This week’s funding roundup appears just a little totally different.
Whereas it contains startups constructing AI, photo voltaic and medtech options, it additionally features a bakery with a cult following and a quickly rising retailer that caters to folks.
Hold studying to be taught extra about 19 Australian and Kiwi firms which have raised greater than $59.6 million in funding this week.
Brooki Bakehouse: $25 million
Brooki founder Brooke Bellamy. Supply: Instagram/Brooki Bakehouse
Queensland bakery model Brooki Bakehouse is gearing up for a interval of speedy growth, after securing a $25 million funding from UAE way of life developer Arada.
As reported by SmartCompany, the brand new funding will permit Brooki Bakehouse to open flagship bakeries in Dubai and Abu Dhabi in December, forward of further world markets in 2026.
The corporate, which was based by Brooke Bellamy in Brisbane in 2022, is opening its first Sydney retailer this week.
In addition to its flagship retailer in Fortitude Valley, Brooki Bakehouse additionally has everlasting areas in Chermside, Mount Gravatt, Pacific Honest and Brisbane Airport.
The enterprise has constructed a cult following for its outsized New York-style cookies and Bellamy’s social media movies exhibiting a day in her life as a bakery proprietor.
The funding from Arada will take the “Australian story to a world stage”, stated Bellamy.
“We constructed Brooki from scratch — no shortcuts, no compromises — and now, with Arada, we’ve the platform and sources to share our creativity, high quality and group with the world,” she stated in a press release.
The Memo: $20 million
Parenting retailer The Memo additionally revealed particulars of a brand new funding this week, after securing $20 million to open extra shops throughout the nation.
The funding was led by Pier 12 Capital.
The Memo, which was based in 2019 by Kate Casey and Phoebe Simmonds, brings a classy and premium strategy to the parenting sector, and presents a extra personalised buying expertise in comparison with bigger, established big-box rivals.
The Memo operates a web based storefront, in addition to 4 shops in Sydney and Melbourne. It plans to develop this community with one other Sydney location and new shops in Perth and Brisbane.
In a press release introducing The Memo to Pier 12 Capital’s funding portfolio, Pier 12 Capital government director Laz Siapantas stated The Memo holds a novel place within the native retail panorama.
“We recognised The Memo’s capability to redefine parenting and child retail in Australia via its distinctive mixture of curated merchandise and distinctive in-store expertise,” he stated.
Medow Well being: $3 million
Sydney startup Medow Well being AI, which is utilizing synthetic intelligence to automate medical stories for specialist docs, has raised $3 million in new funding from the clinicians who backed its first increase earlier this 12 months.
Medow Well being was co-founded by Joel Freiberg, who has Crohn’s illness, and his brother Josh Freiberg, impressed by the point their father, a respiratory doctor, spent doing admin after work.
The medtech startup beforehand raised $2 million in January from the likes of Chris O’Brien Lifehouse CEO Dr Michael Boyer, orthopaedic surgeon Dr Michael Solomon, and eye surgeon Dr Johnny Wu.
In the meantime, income has grown by 300% in 2025, and the platform’s AI is already processing greater than 100,000 specialist consults a month, alongside a profitable pilot at a number one Australian hospital.
Medow Well being has additionally expanded to New Zealand and Southeast Asia, and Joel says the startup has had a powerful pick-up in each areas.
“The capital increase will allow us to launch new AI merchandise to specialist medical communities throughout the nation, enhance integrations into key healthcare methods, and see us via to profitability inside 12 months,” he stated.
Learn extra on Startup Day by day.
Hopr: $3 million
Hopr founder Jose Ramirez
Sydney-based useful drinks model Hoprhas raised greater than $3 million in contemporary funding from particular person worldwide buyers, skilled athletes and finance professionals, after being knocked again by VC companies.
The buyers backing Hopr embody John Bromley, Chris Titley, a former Morgans dealer and host of the Scoreboard podcast, and former Matildas goalkeeper Sue Learn.
Hopr has developed a variety of non-alcoholic glowing waters that embody hops, adaptogens and nootropics.
The enterprise was based in 2020 by Jose Ramirez, who, in line with a video on Hopr’s Instagram account, took out a private mortgage to initially fund the enterprise. He says he later acquired a number of rejections from VC companies when searching for funding.
“Each VC stated no. Banks wouldn’t even lend. So I wager on myself and constructed Hopr from nothing,” he stated within the video.
“The VC scene right here is constructed for software program, fintech, AI – not fizzy drinks. Traders need excessive margins, low ops. However constructing a beverage model means logistics, manufacturing, distribution – actual product stuff.”
