Deep tech took 37% of Australian startup funding deals so far in 2026, up from 22% in 2021. Fintech fell from 21% to 12% over the same years, according to the Story Recruitment Australian Startup Funding Database.
Five years ago they were level. Now it isn’t close.
In 2021, deep tech took 22% of Australian startup deals and fintech took 21%. Then they split. Deep tech climbed to 35% in 2024, slipped to 30% in 2025, and reached 37% in 2026 so far, the highest in ten years of our data. Fintech fell to just 8% in 2024. It has stopped falling and sits at 12% now, but that is still little more than half its 2021 share.
Australian Startup Funding DatabaseDeep tech and fintech as a share of all Australian startup deals
Deep tech went from 20% of deals in 2017 to 37% in 2026 so far. Fintech fell to 8% in 2024.
| Year | Deep tech | Fintech |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 8% | 19% |
| 2017 | 20% | 20% |
| 2018 | 18% | 19% |
| 2019 | 23% | 12% |
| 2020 | 21% | 18% |
| 2021 | 22% | 21% |
| 2022 | 23% | 17% |
| 2023 | 29% | 10% |
| 2024 | 35% | 8% |
| 2025 | 30% | 12% |
| 2026 (YTD) | 37% | 12% |
Level at about 21% each in 2021. In 2026 so far: deep tech 37%, fintech 12%.
Look inside each sector and you see the same move. Comparing 2016 to 2020 with 2021 to 2026, space went from under 1% of all deals to 2%, and climate from 1.5% to 4%. Inside fintech, payments held steady at about 3% of deals, while lending fell from 3% to 1%. Lending is where fintech shrank.
Why is this happening? Our view
Our data shows who raised and when, not why, so here is our guess, alongside what investors and analysts have said.
The government is writing big cheques into deep tech. Government-backed investors were in 18% of deep tech deals from 2024 to 2026, up from 10% in 2017 to 2021. In fintech it was just 1%. The busiest is the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation, an A$15 billion federal investor that has backed 25 deals since 2024, and 22 of them were deep tech. It put A$75 million into Gilmour Space’s Series E in January 2026. Its chief executive, David Gall, said “space technologies are fundamental to national resilience, economic productivity and regional growth”. When the state wants a capability built at home, deep tech gets the money.
Australian Startup Funding DatabaseDeep tech rounds backed by the National Reconstruction Fund, 2024 to 2026, largest first
5 of 22 deals, largest first
| Date | Company | Round | Sector | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Synchron | Series D+ | Deep tech | A$305M | innovationaus.com | |
| Gilmour Space Technologies | Series D+ | Deep tech | A$217M | overnightsuccess.vc | |
| Advanced Navigation | Series C | Deep tech | A$158M | linkedin.com | |
| Sep 2025 | Morse Micro | Series C | Deep tech | A$88M | smartcompany.com.au |
| Liquid Instruments | Series C | Deep tech | A$70M | instagram.com |
22 of the fund's 25 deals since 2024 were deep tech, led by Synchron, Gilmour Space and Advanced Navigation.
Investors want technology that is hard to copy. Reporting on Cut Through Venture’s third-quarter numbers in 2025, Forbes Australia found that “investors favored deep tech and unique IPs”, and that hardware and deep tech were driving the recovery. Our guess is that AI is part of this. As software gets cheaper to build, it gets easier to copy. Nobody copies a rocket in a weekend.
Fintech got hit by rates, and nobody replaced the old names. Our guess: lenders and payments startups live on cheap money, and interest rates rose sharply from 2022. KPMG’s Dan Teper, quoted in Capital Brief in February 2025, said that when big fintechs are bought out, “those big players should be being replaced by three or four different small players”. That isn’t happening.
I saw the shift in the first-quarter market numbers. As I wrote on LinkedIn in May 2026, of that quarter’s three new Australian unicorns, “Not one of them is a SaaS business.”
“The Canva and Airwallex era of Australian tech was built on software. The next one looks to be taking a different route.”
The deep tech rounds that made the news
The last two years produced the biggest deep tech rounds in our data. Brain-implant company Synchron raised its A$305M Series D in November 2025, with the National Reconstruction Fund among the backers. Gilmour Space became Australia’s first space unicorn with its A$217M Series E. Brisbane’s AdvanCell raised A$315M for cancer treatments in July 2026, and Melbourne solar company RayGen raised A$127M in 2025.
Australian Startup Funding DatabaseAustralian deep tech rounds, 2024 to 2026, largest first
5 of 245 deals, largest first
| Date | Company | Round | Sector | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AdvanCell | Series D+ | Deep tech | A$315M | instagram.com | |
| Synchron | Series D+ | Deep tech | A$305M | innovationaus.com | |
| Gilmour Space Technologies | Series D+ | Deep tech | A$217M | overnightsuccess.vc | |
| Hysata | Series B | Deep tech | A$172M | startupdaily.net | |
| Q-CTRL | Series B | Deep tech | A$167M | smh.com.au |
AdvanCell, Synchron, Gilmour Space, Hysata and Q-CTRL lead the deep tech rounds since 2024.
The typical deep tech round has grown too. It was A$5.6M from 2016 to 2020 and A$10M from 2021 to 2026. The typical fintech round grew more slowly, from A$8M to A$11.5M. A deep tech company used to raise about two thirds of what a fintech did, and it has nearly caught up.
The typical deep tech round did shrink in 2024 and 2025. We think that is a good sign. Far more deep tech companies raised a first round: pre-seed and seed made up 54% of deep tech deals from 2024 to 2026, up from 44% in 2017 to 2021. Lots of small first rounds pull the typical size down, and some of those companies will be raising a Series A next.
