🇦🇺 This Week in Australian Startups #168 5th July 2026
Weekly roundup: Echo IQ raises $110m through a placement to expand its US diagnostics business; Deputy debuts an AI product; Medical Angels brings on Michael Batko as a venture partner.
Founder, Startup Striders
Stories naming Michael Batko. Where several outlets covered the same round, they are bundled under whichever ran the fullest account.
Weekly roundup: Echo IQ raises $110m through a placement to expand its US diagnostics business; Deputy debuts an AI product; Medical Angels brings on Michael Batko as a venture partner.
Startmate chief Michael Batko departs following an eight-year stint; COO Phoebe Pincus steps up. The piece credits his tenure for the accelerator's growth, returns and alumni, and notes his exits from two side ventures.
Long-serving Startmate chief Michael Batko departs the accelerator's top job, with operations lead Phoebe Pincus promoted to CEO; the piece also recalls two side ventures Batko previously exited.
Currents, a Gold Coast founder community group, has bought Michael Batko's running community Startup Striders for an undisclosed cash sum; Batko advises through December while remaining Startmate CEO.
Also SmartCompany
Sydney robotics startup Puralink has raised $2.3m in seed capital, with Peak XV leading and several local funds and angels joining, to commercialise its leak-detecting robot for pipes.
SmartCompany's rolling coverage of SXSW Sydney day two, recording Polymath's pre-seed raise and Build Club's recent funding, the Equity Clear launch, Startmate's Demo Day, and women-founded startup pitches at Google's event.
A profile of Startmate ranking the twenty most valuable companies it has backed, noting their valuations, past raises and founders, plus Bugcrowd's newly announced purchase of Informer and its climate focus.
Startup Daily covers Startmate's Summer24 accelerator intake: ten startups, six with women founders, four in deep tech, spanning health AI, e-commerce, materials and agtech across Australia and New Zealand.
Startup Daily covers Startmate's Winter 2023 accelerator intake of 13 startups, the accelerator's reported fund performance, its backer returns, and an upcoming Demo Day alongside SXSW Sydney.
LaunchVic is giving Startmate $300,000 across two years so hundreds of university students can try its Student Fellowship; the next intake's application window closes in October, and alumni include Lyrebird Health's founders.
LaunchVic has granted Startmate $300,000 to run its Student Fellowship, a three-week program training at least 320 Victorian university students in startup skills over two years.
Criteo has bought marketing platform Brandcrush, handing its backers, including Rampersand and Startmate, an exit; the piece recalls the company's 2019 raise and Startmate accelerator background.
Startmate unveils its first 2023 accelerator intake, twelve Australian and New Zealand startups working on areas from seaweed packaging and carbon capture to medical devices and farm robotics.
Startup Daily profiles the twelve ventures entering Startmate's Summer23 accelerator intake, spanning carbon capture, renewables, health, education, robotics and proptech, with founders named for each.
Tattarang, the Forrests' private investment vehicle, has partnered with Startmate to back women-led startups in its latest accelerator intake, which includes Kapture, Kelpy and Turnto.
The Clean Energy Finance Corporation's Innovation Fund pledges $300,000 towards Startmate's climate accelerator cohorts, while Gridcognition, Digital Agriculture Services and Cass Materials join the program's latest intake ahead of demo day.
Startmate reveals the startups joining its latest Melbourne cohort and its first New Zealand group, while discussing remote operations and new leadership appointments.
Startmate appoints Lauren Capelin from Reinventure as its first Principal and Blackbird's Samantha Wong to its board, replacing Nick Crocker, as it launches its first New Zealand accelerator cohort.
Startmate chief Michael Batko advises founders to focus on solving real customer problems and widen their networks, citing alumni Propeller Aero's recently announced $26 million round as proof the approach attracts venture investment.
Also Startup Daily
A business news roundup: supermarkets ease buying limits, EnergyLab secures government-backed funding for a startup scale-up program, Startmate hosts an online demo day, Netflix plans new funding, and EatClub launches app features.
Startmate moves its Demo Day online for its Sydney 2020 accelerator cohort, with eleven startups pitching to investors via livestream; each company earlier received $75,000 from Startmate.
Startup Daily roundup: French regulator fines Apple over iPhone slowdown; Startmate opens applications for its women-only Fellowship; SocietyOne raises $15 million; Xero deepens its Square integration; Nasdaq visits Sydney.
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