Meta

Dating app Bumble sold in $1.9 billion deal after value plummets

Also SMH Business

Live: Oil prices on the rise as energy supply concerns continue

Markets live blog covering rising oil prices, a higher ASX open, weak LVMH quarterly sales, analysis of Firmus Technologies' failed float, and an analyst's bullish view of Meta's new AI models.

🇦🇺 This Week in Australian Startups #181, 11th October 2026

Weekly digest: Firmus withdraws its planned listing, Square Peg reaches a billion-dollar close on two vehicles, MUFG clears regulators to buy Grow Inc, and Lubdub, RocketDNA, Energy Bay and Metal all raise.

Also @AuManufacturing·Startup Daily·Startup Daily

Figure's Brett Adcock sold investors a humanoid future. Now he has to build it.

Profile of Brett Adcock probing Figure's $39 billion valuation, narrow robot deployments, disputed claims involving BMW and OpenAI, and his habit of raising vast sums for ventures like Hark before products ship.

Also Crunchbase News

Australia's great AI hope just hit a speed bump

AI infrastructure company Firmus, preparing an ASX listing at a reported $44 billion valuation, has split from partner CDC over a scrapped data centre plan, while its prominent backers stay supportive.

Also The Age Business

Evan Spiegel’s ill-fated $3 billion plan to put Snapchat on your face

Profile of Snap's CEO and his costly, long-running bet on AR smartglasses, the spurned Facebook takeover offer, Meta's dominance in AI eyewear, and activist investors pushing for change.

Airwallex-backed start-up raises nearly $50m in seed round

Metal, co-founded by Loong Wang and Catherine Porter, completed a roughly $50 million seed round with Airwallex and its venture arm Capital 49 as joint leads, per new filings.

Also Fintech News Australia·This Week in Australian Startups

🇦🇺 This Week in Australian Startups #180, 4th October 2026

Weekly roundup reporting Australian startup funding rounds and government grants, a venture fund close, agreed acquisitions, an IPO pricing, a collapse, plus executive hires and AI policy developments.

From prison to billionaire data centre operator, the incredible story of Oliver Curtis

Analysis tracing Oliver Curtis from an insider trading prison term to his central role in Firmus's planned $7.2 billion Australian sharemarket listing, with Blackstone and Nvidia among its existing backers.

Q2 2026 Global Fund Newsletter

Quarterly report from the Defender Global Fund flagging an 84.7% portfolio return, profits taken on SharonAI following its February Nasdaq uplisting, SharonAI's GPU collaboration with NVIDIA, and fresh investor subscriptions.

Q2 2026 Global Fund Newsletter

Defender's quarterly newsletter reports an exceptional quarter for its global fund, headlined by portfolio holding SharonAI, which surged after a February Nasdaq uplisting and an NVIDIA GPU deployment partnership.

Also Defender AM portfolio·Startup Daily·AFR Technology·Forbes Australia·Forbes Australia·Dealroom

Skalata reveals the 13 new startups it's just backed with seed investments

Skalata Ventures unveils its October 2021 seed intake of 13 startups, among them Ardacious and Strength By Numbers, and notes alumnus Preezie recently secured a $5.5 million Series A.

Topic | Managed funds | Australian Financial Review

An AFR managed-funds topic page: a star small-caps deputy goes solo with a new Sydney firm, Gigacomm buys rival DGtek, Google plans a multibillion-dollar domestic bond, plus fund manager and market stories.

Our Investment in Bower | The AI Research Partner for Scientists

Ten13 led Bower's A$2m pre-seed round for a voice-first AI assistant that helps scientists capture lab observations hands-free, founded by a four-person team with backgrounds at Microsoft, Google and Atlassian.

Also Startup Daily

SafetyCulture has a new name – and an insurance bet to match

Forbes Australia reports the workplace-safety unicorn's new name and its expanding insurance arm, with founder Luke Anear back as chief executive.

Our Investment in Flyweel - Building the Financial Layer Beneath Ad Spend

Ten13's post explains why it led Flyweel's pre-seed round with QIC, Antler and angel investors, backing a platform bringing real-time financial visibility and funding to advertising spend.

Property investment startup Dashdot in liquidation, with Budget as 'the straw that broke the camel's back'

Property investment advisory Dashdot has entered voluntary liquidation after seven years, with co-founder and CEO Glenn McGrath citing economic conditions, federal budget tax reforms and rising Meta advertising costs; clients face losing upfront fees.

Also SmartCompany·SmartCompany·Startup Daily

💫 Ramplify: April Architect

Rampersand's April newsletter: an essay on AI services startups, model releases from Anthropic and Meta, Firmus Technologies' $505 million raise, Dexibit's sale to accesso, plus portfolio jobs, events and market commentary.

Also Dealroom·Cut Through Venture·Startup Daily·SmartCompany·SmartCompany·Forbes Australia·Business News Australia

Vision Via Sound for the Blind: Can a Silicon Valley Veteran Deliver the Solution to a $2B NDIS Problem?

Profile of ARIA Research, Robert Yearsley's audio-based AR startup for blind users, recalling a $2 million NSW Medical Device Fund grant among $11 million raised and targeting the NDIS market.

Team Techstars Sydney: How Juxtabyte is turning data into gold

Startup Daily profiles Juxtabyte, a data governance startup founded by former CBA data governance lead Hugh Le, ahead of the Techstars Sydney 2025 cohort's Demo the Future event.

ByStorm Beauty wins $30,000 to make cosmetics more accessible

Makeup accessibility startup ByStorm Beauty took out Enterprising ME's 2025 Kickstarter Challenge in Canberra, receiving $30,000, while four fellow finalists' ventures were each granted $7,500.

