Four Aussie startups that raised $44.6 million this week
Startups with millions of dollars in fresh funding this week include Shift, Inform Ag, Cropify and WhyHive.
This week’s funding round-up features startups building fintech, agtech and data analytics solutions.
Keep reading to learn more about four Australian startups that collectively raised $44.6 million this week.
Shift: $35 million
Credit and payments fintech Shift leads the funding round-up this week, with a $35 million Series D funding round.
The round was led by venture capital firm Peak XV Partners, which was formerly known as Sequoia Capital India & South East Asia, and included participation from other existing investors too.
Peak XV Partners previously led Shift’s $27 million Series C round in early 2023.
Shift was founded by CEO Jamie Osborn in 2014 under its former name Get Capital and the fintech made it onto the Smart50 list of Australia’s fastest-growing SMEs in 2016 and 2018.
The Series B funding follows a $230 million asset-backed securitisation completed by the company in May 2024.
“We started in 2014 with a belief that SMEs were being largely underserved by traditional finance models,” said Osborn in a statement this week.
“Ten years on, we’ve helped to solve the credit and payment pain points for more than 25,000 businesses, providing over $3.5 billion in aggregate funding.”
Osborn said the new funding will allow Shift to invest further in its proprietary data models and platforms, which are designed to “deliver better credit decisions and a vastly improved customer experience for Australian businesses and our network of commercial brokers”.
“We will continue to focus on growing in a profitable and sustainable manner, while effectively managing risk for our debt investors and providing a strong return for our shareholders,” he added.
Inform Ag: $7 million
Queensland-based agtech startup Inform Ag has raised its first external capital after 12 years of bootstrapping, locking in $7 million in a Series A round led by Rural Funds Group.
Inform Ag was founded in 2012 by Jennie Savill to develop technology solutions for farmers and agribusinesses, to help those businesses become more efficient, reduce costs, and enhance data-driven decision-making.
The funding is earmarked for supporting the company’s ongoing scaling efforts and tech development, and strengthening its customer support functions.
“The business is and was already profitable in its own right. The funds raised are seen as sufficient to accelerate growth, the profits from which will then largely be reinvested reducing the need for further raises in the short term and creating added value for the existing investor set,” Steve Lockyer, managing director of Inform Ag, told SmartCompany earlier this week.
Inform Ag is targeting growth at home, and globally. In Australia, it is focusing on areas such as Sunraysia, NSW Riverina, South Australian Riverland, Adelaide wine regions and North Queensland.
Globally, it is looking at key horticulture growing regions in Southern California, Florida, and Washington State in the US.
Cropify: $2 million
South Australian AI agtech startup Cropify has secured $2 million in funding, in a capital raise cornerstoned by Australian VC Mandalay Venture Partners and Singapore-based Hatcher+.
Mandalay and Hatcher+ contributed a combined $850,000 to the funding round, which represents their first joint investment under a new partnership that was announced this week.
The two funds said in a statement they are working together to “accelerate the growth of startups focusing on solutions from ‘farm-to-fork’”. This will include on-farm technologies, farm gate solutions, supply chain innovations, and point-of-sale advancements.
Founded in 2019 by Anna Falkiner and Andrew Hannon, Cropify uses AI to improve the accuracy and efficiency of grain grading.
The Cropify system is designed to be used by growers, grain bulk handlers, and marketers to grade or classify pulse samples in a precise way that is both objective and repeatable.
It promises improved efficiency across the sector, leading to cost savings, as well as more sustainable processes that reduce CO2 emissions and the use of plastic.
The startup has previously received a grant from the Australian Institute of Machine Learning and funding from the South Australian Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development’s AgTech Growth Fund.
WhyHive: $600,000
Data analysis startup WhyHive has raised $600,000 in funding in a pre-seed round that includes three prominent Australian tech founders.
These include Linktree co-founder Alex Zaccaria, Up Bank‘s Dom Pym, and Culture Amp and Pyn co-founder Jon Williams.
They joined forces with Skalata Ventures, which led the oversubscribed round for the Melbourne-based startup.
Billing itself as the “Canva for Data”, WhyHive’s goal is to make “data analysis easy enough for anyone”.
The WhyHive app allows users to upload data from surveys, sales, product reviews, or spreadsheets and then perform simple and quick analytical tasks, for free.
The startup was founded by T Guthrie and Matt Cohen, who developed the idea while running a social enterprise data consultancy together.
It is already being used by the ABC, Share the Dignity, and founders like Ally Watson, CEO of Code Like A Girl.
“Businesses are drowning in data but very few have a way to analyse it,” said WhyHive co-founder T Guthrie in a statement provided to SmartCompany.
“It’s too hard, too time-consuming, or too expensive. What if we built a tool that could do the most common analysis tasks and make them dead easy?”
Investor Dom Pym said he is backing the startup because he believes in its mission.
“We love that they want to democratise data exploration for everyone, helping elevate the entire ecosystem,” he said in the same statement.
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