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Weekly drop is here, with over $128 million AUD raised this week, are things starting to heat up in Venture and who's making moves in the tech community? check it out and more 👇 1️⃣ Quantum computing 🇦🇺 start-up Diraq raises Series A2 led by 🇨🇵 VC Quantonation alongside Taronga Ventures Main Sequence CoAct Capital UNSW UniSuper Uniseed 2️⃣ Aus Gov announces new Future Made In Australia legislation with a shake-up for more collaboration between industry and medium to large projects. Interestingly 80% of NSW startup grants go to metro Sydney businesses. 3️⃣ 1Breadcrumb raises AUD $4 million to expand to the USA and UK with Five V Capital with over 300k users already, this is a leading safety startup led by Paul Willson Simon Elliott 4️⃣ Sindy Labs led by Oliver Cucanic raises a modest $300k and pushes engagement for universities to assess, provide personalised feedback and ensure academic integrity. 5️⃣ Interstingly of the total $128 million in funding raised for the week, all 8 businesses were men-only teams - courtesy of 🚀Gemma Clancy Will Richards from Overnight Success Join Rhys Henderson GAICD MBA from 4Phase Consulting & Brandon Burns from Patona as they discuss this and more. Full episode in the comments. #fundraising #tech #vc #ai

Vectors > Defense Capitalism • El Segundo, California is trend forward in the innovation business. The near-LAX city is an unlikely spigot for the next generation of American startups. Venture capitalists find fresh opportunity there in military-related projects, channeling patriotism.   Silicon Valley once considered investing in defense to be taboo. A confluence of circumstances has changed that sentiment. One obvious development: The military establishment is at full throttle with international conflict. At $500,000 each, how many Sidewinder missiles can the Pentagon really afford? The question of course is rhetorical. There is enough momentum in the defense-startup ecosystem that more and more names are willing to fund comparatively efficient research and development. The Pentagon nods with approval.   More thoughtful reasons for ecosystem growth in the "Gundo,” is tied to the halo effect of SpaceX and its successes in partnership with the US government, as well as Palantir and Anduril. Meanwhile, the pandemic led to renewed focus on supply-chain issues and a growing preference for domestic sourcing. The number of startups centered in this one-time epicenter of American aerospace may now be modest. We wage that growth will be exponential, regardless of who is in the White House next year.   There is a counterargument to features of this rising tide. America may not need a war machine that produces low-cost weapons systems and related hardware. A recent editorial in the Silicon Valley-based Mercury News argues, “The history of ‘miracle weapons’ does not bode well for the likely outcome of the current military tech surge.” The key point is that these technologies can fail or they can be of limited value in specific circumstances.   Defense startups have attracted as much as $100 billion in venture funding over recent years. Is the secondary sector of the economy—which includes aerospace and computer devices—poised for a renaissance? The underlying verve may be festering anger at America’s lost economic footing. An important quality here is the subtle shift from investing in mobile-phone apps to seeding manufacturing-related opportunities. Portfolio Themes > World Vectors > Defense Capitalism

It's Official. #necta has been turned down by every investment group in New Zealand and Australia. Due to our location we could not access Callaghan funding for R&D. This has been a very hard 18 months, blasting through over $300k of R&D; without overseas companies like Nvidia giving us such large access to GPUs we wouldn't be here. In theory #necta can run for 18 months with no income from their grant. I can say we have the most (or close to) advanced AI for recruitment, a true recruitment copilot. When I use others, it just comes no-where near. 6 months ago I was asked to move Necta to Europe for investment at a valuation of just under $4m, yet here I can not obtain a valuation of $1.5m. I do believe start-ups CAN SUCCEED in New Zealand on mass. We just need to figure out what the new mechanism is. Locally we are in the motion of an end-to-end incubator, to take rangitahi from school and into business. For investment I am heavily leaning towards crowd-funding portfolios. I messaged Leighton Roberts a few years back and I think the Whanganui Start Up Index is required for locals to support locals and it's needed for the next era of entrepreneurs.

Cambridge backers were very much to the fore in the $15 million birth of Fractile – a startup pledging “a radically different approach to AI chip design.” The company marked the seed round by claiming it had the technology to solve some of the biggest barriers to better AI performance, not least handing model builders more design scope as well as cutting costs in the process. Serial Cambridge entrepreneurs Stan Boland and Hermann Hauser are angel investors alongside Amar Shah – co-founder of Wayve – which was hatched within Cambridge University. The co-leaders in the round were Kindred Capital VC, NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) Fund – which empowers DeepTech founders to address challenges in defence, security and resilience – and Oxford Science Enterprises with participation from Cocoa 🍫 and Inovia Capital. With this seed cash injection Fractile has now raised $17.5m (£14m) in total funding. Founded in 2022 by artificial intelligence PhD, Walter Goodwin, Fractile has already built a world-class team with senior hires from NVIDIA, Arm and Imagination. The investment will be used to grow Fractile’s team across silicon, software and AI, build partnerships and accelerate progress to the company’s first products. Stan Boland said: “There’s no question that, in Fractile, Walter is building one of the world’s future superstar companies. He’s a brilliant AI practitioner but he’s also listening intently to the market so he can be certain of building truly compelling products that other experts will want to use at scale. “To achieve this, he’s already starting to build one of the world’s best teams of semiconductor, software and tools experts with track records of flawless execution. I’ve no doubt Fractile will become the most trusted partner to major AI model providers in short order.” Full article – https://lnkd.in/eH-rnbQq

