Four Australian startups that have raised almost $7 million this week

Australian startup raises still haven’t quite picked back up to December 2022 numbers, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some dollars floating around. And we’re excited to report that we didn’t even have to look that hard for female-founded businesses receiving funding this week. You truly love to see it.

Bloom: $525,000

First up we have Bloom, an ethical investment startup from Brisbane that offers a democratised investment app that only deals in climate-friendly opportunities. This includes some unlisted green investments, like solar and wind farms, that haven’t been available to regular investors until now.

The $525,000 seed round was led by Up co-founder Dominic Pym and Envato founders Collis and Cyan Ta’eed.

Read the full story here.

Vedi: $3 million

Perth vet tech startup, Verdi, has secured $3 million for its universal medical record platforms for animals. It’s like My Health Record but presumably far less buggy and problematic.

The company launched in 2017 as VetVB but changed its name to Vedi last year. It was founded by Dr Steve Joslyn, a veterinary radiologist who wanted to create a solution to manual vet record-keeping and consistent data problems.

Vedi is accessible from a phone and allows veterinary professionals to access a pet’s records directly from its microchip. In addition to written medical records, it also allows for photo uploads of the pet and its medication.

The funding round was led by MSD Animals Health and the New York VC Companion Fund.

Alii: $2.5 million

Brisbane startup Alii has closed on $2.5 million in Pre-Series A funding for its end-to-end accounts payable software solution. According to the company, its seen 240% growth in just six months and its valuation is reportedly sitting at $10 million. It’s largely attributing this to hackers targeting high-profile school databases that were riddled with vulnerabilities.

And this isn’t particularly surprising as we have seen an explosion of hacking attacks over the past two quarters across multiple sectors in Australia.

Alii’s tech integrates with already-existing accounts payable systems, addressing security, verification and fraud detection issues. It also streamlines previously existing auditing processes through “digitalised paper trails.”

This round of funding will be used to add to the company headcount across customer engagement, sales, marketing and product development roles.

Code Like A Girl: $880,000

This one is a little different, but we’ll allow it becomes women in STEM rule and Code Like A Girl recently won the Community Hero award in our Smart50 awards late last year.

This week the Australian government $15.9 million in grants across 17 projects supporting women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

This is part of the latest round of funding for Women in STEM and Entrepreneurship (WiSE) grants, which provide between $500,000 and $1 million for projects encouraging STEM education for women and girls to expand successful projects that have increased awareness of STEM education and improved opportunities for girls or women to build skills and succeed in STEM careers.

“We want to make sure that more women find lasting, rewarding and successful careers in STEM fields, regardless of their background,” Minister for Industry and Science, Ed Husic, said in a statement.

“Our focus is on supporting opportunity for Australians from all corners of the community into rewarding STEM careers.”

Code Like A Girl received an $880,000 grant to build on its School of Code program, including an expanded course program and internship placement.

Some of the other successful grants included:

• GMIC Geelong Manufacturing Council ($954,000) to support the Women in Manufacturing Network to partner with VET institutions and industry;
• University of Melbourne ($998,000) to place 113 women STEM postgraduate students into industry internships;
• University of Western Australia ($879,000) to train 200 women teachers, who will then teach quantum computing to 11-15-year-old girls;
• Food Futures Company ($975,000) to scale up projects aimed at increasing participation of Indigenous women in the agrifood sector.
• RBG Enterprises ($999,000) for the WILD On Board program to provide opportunities for women leaders to gain board positions; and
• Indigenous Entrepreneur Network ($951,000) for culturally-appropriate coaching and training, and to build business networks to help Indigenous women and girls to thrive.