The Story Recruitment Australian Startup Funding Database

Most startups make their first finance hire at Series A and bring in a CFO at Series B. See the evidence.

The stories in this data

• Series B went from 20% to 7% in Australia

  What the shrinking Series B share means for a CFO hire.

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• Seed rounds got bigger

  How seed cheques grew, and when the first finance hire follows.

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• Startup deals are down 23% since 2022. Big rounds aren’t.

  Deal counts fell while the largest rounds kept coming.

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• 1 in 3 Australian startup deals is now AI

  How fast AI startups took a share of Australian rounds.

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• Deep tech deals are exploding. Fintech is dropping.

  The sector mix of Australian startup funding, year by year.

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• Melbourne overtook Sydney in startup funding in 2025

  Where funded startups are based, among deals with a known city.

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• The NRF is Australia’s 4th most active startup investor. Who are they?

  Government-backed funds and how often they show up on cap tables.

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• Angel investors show up in only 7% of Australian startup deals, a ten-year low

  How often angel investors are named in announced rounds.

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• No Australian startup raises as often as Airwallex

  The companies that raise year after year, and the many that raise once.

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• Announcing a raise? You’re probably doing it in May or August

  Which days and months funding announcements land on.

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• Just raised? The typical Australian startup raises again 14 months later

  How long Australian startups wait before raising again.

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• How we built the Story Recruitment Australian Startup Funding Database

  What the funding data shows, and what it means for your next finance hire.

  Read the analysis →

• Bank-backed startup deals fell 89%

  What the funding data shows, and what it means for your next finance hire.

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• Climate tech fell from 12.4% to 8.1% of startup deals

  What the funding data shows, and what it means for your next finance hire.

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• Health is now 1 in 5 Australian startup deals

  What the funding data shows, and what it means for your next finance hire.

  Read the analysis →

Use it. Just credit it.

This database is free to use under CC BY 4.0. Quote it, chart it, put it in your deck. Credit Story Recruitment and link back so readers can check the source rows.

How we built it

• What it is. 2,548 funding rounds announced by 1,522 Australian startups, Jan 2016 to early Oct 2026, drawn from 1,924 public source pages.
• Exclusions. We removed 42 rows that were not equity rounds (for example venture debt).
  Why each was removed

  • other: 9
  • amount contradicted by source: 8
  • listed placement/IPO: 6
  • venture debt: 4
  • fund close: 3
  • project finance: 1
  • acquisition: 1
  • fund (MRCF): 1
  • not Australian: 1
  • super fund: 1
  • ASX-listed company: 1
  • listed fund manager: 1
  • duplicate (Airwallex Jul 2016 seed; tag page): 1
  • duplicate (Airwallex Jul 2016 seed): 1
  • ASX-listed company (IGO): 1
  • misdated (Airwallex May 2017 Series A): 1
  • not Australian (Zoox, US): 1
• Spot check. We checked 50 rows against their source pages, weighted to Series B, government-backed and A$150M+ rounds. 28 matched, 14 had a minor mismatch (stage label, lead investor or date), 3 were wrong and removed, 5 could not be verified. 7 of the minor mismatches were a neighbouring month or year.
• Coverage. In 2025 we hold 247 deals. Cut Through Venture and Folklore Ventures count 390. Read this as about two thirds of the market, weighted to deals the press covered.
• Staged deals. Stage shares use deals whose stage is named (pre-seed, seed, Series A, B, C, D+, growth or bridge); stage unknown is excluded from the denominator.
• Small cells. Fewer than 30 deals: direction only. Fewer than 10: no median.
• Partial year. 2026 covers January to early October.
• Dates. Dates come from announcement coverage, not the close date.
• Progression. Stage progression figures are lower bounds: a company we did not see raising may still have raised.
• Not in the data. No founder gender. No valuations. No dollar totals: for market totals, Cut Through Venture and Folklore Ventures count A$5.1B across 390 deals in 2025.
• City. City is blank for about half the rows. City shares use only rows with a known city.
• Niche. The niche filter uses the 36 niche labels as recorded. Rows whose niche is described another way still appear under all niches, so niche counts are a floor.

Every source, by month

1,924 public pages back this database. Each row below names the company, the round and the publisher, so you can check our work.

New rounds and revised charts four times a year, sent with The CFO Track. Unsubscribe any time.