Startup · $2m raised · Education
Melbourne, VIC
Every investor coverage indicates participated in a round RMIT University raised.
| Investor | Rounds | Invested |
|---|---|---|
| Australian Department of Defence | Grant | - |
| Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) | Grant | $2,000,000 |
Every published round RMIT University took part in, and every parcel of existing shares it bought off another holder. Deals we hold but haven't published yet are not counted.
| Company | Stage | Announced | Amount | Role | Alongside | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GonGlobal | Grant | Sep 2026 | $1m | Participant | SmartCompany (Wed 16 Sep 2026), Startup Daily (Tue 15 Sep 2026), SmartCompany (Fri 4 Sep 2026), datapile.co, Startup Daily (Wed 2 Sep 2026), Dealroom (Tue 1 Sep 2026), Dealroom (Tue 1 Sep 2026) |
Companies RMIT University has backed in a published round, and companies whose existing shares it bought off another holder.
| Company | What it does | First invested | Rounds | Led |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GonGlobal | Sep 2026, Grant | 1 | 0 |
This is a stake in the fund itself, money that the fund's manager invests, not a stake in the fund manager.
| Fund | Manager | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| University Innovation Platform (UIP) | Breakthrough Victoria | Breakthrough Victoria (Fri 28 Mar 2025), Breakthrough Victoria (Thu 27 Mar 2025) |
Companies RMIT University has backed that another company then bought. An exit for the holding, not a deal RMIT University did.
| Company | Bought by | Kind | Announced | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No portfolio company of RMIT University is recorded as having been acquired. | ||||
Companies RMIT University acquired or merged with, per published coverage. Buying a company is not investing in one: nothing here counts in the deals column.
| Name | Role | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| Alex Kingsbury | Additive Manufacturing Industry Fellow & Engagement Lead | @AuManufacturing (Thu 9 Dec 2021), @AuManufacturing (Thu 17 Dec 2020) |
| Arnan Mitchell | Director of the Integrated Photonics and Applications Centre | Defence Connect |
| Dr James Waldie | Adjunct Professor | @AuManufacturing |
| Leslie Yeo | Distinguished Professor | Startup Daily |
| Priya Kanniappan | Industry Mentor | Australian FinTech |
| Prof Alan Wong | Professor (former) | Startup Daily (Fri 19 Dec 2025), SmartCompany (Fri 19 Dec 2025), Virescent Ventures, Startup Daily (Tue 16 Dec 2025), RenewEconomy (Tue 16 Dec 2025), RenewEconomy (Tue 16 Dec 2025), SmartCompany (Tue 16 Dec 2025) |
| Professor Sharath Sriram | Professor | @AuManufacturing (Tue 3 Jun 2025), @AuManufacturing (Fri 27 Aug 2021) |
| Professor Vipul Bansal | Nanotechnology Specialist | Mirage News, proactiveinvestors.com, newshub.medianet.com.au |
| Rajiv Padhye | Director | @AuManufacturing |
Stories naming RMIT University. Where several outlets covered the same round, they are bundled under whichever ran the fullest account.
Roundup of the week's Australia and New Zealand raises: Gridsight, Pearler and Apate.AI secure the biggest cheques, Drumbeat and GonGlobal add smaller sums, and ten AI startups join Airwallex's Latitude 37 program.
Melbourne medical device maker GonGlobal has received a A$1 million grant, split evenly between Innovation Victoria and RMIT University, to develop Ovulair, which delivers fertility medication by inhalation instead of injection.
Also Dealroom·Startup Daily·datapile.co·SmartCompany·Startup Daily·SmartCompany
Skalata Ventures, the seed fund and founder-training program led by Paul Little and Rohan Workman, is raising a second vehicle plus growth capital, reporting 30 investments and a 44 per cent IRR.
Private-equity-backed drinks group Fermentum has bought Melbourne craft brewer Two Birds for $24.7 million, its sixth brewery; the piece also reviews the site's sustainability record and earlier sector consolidations.
Also glassandnote.com
As Breakthrough Victoria and LaunchVic combine into Innovation Victoria, nine partner organisations will share government funding to run pre-accelerator programs for founders at the idea stage.
Victorian pre-seed program BVUIP, backed by Breakthrough Victoria and seven universities, has funded startups EntroMat, Excelligent and Remagine Labs, plus fellowship grants for three PhD-led ventures.
Breakthrough Victoria staff attended agrifood, climate finance, women's health and deep tech events, and joined the launch of agritech firm YieldX.
Retired Major General Andrew Bottrell has joined defence company Aurora Labs as a non-executive director, bringing senior military and acquisition experience; he also founded Rockpool Partners and holds an academic chair at Deakin University.
Q&A with a Breakthrough Victoria fellow reflecting on her early months building Mental Jam, a mental-health games startup, and her plans to apply for an AEA grant.
Eight university- and company-led Australian quantum projects share $12.7 million in stage-two Critical Technologies Challenge Program grants, funding prototypes for data-centre cooling, medical imaging and rare-earth detection.
Breakthrough Victoria's release marks Infleqtion's New York Stock Exchange listing, the investor's first portfolio listing, and notes further quantum backing of Quantum Brilliance plus Infleqtion's Victorian operations and partnerships.
Also Breakthrough Victoria·Breakthrough Victoria·Breakthrough Victoria·Breakthrough Victoria·Startup Daily·SmartCompany
Profile of Snoretox, a biotech using a modified tetanus toxin to strengthen weak muscles in dogs and humans, which has won a $1 million government research grant and is seeking investors.
