The Victorian government is cutting funding for its sovereign venture fund, Breakthrough Victoria, by $90 million annually over the next four year, today’s state budget reveals. The reduction in capital allocation for the $2 billion fund comes amid sustained criticism and a high profile media campaign by the likes of Adir Shiffman, chair of ASX-listed Catapult Sports, who wanted the fund abolished, in recent months. The state’s coffers are not in a healthy way, with Victorian treasurer Tim Pallas unveiling his 2024-25 budget on Tuesday, posting a $15.2 billion deficit as net debt grows to $156 ..read more

Data engineer and artificial intelligence expect Claire Southey is back in Sydney after six years in the UK and US working for Amazon and Google, at ecommerce marketing platform Rokt. Southey, who collected her swipe card as senior VP of engineering this week, is one of three new hires for the Australian arm of the US-based, Square Peg-backed tech unicorn, which was last valued at $3.5 billion following a $458 million Series E round in 2021. Sharmeen Arain has also signed on as commercial director ANZ alongside Mick O’Brien as head of commercial ANZ . Rokt has been on a growth spurt as it ..read more

You might have seen viral videos of Wendy’s drive-thru customers in the United States ordering their fast food from the firm’s generative AI bot Wendy’s FreshAI. Most show a very human-like transaction punctuated with cries of amazement at how fast, accurate and polite the system is. While the system and others like it are in their infancy, and some still rely heavily on human assistance, retailers are investing huge sums in AI to replace human workers. Why the rush to automate? It might seem like it’s all about slashing the wage bill, and straight AI-for-human swaps are indeed happening in ma ..read more

Startmate held Demo Day for its summer 2024 cohort at Blackbird’s Sunrise in Sydney last week and Startup Daily is profiling the 10 startups involved. Today it’s Carbonaught, which is using basalt rock as fertiliser for farmlandsThe global food system is broken, and the challenges on our horizon are even harder to swallow. In a world that has to radically decarbonise, we’re also faced with the herculean task of doubling our food production by 2050 — and that’s on a planet that’s currently losing a soccer field of productive soil every five seconds! It’s a stomach-churning task, but there ..read more

Gaming content generation platform Stori has rebranded as Nucanon having raised $500,000 in what the startup says is another pre-Seed raise. The latest round was led by Skalata with support Outlier Ventures, Paperclip Partners, and Sydney FC CEO Mark Aubrey, as well as existing investor Antler. Launched in 2022 by Nilushanan Kulasingham, who built his first website aged 8 and the flash games at 14, Nucanon was part of the AWS Generative AI Accelerator, and made the final of the SXSW Sydney pitch competition last year. Antler and high profile US investor Jason Calacanis backed the startup in 20 ..read more

An 11.5-metre-tall German-designed single stage rocket, took off from a South Australian launchpad into a suborbital test launch on Friday afternoon. The SR75 Hylmpulse rocket launched from the Koonibba Test Range near Ceduna on the Eyre Peninsula, at around 2.40pm, rising 50km above Earth before a parachute decent. The suborbital Koonibba Test Range is a project between Adelaide startup Southern Launch, which has also developed the Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex, and the Koonibba Community Aboriginal Corporation, contributing more than $500,000 annually to the local community. It was the ..read more

An eight-year-old Sydney-based Airbnb property management platform has raised $10 million as it looks to grow through a merger and acquisition startegy. Hometime, founded in 2016 in Perth, previously raised around $12.7 million in debt and equity in 2019 from the likes of NAB Ventures, One Ventures, and AS1 Capital. The latest cash injection comes from Sydney-based Fifth Estate Asset Management, which has also backed Future Super. Back then the startup had acquired two rival short-term-rental platforms, Host My Home in Cairns and bnbpal in Melbourne, and it’s now looking for more opportunities ..read more

A Sydney-based online customer support platform using AI to answer questions has raised $3.85 million. The raise for Brainfish was led by Peak XV (the renamed Sequoia Capital India), with support from Macdoch Ventures, Black Sheep Capital, MadPaws CEO Justus Hammer and US and Australian angel investors. It’s the second round for the business in the 12 months since its launch, with $5 million in total now banked. Brainfish has earmarked the capital for product innovation and further international expansion. The platform currently operates in Australia, the US and Singapore. Cofounded by former ..read more

A new category, Best Tech Journalist, launched for 2024 Applications for ATC 2024 close on May 24.   The annual Australian Technologies Competition (ATC) is back for 2024 to help local startups ready to scale up their global potential. Now run by scale-up services and capital provider Scalare Partners, the competition has been a cornerstone of the tech industry for more than a decade. It is open to Australia-based technology companies across various sectors, including fintech, regtech, agribusiness, medtech, cybersecurity, social impact and more. Nominations are now o ..read more

A new category, Best Tech Journalist, launched for 2024 Applications for ATC 2024 close on May 24.   The annual Australian Technologies Competition (ATC) is back for 2024 to help local startups ready to scale up their global potential. Now run by scale-up services and capital provider Scalare Partners, the competition has been a cornerstone of the tech industry for more than a decade. It is open to Australia-based technology companies across various sectors, including fintech, regtech, agribusiness, medtech, cybersecurity, social impact and more. Nominations are now o ..read more