Square Peg Investor Letter Half Year Report 30 June 2025

Square Peg's half-year investor letter reviews its accelerating AI investing, portfolio companies' progress including several completed raises, listed fund returns, a new data hire, and ongoing fundraising for its 2025 vintage funds.

Square Peg Investor Letter Half Year Report 30 June 2025

In its half-year letter, Square Peg explains how it picks AI founders, reports several portfolio companies' recent raises, flags a data engineering hire, and says fundraising for its next funds is well advanced.

Also Tech Funding News - Australia·Forbes Australia·SmartCompany·SmartCompany·Startup Daily·Startup Daily

Five Aussie startups that raised $35.2 million this week

Weekly roundup detailing five Australian startups' raises: a PR platform's Series B, a biotech's post-stealth funding, a defence tech round, a pre-seed voice-AI raise, and a crowdfunding campaign.

Also Startup Daily

Meliora's Clive Dickens teams up with NextGen Ventures to back AI startups

Meliora, Clive Dickens' advisory firm, has started backing AI companies alongside a student-focused venture fund that is closing in on its fundraising target.

Also Forbes Australia

Investment Notes: Why We Invested in splose

EVP sets out its reasoning for backing splose, an AI-native practice management platform for allied health clinics, citing NDIS-driven admin burdens, customer traction and a planned UK expansion alongside Australia and New Zealand.

Also SmartCompany·SmartCompany·Startup Daily·Startup Daily

DeepSeek: Why It's Important — in Layman's Terms

Aura Group's blog post explains how DeepSeek's R1 reaches near-frontier AI results with far less computing power and why its cheaper, self-correcting methods threaten today's AI incumbents.

Over $1 million pledged to Australian women-led businesses at Sister Pitch 2024

Global Sisters' Sister Pitch event with Dentsu steered $1m-plus to a dozen Australian ventures led by women; GTAB Parfum, Soni Health and Chocolate On Purpose were standouts, and Google.org funded a 2023 pilot.

H1 2024 in Review: $100m invested

TEN13's investor letter celebrates passing $100 million deployed, plus fresh backing for iion and Switchboard, team promotions, AutoGrab's overseas growth and NZ-arm sale, and the Mr Yum–Me&U merger.

Also Startup Daily·thetimes.com.au·SmartCompany

Ben Sand on Strong Compute's path to enterprise via hackathons, research grants and more

Folklore Ventures Q&A with Strong Compute founder Ben Sand covering its enterprise AI compute offering, community events, grant programs, hiring and his take on how AI market assumptions have shifted.

Canva gets a ‘glow up’, expands into enterprise to take on Salesforce and LinkedIn

Forbes Australia profiles Canva's enterprise relaunch after a demo with COO Cliff Obrecht, covering new sales, marketing and HR tools; Airtree's co-founder recalls the firm's early backing of the company.

Nine Aussie startups that raised $233.5 million this week

Weekly roundup of nine Australian startups that together raised over $233 million, led by Hysata's $172 million Series B, with rounds also for V2 Digital, AgriWebb, Disco, Genero, Brainfish, Kite Therapy, Nucanon and Maslow.

Also Startup Daily·Business News Australia·Startup Daily

Neural Notes: Ovum AI wants to close the gender data gap in healthcare

SmartCompany's AI column profiles Ovum AI, a Melbourne women's health startup preparing its pilot, which has backing from Wollemi Capital and Nakatomi and plans a crowdfunding round; briefs on other AI news follow.

Five ANZ startups that raised $21.2 million this week

Weekly roundup detailing funding rounds by five Australian and New Zealand startups: a diversity analytics platform, a thermal energy storage maker, a carbon accounting service, an activated carbon producer, and legal communications software.

Bringing our venture DNA to the public markets: Square Peg's Global Tech Fund

Square Peg profiles its Global Tech Fund, a listed-markets strategy applying its venture investing approach to early-stage public tech companies, and outlines its team, edge, and focus on fintech, software and AI.

Also Square Peg Capital portfolio

Q1 2024 Global Fund Newsletter

Defender's fund letter reports a 2% quarterly return, discusses listed trades including a semiconductor ETF position, and revisits its Series A investment in Australian pet-food maker Lyka Pet Food.

Anthropic's Joel Pobar joins TEN13 as a Venture Partner

TEN13 announces Joel Pobar, an Anthropic engineering leader formerly at Meta, as its first Venture Partner, reinforcing the firm's AI investing focus; its early bets include Rockfish Data, Arintra and Qsic.

Blast OIF | 23 things from 2023

OIF Ventures' year in review: full Eftsure exit, Opportunity Fund close, Visory, DataMasque and Nullify backed, follow-ons at Inspace and Dataweavers, new team members and portfolio milestones.

Seven Aussie startups that raised $93.6 million this week

Seven Australian startups together banked over $90 million in the past seven days across venue software, hydrogen aviation, social media, craft brewing, plastics alternatives, aged-care robotics and accountant training.

Also Startup Daily·Startup Daily·SmartCompany·SmartCompany·SmartCompany·SmartCompany·Startup Daily·Forbes Australia

From zero to Employment Hero

Sydney HR-and-payroll firm Employment Hero announced a TCV-led Series F reaching unicorn valuation; the profile covers its products, remote workforce and global ambitions, citing rival raises.

Also Tech Funding News - Australia·TechCrunch Venture·SmartCompany·Startup Daily·Techboard·SmartCompany·Startup Daily·Forbes Australia·Forbes Australia·employmenthero.com·employmenthero.com