Wholesale Investor's Steve Torso highlights Australian life sciences companies from the Emergence Preview Series, noting government grant funding, a Series A extension, venture co-investment, and a medtech company's ASX listing.
Also Wholesale Investor
Roundup of seven trans-Tasman raises worth $93.1m this week, headlined by IND Technology's $50m round, with LawVu also acquiring ClauseBase.
Virescent Ventures announces it has invested in grid-tech firm IND Technology's inaugural institutional round, led by Energy Impact Partners and Angeleno Group, profiling the Melbourne company's early fault detection technology, founders and utility customers.
Also SmartCompany·Startup Daily·RenewEconomy·RenewEconomy·SmartCompany·Startup Daily·SmartCompany·Startup Daily
Roundup of manufacturing news: Archer Materials' biochip results with IMEC, Resmed's CPAP mask launch, Boeing's RAAF P-8A upgrades, Breakthrough Victoria's $75m across venture funds, an Avalon Airport freight facility, and Sleeptite's FlexiSense.
Breakthrough Victoria has chosen three academic founders for its new fellowship, providing each with $150,000 to help commercialise research in mental health, IVF and skin cancer detection.
Breakthrough Victoria announces the first three fellows of its $7.5 million fellowship, giving each researcher $150,000 and support to turn research into startups in mental health games, IVF imaging and skin cancer detection.
Breakthrough Victoria's fellowship has put $150,000 into Mental Jam, whose mobile games build emotional coping skills; the fellowship is a $7.5 million Victorian initiative to create up to 50 research startups.
Australian nanobiotech firm Nexsen has begun trading on the sharemarket after an $8m IPO; earlier government grants and an RMIT research collaboration are also noted.
Press Play Ventures, a program for aspiring women founders, took out the GSD trophy at Startup Daily's 2025 awards; alumni noted include GonGlobal, which raised pre-seed funding, and Umbrellus, now in a LaunchVic challenge.
Breakthrough Victoria reflects on its 2022 investment in quantum company Infleqtion, part of a larger raise, detailing Victorian operations, university partnerships, workforce programs and a planned US listing via SPAC.
Roundup of Australian manufacturing items: gold-nanoparticle cancer diagnostics research, a medical research endowment's ten-year mark, a footballer's ambassador role, EU research program accession talks, a pectin producer's government grant, and battle-tank trainers.
NASA confirmed the Australian-built Roo-ver will reach the Moon by 2030 under its Artemis program. The ELO2 consortium, technically led by Lunar Outpost Oceania of Melbourne, has $42 million in Australian Government backing.
Defence's innovation accelerator has awarded three more contracts under its emerging and disruptive technologies program, funding quantum and information-warfare work at CSIRO, four universities and Silicon Quantum Computing, adding $9 million to the program.
Construction firm Northern Trade Solutions is launching a glass-making arm, Northern Glass Solutions, with a $668,072 Northern Territory Government grant toward a $5.4 million, 12-month project alongside industry and university partners.
Two Victorian backers put a combined $2.25 million into three university spinouts pursuing biologics, antibody drugs and delivery devices, launching a new $15 million pre-seed vehicle.
Also @AuManufacturing
Weekly roundup: Breakthrough Victoria and Monash University co-invest $2.25 million across three university healthtech spinouts, while Blackbird backs Hall, which helps businesses win visibility on AI platforms, with $2 million pre-seed.
Also Startup Daily
Breakthrough Victoria and Monash University put joint pre-seed backing into three life-sciences spinouts and launched the $15m Monash Ventures pre-seed fund, part of a $100m platform commercialising Victorian university research.
Atmo Biosciences has won American regulator clearance for its swallowable gas-sensing capsule, an RMIT invention licensed in 2018; sales begin in July, after RMIT swapped the patents for equity in April.
CSIRO's ninth ON accelerator cohort of eleven research teams has completed the program, with three members winning grants, two filing patents, and individual awards announced.
CSIRO's ON Accelerate program presents its ninth intake of eleven research startups, drawn from universities nationwide and the agency itself, spanning biotech, healthcare and sustainability, at a Melbourne showcase.
Manufacturing roundup: two hydrogen aircraft developers register cryogenic hydrogen tanks, a new WA Chief Scientist begins, a battery recycler wins a state grant, and the steel lobby seeks US tariff relief.
Breakthrough Victoria's Dr Olga Hogan explains its University Innovation Platform, which co-invests pre-seed funding alongside Victorian universities, plus a fellowship helping PhD researchers turn research into companies.
Student-run venture fund NextGen Ventures has locked in $1.5 million toward a $2.5 million target, backed by Blackbird's cofounders, Airtree and angel investors, and has already invested in AI startup Fluency.
AgTech firm YieldX has attracted a $1.7 million round, with Breakthrough Victoria and La Trobe University's Eagle Fund contributing $500,000 apiece alongside Mandalay Venture Partners and LaunchVic's Hugh Victor McKay Fund.
EntroMat, a Melbourne developer of high-entropy metal powders, has landed $1 million from Breakthrough Victoria and Swinburne under a university research commercialisation platform.
Solar panel recycler Elecsome has secured a patent for its dismantling and glass recovery methods; the piece also recaps its accelerator participation, a feasibility study with AGL and an Enel Green Power agreement.
Australian Catholic University signs on as the seventh university in Breakthrough Victoria's co-investment platform, with matched funding pledged; the article also recaps four earlier startup investments via Melbourne's Genesis Pre-Seed fund.
Roundup: Space Machines' joint India mission clears a design milestone with an $8.5m government grant behind it, RMIT and Skykraft scale up photonics-based navigation tech, and SunCable names a new group CEO.