After last week’s $211 million raised across six startups – that largely to Heidi Health’s $98m Seris B as well as details of Octopus Deploy’s 2024 $45.6m round emerging, mid October seems more normal, with six Australian companies collectively raising a collective $13.4m.
The biggest raise came from GXE, which secured $3.3 million in Series A funding for its private asset management platform, followed by climate tech startup Conry Tech, Optimaze, Good Heat, PredicTX and Inaam rounding out the list.
GXE: $3.3 million
Serial entrepreneurs Ed Hooper and Andrew Armstrong lead this week’s funding round-up, after raising $3.3 million in an oversubscribed Series A round for their all-in-one platform that offers a “simpler and smarter” way to manage private assets.
This is the third capital raise for GXE, which was founded by Hooper and Armstrong in 2020, one year after Omny Studio, the audio management platform they co-founded in 2012, was sold to Los Angeles-based Triton Digital.
An earlier iteration of the company, called Startup Galaxy, provided a startup directory and jobs board before later adding an investment feature.
The latest funding round included participation from US-based fund Second Century Ventures and Australian investors Archangel and Australian Medical Angels. It brings GXE’s total funding raised to date to $5.3 million.
GXE’s software platform acts as a one-stop shop for fund managers, family offices and investment professionals to manage their private investments better. It is designed to help these investors streamline operations by improving the efficiency of their securities management, investor communications, and tax and regulatory compliance.
Conry Tech: $3 million
Melbourne-based climate tech startup Conry Tech has raised $3 million in seed funding for its Australian-made air conditioning system, named BullAnt.
The round was led by specialist climate investor Audacy. It follows a $1.6 million pre-seed raise in late 2024 and brings Conry Tech’s total capital raised to $13 million.
The startup, which was founded in 2020 by HVAC industry veteran Ron Conry, alongside Sam and Brenda Ringwaldt, is planning to raise a Series A round in 2026.
It will use the new funding to progress the next steps for taking its air-conditioning system to market, highlighting its ability to significantly reduce commercial energy bills and carbon emissions.
“The aim is simple. Build the world’s best air-conditioner,” said CEO Sam Ringwaldt.
“We’ve spent five years in R&D to get to this point, and this raise allows us to accelerate through the next steps of our go-to-market strategy.”
Optimaze: $3 million
An AI-based “cloud waste” startup has raised $3 million in pre-seed funding to help companies save billions on their cloud costs.
The round for Optimaze was led by Arconic and The Innovation Club. The Sydney startup is currently in private beta, with a waitlist for preview access to the software.
The funding will be used to expand its engineering team, accelerate the product roadmap, and set up strategic partnerships with cloud services, kicking off with AWS.
Australian spending on cloud computing is expected to hit $15 billion next year, and Gartner estimates at least 30% of cloud spend is wasted.
But Optimaze founders Ralf Capel and Dawshiek Yogathasar believe the real cost and inefficiency could be significantly higher than $4.5 billion, especially when the environmental impacts are also taken into account.
“Cloud waste has spiralled out of control, costing businesses billions and demanding roughly 1% of global energy consumption,” Capel said.
“Instead of addressing the root cause, today companies are pouring more money into expanding cloud infrastructure and financial operations, making the problem exponentially worse.
Good Heat: $2 million
A Sydney startup using batteries to replace gas for industrial heat and cut business energy costs has raised more than $2 million.
Good Heat will deploy large-scale thermal energy storage systems powered by cheap renewable electricity to provide industrial heat at prices below gas.
Plans for Australia’s largest heat battery development, for a significant industrial customer, are already underway in Victoria, with the startup saying the project will save the factory more than $1.5 million annually on its energy bill, as well as cut carbon emissions by replacing gas.
The raise was led by Understorey Ventures, the family fund of AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot, with support from local climate tech VC Investible, and 2100VC, the European fund linked to the Benetton industrial group.
Good Heat was co-founded by Bauke van Gent, Tom Geiser and Bruis van Vlijmen in early 2025.
Their experience spans greenfield energy project development and energy markets at the likes of Neon and Infigen, as well as batteries.
PredicTX: $1.6 million
PredicTx Health, a University of Melbourne spin-out that uses AI to personalise chemo dosing based on body composition analysis, has raised $1.6 million in fresh capital.
The funding came from the university’s Genesis Pre-Seed Fund, a government grant and angel investment, and will be used to commercialise a world-first AI-powered precision oncology platform.
PredicTx was co-founded by professor Justin Yeung, head of surgery at Western Health, and Abhijeet Waykar, founder of global health-integration startup Lenia Health, using University of Melbourne research.
The project is supported by Western Health, where the first clinical validation studies will be held.
Waykar said the investment from Genesis is the University of Melbourne’s endorsement of the commercial viability and global potential of PredicTx’s technology, which uses CT scans and machine learning to analyse a patient’s muscle and bone composition, allowing clinicians to personalise chemotherapy doses rather than relying on the current one-size-fits-all “body surface area” method.
“This raise gives us the momentum to move from research into real-world clinical impact,” he said.
“Our immediate focus is on validating the technology with oncologists and cancer centres in Australia and India, before scaling internationally.”
Inaam: $500,000
Melbourne-based startup Inaam has secured $500,000 in pre-seed funding to fuel the launch of its impact investment platform for young investors.
The funding comes from Startupbootcamp’s Sustainable Fintech Fund and Singapore-based venture capital firm Hatcher+ VC, as well as Startmate mentors, executives from ASX50-listed companies, some prominent women investors and family offices.
Founded by CEO Arjun Agarwal, Inaam’s goal is to help young people invest responsibly and track the real-world effects of their investments.
These investors can use the platform to access custom micro-portfolios starting at $10 a month, while also improving their investment literacy via the app’s gamified user experience.
Inaam also allows users to measure the effects of their investments in tangible terms, such as trees planted, renewable energy generated, or carbon emissions avoided.
