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Funding
Venture Capital
Cheque-in: four ANZ startups raised $307.1 million in mid-January
Tegan Jones
Jan 23, 2026
2 min read
January has already been piping hot for startup funding, and this week is no different. Four ANZ startups raised more than $307 million across rockets, AI and engineering platforms.
Here’s who:
Gilmour Space: $217 million
Gilmour Space Technologies has landed $217 million in a Series E funding round that lifts the Queensland-founded rocket maker’s valuation above $1 billion. This makes it Australia’s first space unicorn.
The round was jointly led by the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC) and superannuation fund Hostplus. It also saw participation from the Future Fund, Blackbird, Funds SA, HESTA, NGS Super, Main Sequence, QIC and Brighter Super.
The new investment follows a $55 million series D raise back in 2024.
Founded on the Gold Coast, the company is developing an end-to-end space offering aimed at commercial, government, and defence customers.
Read more on Startup Daily.
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Ivo: $81 million
New Zealand AI startup Ivo has raised $55 million in Series B funding for its platform that helps in-house legal teams review, negotiate and manage large volumes of contracts.
The round was led by Blackbird, which also backed Ivo’s $25.5 million Series A in February 2025. The deal now values the startup at $530 million.
Founded by former corporate lawyer Min-Kyu Jung and ex-Xero engineer Jacob Duligall, Ivo grew out of Jung’s frustration with the repetitive nature of contract work.
Read more on Startup Daily.
Dam Secure: $6.1 million
AI security startup Dam Secure has raised $6.1 million in seed funding to tackle the security risks created by AI-generated code entering production at scale, with the round led by Washington DC-based cybersecurity and AI investor Paladin Capital Group.
The oversubscribed round also attracted backing from Secure Code Warrior CEO Pieter Danhieux, RecordPoint CEO Anthony Woodward, Innovation Bay founder Phaedon Stough and Tyro Payments chief product officer Steen Andersson. Paladin Capital managing director Mourad Yesayan will join the company’s board.
The raise comes as enterprises rapidly roll out AI coding assistants, accelerating software output while introducing new classes of security risk that existing tools struggle to catch.
Read more on Startup Daily.
SPEC Toolbox: $3 million
Construction engineering platform SPEC Toolbox has raised $3 million in a pre-Series A round.
The investment was co-led by Black Nova and Investible.
The Melbourne design software platform specifically for mass timber construction was founded in 2023 by structural engineers Adam Jones and Ringo Thomas as CLT Toolbox, rebranded after realising that design bottlenecks weren’t just a mass timber problem.
They now help designers overcome technical barriers to use other modern materials in construction, automating complex engineering tasks. SPEC previously raised a $1 million bridge round in 2024, less than 12 months after a $1.5 million seed round in October 2023.
Read more on Startup Daily.
- This story first appeared on SmartCompany. You can read the original here.
About the author
Tegan Jones
Deputy editor
A multi-award-winning journalist, Tegan has been reporting on technology, telecommunications and gaming for the past 10 years. She regularly appears on mainstream media channels as an expert tech commentator. Her previous roles include editor of Gizmodo Australia and global reviews editor at Finder. She has also served as a reporter and editor across Business Insider, Lifehacker and Kotaku Australia. Tegan is also the co-host of one of the top technology podcasts in Australia, Weird Tech. You can find her on Twitter @Tegan_Writes.
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