FUNDED February 2023

FUNDED February 2023

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Hey folks 👋

I’m Ryan, Techboard’s Data Analyst and I’m taking over this edition of FUNDED.

Australian tech startups collectively raised $426m in February 2023 from 44 private rounds, which around 50% more deals than in January.  

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Missed out on FUNDED 2022 - our review of Australian Startup Funding in 2022? See it now at the link below.

So what happened in February 2023?

The charts below show that it looks like February could indicate the return to the upward trend which started in September of 2022. It can also be seen that the last three years have seen a decline in funding from February to March.  With the recent collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank, which is impacting startups and investors in Australia it would not be surprising to see funding levels being subdued for the rest of March.

We have published our latest capture to the Techboard platform which is accessible to our commercial subscribers For access to our full data capture, sorted, catalogued and full searchable, inquire about a data subscription.

Who’s been FUNDED?

Climatetech Loam and music tech Songtradr both closed Mega Deals in February. 

Loam Bio, decarbonisation startup, closed a $105m Series B raise. Loam has plans to expand overseas next year. Wollemi Capital and Lowercarbon Capital co-led the round.

Songtradr, the data-powered, full-stack, music licensing platform, raised $68m in Series E funding to cover their acquisition of UK-listed 7digital Group. Wisetech founder Richard White invested again, along with existing Australian shareholders. 

Deals by Industry Sector

The most significant sectors for February 2023 are Climatetech, Entertainment-tech, and Fintech, which between them accounted for $250m (60%) of private investment for February.

ClimateTech saw eight funding events for the month of February, led by the $105m round for Loam. Other notable deals were:

SwarmFarm Robotics, an agtech startup, who closed a $12m Series A raise. read more.
MGA Thermal, a cleantech startup, was accepted into Shell's GameChanger Accelerator. read more.
Leakster, a cleantech startup, secured $185k in Angel funding. read more.
gridmo, Kapture, and Kelpy, were accepted into Startmate's Summer23 accelerator cohort. read more.
Solcast, a solar forecasting and data startup, was acquired by DNV for an undisclosed sum. read more.

Songtradr's $68m Series E was a large enough round to standalone and put Entertainment-tech second on the list.

Fintech made third of the sector charts with $64m in private funding across seven deals. DataMesh Group, a payments software startup, and Shift, a business lending fintech, raised $57m between them.

Other funding events captured included:

Ordermentum, a hospitality ordering platform, closed a $2.5m funding round. read more.
NetworksX, an insights platform, closed a $610k Seed raise. read more.
Unhedged, a fintech startup, secured $20k in Angel funding from Southern Angels. read more. 

Fintech also saw two acquisitions, with the Australian fintech arm of Wagestream, being acquired by Humanforce for an undisclosed sum (read more) an ZeeFi, a non-bank lender, being acquired by rival Nimble, read more.

The Fintech Funding Project

During 2023 Techboard will be undertaking a project focussed on fintech funding. We will be aiming to identify and classify all privately owned Australian registered fintech companies and tracking their capital raises to build the most comprehensive picture of capital flows in the fintech ecosystem. We will soon be starting to report on our findings.

This project will produce a valuable dataset available to Techboard's customer and partners and will provide multiple opportunities for exposure on reports and at events.

Please get in touch if you are interested in knowing more or being involved.

Women-Led Ventures

16 women led ventures were backed in February. Startmate, Curtin University supported 12 between them.

Seven solely women-led ventures closed funding rounds in February:

SpeeDx, a medtech startup, closed a $26m funding round. read more.
Kapture, Turnto, and Kelpy have been accepted into Startmate's Summer23 accelerator cohort. read more.
Care Corner, Matilda, and STEM XR have been accepted into Curtin University's 2023 Accelerate program. read more.

Nine startups with mixed-gender founding teams (at least one female founder) also raised in February:

Loam Bio, SwarmFarm Robotics, Our Cow, NetworksX and Remedy closed private funding rounds.
SplootCode, a development platform, has been accepted into Startmate's Summer23 accelerator cohort. read more.
Luddi, an assistive-tech startup, has been accepted into Curtin University's 2023 Accelerate program read more.

Techboard has also received reports of angel investments made in the December quarter into two solely women led ventures, Fempro and Koverd. Mixed gender teams Leakster and Like Family also securing angel funding.

Deal Size and Spread

Acquisitions and IPOs

In addition to the acquisitions of Plezzel and Earnd, ZeeFi, a non-bank lender, was acquired by rival Nimble (read more), Solcast, a solar forecasting and data startup, was acquired by DNV for an undisclosed sum (read more), and Voly, the grocery delivery startup, has been acquired by Our Cow (read more).

Other deals (for our paying subscribers)

Details of all deals we capture are available on the Techboard platform for our paying subscribers. Inquire about a data subscription.

We’ve received reports of investments by 14 Australian angel groups across 20 deals during the December 22 quarter. Our paying subscribers can login to view the data.

Who Funds the Funders? - Fund News

There were quite a few funder fund funding announcements last month. CVC is raising $200m for their CVC Emerging Companies III fund (read more) and Salus Ventures, a new Australian VC, launched a $40m fund with a focus on defense, robotics, and advanced manufacturing (read more). 

EVP closed its fourth fund and raised $100m (read more), Infradebt secured funding from Grok Ventures (and others) for its Energy Transition Fund (read more), Startmate secured funding from Tattarang (read more), Tanarra Capital established a new $100m fund (read more), and View Media Group, a proptech investor, secured $50m from ANZ (read more).

LaunchVic received $1.3m from the Victorian Government for agtech startups (read more), and three WA VCs will each receive $100k for the next three years from the WA Government through its WA Venture Support program (WAVES) (read more).

And OIO's 2023 Ocean Impact Accelerator is accepting 10 startups and awarding them $100k each (read more).