.

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