A round-up of Australia’s tech and startup-related news headlines from across January, February and March – Q1 2022
- Australian tech and startup news
- Headlines linked to each online article
- Quarterly collection for January, February and March 2022
- Free-to-read online news sources
- Articles, reports, downloads, commentary and more
January 2022 | February 2022 | March 2022
See our other editions for the variety of channels we publish to.
Australia: March 2022
- Australia: Buy-now-pay-later firm Zip Co set to acquire Sezzle in Au$491M deal, setting sights on presence in $25 trillion global market
- Australia: Female Founders Pitch Night with Microsoft for Startups set for March 11th in Sydney
- Australia: Truescope gains $6.2M with cloud-based SaaS platform, harnessing social media to pull insights for customer reputation management, intelligence and crisis communications
- Australia’s CryptoTaxCalculator raises seed capital to expand automated crypto tax reporting tool further into the US market
- Australian Plant Proteins project set to quadruple animal-free protein manufacturing in South Australia, with Au$378M funding for 3 new production plants
- Australia: Language Confidence raises $1.5M seed funding using artificial intelligence to automate teaching and testing of spoken English
- Australia: Portabl takes Zurich Australia Innovation Championship win with insurance platform for self-employed workers, enabling them to take benefits from gig to gig
- Australia: 30X30 program unveiled by LaunchVic, aiming to help high-potential Victorian firms scale up in pursuit of unicorn status by 2030 – applications close March 14th
- State of Australian Startup Funding report now available to download, an analysis of data from more than 800 Australian founders and startup investors
- Australian Blockchain Week 2022 is set for March 21-25 – over 75 events and more than 200 speakers
- Australia’s Immutable NFT/Web3 firm raises $200M Series C at valuation of $2.5BN, backed by China’s Tencent, Singapore’s Temasek, Hong Kong’s Animoca Brands and others
- Australia: An intro to Boomer Home Loans, fintech-focused home loans provider focused on challenges faced by the over-55 demographic
- Australia: Book An Artist raises $1M with platform connecting businesses and people with visual artists worldwide, aiming to change how art is consumed and commissioned
- Australia: ‘Exploring Cryptocurrency’, March 2022 report from Cyber Security Industry Advisory Committee of the Dept’ of Home Affairs, now available to download (pdf)
- Australia: A brief interview intro to 1Receipt, sustainability-focused fintech startup providing digital receipts at point-of-sale
- Australia: Entries now open for 2022 Local Business Heroes program, aiming to select 57 small businesses for promotion through the Australia Post network
- Australia: All smartphones sold in the country may be mandated to include parental controls and higher default safety levels, under new gov’t online safety push
- Australia: A quick overview of what you need to know about non-fungible tokens and your tax liabilities in the country
- Australian Competition & Consumer Commission to sue Meta over crypto scam ads, with Facebook and Instagram linking fake crypto deal articles to unknowing celebrities
- Australia: Gov’t unveils ‘Space Command’ defence agency, initially modest in scope but potentially growing in scope with time
- Australia: Senator sees decentralized autonomous organizations posing ‘existential threat to the tax base’ since they are not liable to company tax, proposes legislation
- Australia: The transcript of Senator Andrew Bragg’s address to Blockchain Week 2022, looking at taxation on crypto tokens, DAOs, crypto and sanctions, and more
- Australia: Gov’t seeks feedback on proposals in consultation paper on minimum standards of conduct by crypto asset secondary service providers, and safeguards for consumers
- Australian Communications & Media Authority given powers to force big tech firms to provide internal data on how they have handled misinformation and disinformation
- Australia: Federal budget allocates $10BN over 10 years to Australian Signals Directorate to ‘keep pace with the rapid growth of cyber capabilities of potential adversaries’
- Australia: SBE Australia unveils 10 female founder-led startups selected for new Global Tech program
- ICYMI: Indonesia’s Bukalapak e-commerce major has opened a tech hub in Melbourne, Australia, providing opportunities for both countries’ tech and startup sectors
Australia: February 2022
- Australia’s AirTree Ventures VC firm raises Au$700M, to be divided between 3 investment vehicles including Au$200M early-stage fund and Au$50M Web3 startups fund
- Australia: E-commerce startup, Instant, secures $2.2M pre-seed funding, founded by teenagers and providing a one-click online store checkout system to beat abandoned carts
- FinTech Australia Ecosystem Map is online now, and is seeking listings from fintech and banking tech firms
- Australia: Commonwealth Bank joins $31M funding round for OwnHome, seeing opportunity presented by home ownership rent-to-own iteration of buy-now-pay-later concept