📉Does geography still play a huge role in the fortunes of founders? “Our data shows that a tech business of roughly the same size and revenue in London and the South East as one in the North of England would value their business very differently... So much R&D development happens outside of London. Our fundamental hypothesis of shipshape.vc is that investors want to help companies in a specific area, such as curing cancer or Alzheimer’s, and are much more likely to back businesses aligned with a specific problem rather than a startup’s location,” says Daniel Sawko, a founder of shipshape.vc (VC search engine for founders).  https://lnkd.in/eTzVDrDV 325/365

The age of Photonics is here.

Bloq Quantum, a business developing quantum software powered by artificial intelligence, has raised Rs 1.3 crore in a pre-seed fundraising round headed by Inflection Point Ventures. Prior to this, the firm had raised $95.8K from its current investor. Bloq Quantum, which was co-founded in 2024 by Sreekuttan L S and Jay Patel, makes it easier for businesses to adopt quantum computing because to its intuitive low-code interface. Based on market research, the global market for quantum computing was estimated to be worth $10.13 billion in 2022 and is projected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 36.89% to surpass $125 billion by 2030. The startup with its headquarters in Kollam says it operates globally and offers clients all over the world quantum computing solutions. #bloq #startup #india #news #entrepreneur

Do you ever wonder how we will unlock the next big breakthrough in material science? Quantum algorithms could hold the key. Ashley Montanaro's groundbreaking work with Phasecraft will revolutionise the development of batteries and solar cells, amongst other applications. Investors also share this sentiment. They raised £13m in Series A funding round led by Silicon Valley deeptech VC, Playground Global. AlbionVC also joined the round along with participation from existing investors Episode1, Parkwalk Advisors, LCIF, and UCL Technology Fund. This startup is pushing the boundaries of algorithmic innovation in the quantum realm. Their cost reductions of modelling certain materials by factors of a million or more. By reducing resource requirements for these algorithms, they are bringing them closer to the real-world hardware we have today. The implications of this are immense, potentially leading to faster, more efficient development in material science. Quantum algorithms could be the key to unlocking the next big breakthrough in material science. Join us on Founded & Grounded as we explore the mind-boggling implications of this cutting-edge technology. Tune into Season 5 episode 6 (link in the comments). #quantum #algorithms #startups #entrepreneurship

👑Cambridge has long been a jewel in the UK tech ecosystem's crown and new figures out today from Dealroom.co for Founders at the University of Cambridge for the University of Cambridge confirm it in City AM 💰$191 billion: The combined enterprise value of Cambridge’s tech companies, 18% of the total UK figure 💡 $1.6 billion: Cambridge tech companies have raised a record-breaking amount in the first half of 2024 📈16.9: Cambridge produces 16.9X the value for every dollar of VC investment, ahead of London (4.8x) and the UK (5.4) We’re looking forward to hearing from the next generation of Cambridge founders later today as the first Founders at the University of Cambridge Investor Demo Day gets underway. 11 Start Accelerator companies will be pitching to over 200 investors in King’s Cross, demonstrating how their innovative spinouts will have a profound impact on society. The companies are working on game-changing solutions for difficult global challenges from the climate crisis to air pollution and healthcare. The future's certainly looking bright in Cambridge! #spinouts #cambridge #innovation

Something to keep in mind while you watch growing antisemitic violence on college campuses and cities, and calls to "divest" from Israel: The Israeli startup ecosystem is THRIVING despite it all. The venture markets all around the world are not near their glory days of 2021-2022, but investments into Israeli companies continue to pour in - and the same is true with M&A, and even exits into public markets. In Q1 2024, the Israeli tech ecosystem showcased its stability by amassing $1.8 billion in funding, reflecting an 8.5% increase from Q4 2023 - M&A exits also reached about $2B, an increase from the last quarter. NVIDIA has been on a shopping spree in Israel too, announcing last week that they acquired Israeli Startup Run:ai for $700M, and a little birdy tells me that they have another acquisition queued up for the very near future. ZOOZ Power, an Israeli company and a leader in EV charging infrastructure solutions now also has a dual listing in Nasdaq and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange - הבורסה לניירות ערך thanks in part to the work of Lowenstein Sandler LLP's Israel Practice. Long story short- if you intend to use your phone and/or computer, drive a car, do online shopping, see a doctor and/or use social media - you will probably be using Israeli tech. If you would like to avoid doing so, please reach out and I can help tell you where to go. If you need any advice on making any investments into Israeli start-ups, please reach out and I can help guide you through the key questions. Happy Passover!