Enrola ditched its education marketplace in September 2025 to focus on AI sales agents that qualify B2C leads via SMS. The Brisbane startup has now closed $2.1M seed led by Purpose Ventures, bringing total funding to $2.9M. 28 customers across ANZ, UK and Ireland already using the platform.
Australian AI infrastructure startup Firmus closed a $2.85 billion round led by Coatue and Nvidia, doubling its valuation to $15 billion in four months. The company has now raised over $4 billion in 12 months to build GPU-dense data centres across Australia and Asia-Pacific.
Joe Aston's 18-month-old business publication closed a $2.3m round at $29m valuation. Five investors in, but no public data on sales headcount, comp structure, or revenue team. Worth noting: profitable since launch, but still building commercial model.
Bending Spoons is acquiring the no-code platform for $1.285B enterprise value, roughly $2.25B equity value including cash. That is 2.7x ARR on $480M revenue, growing 20% year over year. The company raised $1.4B and was valued at $11.7B in 2021. This is what the SaaS valuation reset looks like at scale.
ASX-listed Scalare secured $5m in convertible notes after buying Fishburners out of administration for an undisclosed sum. The deal adds 40,000 founders to Scalare's database but came with no staff or liabilities. Worth noting: customer receipts hit $5.3m in Q4, up from $639k a year ago.
Strip out SpaceX's $1.77 trillion listing and 2026's IPO market is one of the weakest on record for enterprise software. Not a single B2B SaaS company has gone public or even filed. Databricks CEO called it 'a terrible year to go public' despite $5.4B ARR growing 65%. Why this matters for your quota: when the exit window stays shut, hiring plans stall.
Matt Berriman called time on his US legal battle against Google after the Ninth Circuit rejected his appeal. Unlockd, the Sydney adtech startup that raised $60m and was valued at $200m, collapsed in 2018 after Google banned it from the Play Store. Eight years of litigation later, Google won.
Australia's national science agency is courting philanthropists and businesses after cutting jobs and narrowing focus. Worth noting: 75% of CSIRO revenue still comes from government, not private sector. The pitch for donations follows Australia's R&D spend sitting at 1.6% of GDP versus 5% in comparable nations.
Eight ANZ startups closed $102 million in funding over two weeks, led by automotive software company Partly's $71.5 million raise from DST Global and Blackbird. The NZ company now valued at $715 million is building an Australian team. The cohort spans deep tech, AI, and agtech, with most still in early scaling phases.
Melbourne sports tech startup Superstat closed a $3.5 million pre-seed led by Blackbird and is moving operations to Austin. The AI video analysis platform has 5,000 active users and is hiring a computer vision engineer and GTM partnerships lead. Worth noting: they are calling this pre-seed at $3.5M, which would be Series A territory in most ANZ markets.
Logistics operator Andrew McKenna bought the Sendle brand, trademarks, and domain after the carbon-neutral shipping platform shut down in January 2026. The company raised over $100 million before a failed merger with US logistics firms killed the business. No word yet on sales team rebuild or enterprise customer strategy.
Block released Buzz, a free workplace chat app that puts humans and AI agents in the same conversations. The open-source platform combines chat, code repos, and project management in one interface. No visible sales team yet, this is an engineering-led product launch, not an enterprise play.