- Australia’s Immutable X platform partnered by GameStop for NFT marketplace for launch later in 2022; and to launch US$100M grants fund for developers to build on the platform
- Australia’s Eden Towers and Scotland’s IGS partner for commercial-scale vertical farm that will be powered by up to 100% solar energy, and with sights on carbon neutrality by 2024
- Australia: Regional NSW police department starts logging locations of residential surveillance cameras to help fight crime, prompting privacy concerns
- Australia: Cherry Recommends AI startup selected for Y Combinator accelerator program with focus on increasing customer engagement, conversion and retention
- Australia: 20% stake in Paypa Plane fintech taken by Commonwealth Bank of Australia in bid to improve payment experiences for its small business customers
- Australia: Finnie Awards entries are now open, showcasing the best of the Australian fintech industry
- Australia: Slyp raises $25M Series A funding with mission to digitize receipts for businesses and consumers, with 4 major banks supporting
- Australia: National Space Industry Hub and mentorship program launches, joint initiative between NSW gov’t and Cicada Innovations deep tech incubator
- Australia: Forcite motorcycle tech firm raises near $6M with ‘smart helmets’ featuring LED notifications of oncoming road hazards and more
- Australia: An intro to Camplify, peer-to-peer marketplace allowing owners of campervans, caravans, RVs and motorhomes to rent vehicles to holidaymakers
- Australia: Non-profit Ocean Impact Organisation launches $2.5M accelerator program and venture capital fund, partnering with Energy Lab and Impact Ventures
- Australia: PropHero raises $1.6M seed round with data-driven, AI-backed property investment platform
- Australia: Tiiik startup lands Au$5.2M seed funding with digital wallet enabling investors to save, spend and earn interest on crypto products
- Australian Honey Ventures raises $1.5M in equity crowdfunding campaign, with revenue-sharing for beekeepers and pricing focused on antibacterial strength of honey
Cool Points Club / Climate change, blockchain & NFTs
- Australia: Upflowy raises $4M with no-code, drag-and-drop platform for A/B testing and personalization for the web and mobile, helping online businesses boost conversions
- Australia: DAO Basics webinar, Demystifying Decentralised Autonomous Organisations, set for March 1st
- New Zealand’s LawVu partners Australia’s Law Squared for cloud-based platform for in-house legal teams, streamlining and integrating working processes and systems
- India’s Tata Consultancy Svcs launches Digital Garage innovation and digital collab centre in Sydney, Australia, to bring the firm’s global capabilities to the Australian market
- ICYMI: Australian Gov’t commits Au$4.9M to Ascend Vietnam Ventures fund to boost local startups
Australia: January 2022
- Australia: Personal details of nearly 80,000 South Australian public sector workers accessed in cyber attack on government payroll software
- Australia: US-Australia Accelerator for Women Founders launches six-week virtual accelerator for 30 Australian women founders, commencing February 14th
- RT @Reuters: WATCH: An Australian biotech startup says its drones can combat deforestation by planting millions of trees a year from the air
- Australia: In December, Cogniss no-code app-building platform closed equity crowd-sourced funding campaign with $1.1M raised, near 4 times its initial target
- Australia: ‘Start in Melbourne, Scale to Southeast Asia’ set for February, a 5-day program for early stage founders to explore product-market fit in Indonesia, Singapore or Vietnam
- Australian Renewable Energy Agency sets aside Au$100M to fund commercial-scale batteries equipped with advanced inverter technology
- Australia: NAB innovation arm backs Geora, agricultural tech startup which traces crop data using non-fungible tokens to create better lending outcomes for farmers
- Australia: An intro to Zibra, digital wallet consolidating all your existing cards and allowing you to pay using just one card each time, seamlessly selecting the best payment method
- Australia: National Australia Bank to acquire LanternPay digital health claims startup, targeting the $120BN health payments sector
- Australia: An intro to Zetifi, aiming to deliver farm-wide wi-fi using tractors, trucks and passenger vehicles as roaming access points, trialling at Wagga Wagga’s Global Digital Farm
- Australia: KPMG co-launches Building Trustworthy Index, blockchain-based platform allowing stakeholders to review provenance, materials quality and contractors in building construction
- ICYMI: Consumer groups warn UK gov’t against following Australia in allowing BNPL industry to self-regulate, describing method as ‘woefully inadequate in curbing consumer harm’
- Australia: Future Founders Venture Scholarships are now open for applications from international students, supported by Study Melbourne and StartSpace
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