Five Aussie AI startups we’re excited to watch in 2025
Meet the top five AI startups we’ll be watching closely in 2025. All of them had a stellar year, from funding to major acquisitions.
It’s been another massive year for AI, from government regulation, to Australian startups making waves at home and internationally.
From building teams of AI agents, to reshaping legal processes and creating life-like robots, Australian AI startups are helping to redefine industries.
Here are just a few that we’ll be watching keenly in 2025. And if you’re interested in more Australian startups we will be keeping tabs on, we have a list of non-AI startups right here.
Leonardo.ai
One of 2024’s biggest startup stories was Canva’s acquisition of Leonardo.ai for a reported $120 million. This was just six months after the startup raised $47 million, which earned it a spot on our startups to watch list last year.
Founded in late 2022, Leonardo.ai began with a focus on hyperrealistic image generation for the gaming sector. Its platform allows users to create, edit, and customise assets, driving it to acquire over 19 million users and become one of the fastest-growing AI startups in the country.
With its foundational model Phoenix and a booming Discord community of 1.8 million members (the third-largest globally), Leonardo has expanded its applications into marketing, fashion, and architecture.
Its enterprise offering, Leonardo for Teams, also launched in 2024, delivering creative collaboration tools with features like private model sharing and API access.
Now backed by Canva’s resources, we’re very keen to see what Leonardo has planned for 2025.
Build Club
Build Club started as a small AI residency program in 2023, but the startup’s growth in the last 12 months has been impressive.
The platform connects aspiring AI engineers to hands-on training and certifications while giving businesses a way to crowdsource AI-powered solutions.
Businesses post projects as ‘bounties’, which Build Club participants complete for payment. Founder Annie Liao described it as the platform she wished existed during her own AI journey.
In 2024, Build Club closed an oversubscribed $1.75 million pre-seed round, with Blackbird and Airtree leading the investment. The funding is being used to develop Build Club’s e-learning capabilities and expand its presence in San Francisco.
Andromeda Robotics
Founded by Grace Brown in 2022, Andromeda’s flagship robot Abi combines machine learning and AI to provide companionship and support for aged care residents and children in hospitals.
Abi can recognise faces, express emotions, and assist with daily tasks, with an option to customise its personality through the upcoming Abi app.
What Andromeda was able to bootstrap in the robotics space was incredibly impressive and resulted in the company closing a $3 million seed round in June led by Purpose Ventures, following an earlier $1 million pre-seed from Galileo Ventures.
The funding will be used to expand Abi’s capabilities, grow the team, and move to larger manufacturing facilities in South Melbourne.
Andromeda’s focus on tackling loneliness and enhancing care sets it apart in the robotics sector, with CEO Grace Brown proving innovation can thrive even on limited resources.
Relevance AI
AI agents became the buzzword of late 2024, but Relevance AI was already ahead of the curve.
Founded in 2020 by Daniel Vassilev, Jacky Koh, and Daniel Palmer, the Sydney-based startup raised $15 million in Series A funding in late 2023 to scale its low-code platform for building AI agents.
Relevance AI’s tools empower businesses to create autonomous teams of agents that streamline workflows, rather than just assisting with isolated tasks.
Since launching its agents product last year, Relevance has seen adoption across industries, automating processes in sales, recruitment, and operations. The startup emphasises ‘organisational wisdom’ — capturing hidden expertise to make automation successful.
With enterprise-grade features like SOC 2 compliance and permissions, Relevance AI remains confident as big tech moves into the agent space.
The company plans to expand further into the US in 2025, solidifying its vision for an AI workforce that empowers businesses to scale faster.
Deeligence
Deeligence is redefining legal tech by targeting one of the most time-consuming and costly aspects of the profession: due diligence.
Co-founders Elena Tsalanidis and Justin Hansky, having extensive legal backgrounds, launched the Melbourne-based startup to automate due diligence workflows using AI.
Instead of spending hours combing through voluminous contracts, Deeligence enables lawyers to generate client-ready reports in seconds.
The platform doesn’t just improve efficiency, it also challenges the traditional billable hour model, offering firms a way to adopt fixed-fee pricing without sacrificing margins.
In May 2024, Deeligence secured $1 million in funding, including participation from the Alice Anderson Fund, to help enhance its offering and develop new features.
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