HOPR plans to make use of the brand new funding to scale up its manufacturing and distribution and proceed to develop the model’s presence throughout Australia.
Learn extra on Startup Day by day.
Instructor’s Buddy: $1.85 million
Melbourne AI-based schooling startup Instructor’s Buddy has raised $1.85 million in seed funding to sort out instructor burnout.
The spherical was led by Big Leap, supported by Flying Fox Ventures, Co Ventures, Exhort Ventures, Saniel Ventures and Soul Capital.
Instructor’s Buddy was based in 2024 by Matt Abraham and Ben Sze, co-founder of faculty content material and sources edtech Edrolo, the potential unicorn that raised a $40 million Collection B in 2022.
Sze’s new startup lightens the executive load and helps ongoing skilled growth for lecturers, in addition to analysing knowledge to enhance scholar outcomes.
“Lecturers are working greater than 50 hours every week, with as much as a 3rd of that point misplaced to planning and admin,” he stated.
“Instructor’s Buddy goals to reverse these traits by delivering an all-in-one, AI-enhanced workspace designed to lighten the load, foster development, and unlock each scholar’s potential.”
Learn extra on Startup Day by day.
MetroElectro: $1 million
Solar energy startup MetroElectro has raised $1 million from its present investor, Singapore local weather tech VC Wavemaker Impression.
Alongside the fairness increase, the Melbourne startup, based in 2024 by Lloyd Heinrich, additionally secured a $4 million debt facility from Ecotone Companions.
Wavemaker beforehand backed MetroElectro’s $1.03 million pre-seed spherical in Could 2024. Heinrich stated the startup will increase an extra $3 million in early 2026.
MetroElectro designs, installs, and maintains photo voltaic rooftop methods – panels and batteries for industrial and business buildings with out upfront prices for tenants or the landlords, producing income from the sale of the ability.
Heinrich, who was Redbubble’s GM of technique and development when it listed on the ASX, had the revelation of the potential for deploying photo voltaic on business buildings whereas operating The Wine Collective (beforehand The Wine Society).
“This spherical of funding is the results of a major quantity of exhausting work by the workforce in deploying early tasks, constructing a powerful pipeline and partnering with trade leaders in knitting collectively know-how that is able to scale proper now,” Heinrich stated.
Learn extra on Startup Day by day.
Dispute Buddy: $765,000
New Zealand-based Dispute Buddy has raised $765,000 in an oversubscribed pre-seed funding spherical, which noticed participation from Techstars, Epic Angels, and Dame Theresa Gattung.
Based in 2022 by Jenny Rudd, the authorized tech startup goals to assist people concerned in authorized disputes extract related communications from textual content messages and emails right into a PDF, to allow them to be used as paperwork match to current in a courtroom of legislation.
The thought for the startup got here from Rudd’s personal difficult expertise of extracting messages for a authorized continuing.
“I bear in mind what it was prefer to screenshot and e mail a whole lot of messages and ship them to my lawyer for an emergency utility to Household Courtroom. It was so disturbing; I had no thought which messages have been essential for my case. And I wanted to do a great job in order that my children have been secure,” Rudd writes on the startup’s web site.
“It was so scary and complicated.”
Dispute Buddy says its platform has been “designed to take away stress, and make it easier to resolve your dispute efficiently and rapidly so you’ll be able to transfer on along with your life”.
12 medtech startup concepts: $5 million
Picture: AdobeStock
Almost $5 million in funding has been awarded to 12 Western Australian innovators and startups engaged on native well being and medical innovation tasks.
The concepts, many from teachers and WA’s universities, span checks for liver most cancers to coronary heart monitoring, endometriosis analysis, bronchial asthma remedy and extra, have been funded from the Innovation Seed Fund 2024-25 Program.
The state authorities’s Future Well being Analysis and Innovation Fund frequently awards grants to particular person researchers and corporations. Its Innovation Seed Fund backs WA innovators to develop and commercialise their improvements that might enhance the well being of West Australians, create high-level well being sector jobs and improve the manufacturing/manufacturing capability of the state. Funding within the newest spherical ranged between $90,000 and $500,000.
The Innovation Seed Fund 2024-25 recipients are:
- DermR Well being Analysis WA
- Curtin College
- Respirion Prescribed drugs
- Murdoch College
- ProGenis Prescribed drugs
- College of Western Australia
- The Youngsters Analysis Institute Australia, on behalf of the Centre for Little one Well being Analysis, The College of Western Australia
- ArthoLase
- Proteomics Worldwide
- Biotome
- Pretect Units
- Materia Well being.
Learn extra on Startup Day by day.
- This story first appeared on SmartCompany. You’ll be able to learn the unique right here.
