If 2023 was the “Year of AI”, 2024 is the year when the pedal hit the metal, with an exciting array of Australian AI startups raising capital with a dazzling variety of artificial intelligence-powered business models.
Each week in Neural Notes, our senior tech reporter Tegan Jones authoritatively covers the sector, here are some of the raises she’s been most excited about so far this year.
In May, InnovateGPT — a venture studio that focuses on AI — announced a $5.1 million seed investment in SpatialGPT, a new generative AI startup founded by former Microsoft executives.
SpatialGPT is AI-focused and its goal is to utilise augmented and virtual reality devices such as the Apple Vision Pro and Microsoft HoloLens to transform spatial environments in industries such as architecture, construction, education, healthcare, and retail. With generative AI of course.
In January, Australian deep-tech startup VAPAR raised $5 million to fuel its expansion into the North American market. This move comes as a strategic step to enhance the company’s global footprint, following its success in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Co-founded in 2018 by CEO Amanda Siqueira and CTO Michelle Aguilar, VAPAR specialises in water and sewerage pipeline maintenance software. While AI has become the catch-all phrase of the last 12 months — with many businesses attempting to capitalise on its popularity with investors and customers alike — VAPAR has been utilsing AI solutions since being founded.
In May, Sydney AI startup Brainfish raised $3.85 million at an undisclosed valuation in its latest funding round. According to the company, it has seen 65% month-on-month growth since launching in April 2023.
The round was led by Peak XV Partners’ Surge, with contributions from Macdoch Ventures, Black Sheep Capital, Justus Hammer (CEO of MadPaws) and several angel investors
To date, Brainfish has raised $5 million in capital in just over 12 months. The startup aims to transform customer support, arguing that the sector hasn’t changed significantly in decades.
Andromeda Robotics successfully closed a $3 million seed round in June to help scale the rollout of its humanoid companion robot, Abi, across Australia. The equity round was led by Purpose Ventures and follows $1 million in pre-seed funding from Galileo Ventures in late 2023.
Andromeda was launched in 2022 by robotics engineer Grace Brown. Combining her technical expertise with character design from Disney and Pixar animators, she set out to build colourful, humanoid robots to provide companionship and support to older adults in aged care facilities and children in hospitals.
Named Abi, the robots are infused with AI and machine learning, making them customisable and able to learn from interactions, respond to questions and express emotions.
Founded by former McKinsey QuantumBlack consultant Will Ashford, TrueState offers a platform with AI application templates for businesses. When integrated with customers’ operational data, the templates support use cases such as predicting machinery failure and recommending actions to prevent customer churn.
Earlier this month the startup raised $1.5 million in funding from Airtree, Side Stage Ventures, Galileo Ventures and Imprint Capital Partners.
Deeligence recently secured $1 million in funding, with participation from the Alice Anderson Fund.
The Melbourne-based startup has positioned itself as a notable disruptor for legal tech by targeting the often tedious and pricey due diligence space.
Both its co-founders — Elena Tsalanidis and Justin Hansky — have legal backgrounds. Tsalanidis is a former human rights litigation lawyer who also worked for a legal tech startup.
In April, AI-powered research and insights platform, Outread, closed an oversubscribed $750,000 pre-seed funding round.
Outread was founded in 2023 by siblings Janhvi and Dhruv Sirohi along with Anshika Singh. The round was backed by Techstars, with 70% of the funding coming from Google and AWS executives such as Jeff Dean and Fiona Bones. Outread isn’t just ChatGPT, but for academic researchers, it aims to streamline the process professionals use to access and digest academic research.
Utilising AI, the platform provides summaries of extensive academic papers, simplifying the challenge of keeping up with the latest developments across various fields.
In May, Melbourne startup Phonely landed US$500,000 from Silicon Valley accelerator, Y Combinator, for its AI receptionist.
Phonely was founded just 10 months ago by former PhD researchers Will Bodewes and Nisal Ranasinghe. The AI-powered answering service aims to transform phone support for businesses. According to the company, its AI receptionist is able to handle up to a million calls simultaneously.
From there, Phonely can be hooked up to scheduling software and other existing internal platforms and route calls as needed. After a call, Phonely claims to be able to provide analytics as well as surface the most important information from a call to send straight to a company’s CRM, phone or inbox.
Launched in 2023, Empathetic AI was one of three winners of Australia’s inaugural AI sprint this month, run by the National AI Centre (NAIC), Stone & Chalk and Google Cloud. It will receive $100,000 worth of support, which is great timing with Empathetic launching its Luna tax tool later this week.
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