Australian Startup Funding DatabaseTypical deep tech round size in Australia, by year
| Year | Median | Deals with an amount |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | A$9.2M | 10 |
| 2017 | A$4.7M | 30 |
| 2018 | A$5.3M | 26 |
| 2019 | A$6.9M | 42 |
| 2020 | A$5.8M | 42 |
| 2021 | A$10M | 55 |
| 2022 | A$12M | 70 |
| 2023 | A$12M | 65 |
| 2024 | A$7.5M | 82 |
| 2025 | A$8.5M | 64 |
| 2026 (YTD) | A$10M | 62 |
The typical deep tech round went from A$5.6M (2016 to 2020) to A$10M (2021 to 2026).
Fintech still raises big. Just not often.
Fewer fintechs are raising, yet the market totals still look healthy, because a few very large rounds make up most of the money. Cut Through Venture counted A$868 million into fintech in 2025. Much of that money went to a handful of names: Airwallex’s US$330M Series G in December, and risk software company Protecht’s A$280M round in September.
Compare that with 2021, when the deals were spread wide. Till Payments raised a Series C of A$110M, and fintech made up 21% of deals. By 2024 that was 8%, and the number of fintech deals in our data had fallen 58%. For a fintech founder raising now, that means fewer peers to benchmark against, and investors who have seen fewer deals like yours.
What this means for your finance hire
Deep tech finance is its own job. As I wrote on LinkedIn in June 2026, deep tech founders hiring a CFO want someone who has done it before in deep tech: “R&D tax offsets, long commercialisation timelines, government grants and capital conversations that don’t follow a standard playbook.” In the same post I said the best candidates often sit outside deep tech:
“They’re often in heavy/food manufacturing, defence or even mining. They’ve managed capital-intensive environments with long lead times and demanding technical stakeholders.”
Our recommendation for deep tech founders: bring in your finance lead before the raise that needs them, not after. With 18% of deep tech rounds now including a government-backed investor, someone has to own the grant reporting from day one. Widen the search to adjacent sectors, or you will compete with every other deep tech company for the same small pool.
For fintech founders: fewer rounds means each one gets more scrutiny. Investors will test your numbers harder than they did in 2021, so hire a finance lead who has already been through a regulator’s questions. To see when startups usually make their first finance hire after each round, read when Australian startups hire finance.
To see who is behind the government money, read the government is now one of Australia’s busiest startup investors.
Raising for a deep tech company? You'll need a finance lead who can handle grants, R&D tax and a long runway. We'll find you the best person.
Tom calls you back, usually within one business day. Or call 02 9099 7619.
Related reading: fewer deals, bigger cheques and Series B went from 20% to 7%.
Sources and notes
Data. All figures without another named source come from the Story Recruitment Australian Startup Funding Database: 2,548 announced Australian startup rounds from January 2016 to early October 2026. 2026 runs from January to early October.
Sector shares use all deals in each year as the base. Deep tech: 34 of 172 in 2017, 59 of 273 in 2021, 102 of 290 in 2024, 73 of 247 in 2025 and 70 of 188 in 2026 to date. Fintech: 57 of 273 in 2021, 24 of 290 in 2024, 29 of 247 in 2025 and 23 of 188 in 2026 to date. Deep tech covers biotech, medtech, space, climate, quantum, robotics, agtech, semiconductors and new materials. Sub-sector counts compare 2016 to 2020 with 2021 to 2026, as a share of all deals in each period (951 and 1,597 deals): space 7 (0.7%) and 32 (2.0%), climate 14 (1.5%) and 60 (3.8%), payments 28 (2.9%) and 43 (2.7%), lending 32 (3.4%) and 13 (0.8%). Sub-sectors use the database’s exact sub-sector labels. Fintech deal counts: 57 in 2021 and 24 in 2024.
Government-backed share is our count of deep tech rows whose named investors match the database’s government-backed coding (for example the National Reconstruction Fund, CEFC, Breakthrough Victoria, CSIRO funds and QIC): 21 of 219 deep tech rows in 2017 to 2021 and 45 of 245 in 2024 to 2026. Fintech: 1 of 76 rows in 2024 to 2026. The National Reconstruction Fund is named in 25 rows from 2024 to 2026, the most of any government-backed investor, and 22 of them are deep tech rows. Stage mix is our count of deep tech rows with an announced stage: pre-seed and seed were 57 of 131 (44%) in 2017 to 2021 and 83 of 155 (54%) in 2024 to 2026.
Typical round means the median of deals with a disclosed amount. Deep tech: A$5.62M across 150 deals in 2016 to 2020 and A$10M across 398 in 2021 to 2026. Fintech: A$8M across 149 and A$11.5M across 194. Amounts in other currencies are converted to approximate Australian dollars. Some rounds appear as two rows (Gilmour Space in January 2026, for example), and counts are rows.
Coverage. The database covers about two thirds of the market: 247 deals in 2025, against 390 in Cut Through Venture and Folklore Ventures’ 2025 State of Australian Startup Funding. It leans towards rounds that got press coverage. Read any group under 30 deals as direction only. Dates come from announcement coverage, and in a spot check about 1 in 7 rows sat in a neighbouring year or month. The fintech dollar total is a Cut Through Venture figure, not ours; we do not publish dollar totals from our own data. The full method is in the explainer on how we built the database.
How to cite this: Source: Story Recruitment Australian Startup Funding Database (2016 to 2026), storyrecruitment.com.au/insights/australian-startup-funding, CC BY 4.0.
Common questions
What share of Australian startup deals go to deep tech?
37% in 2026 so far, according to the Story Recruitment Australian Startup Funding Database. That is up from 22% in 2021 and 20% in 2017. Deep tech means companies building science or hardware: biotech, medtech, space, climate, quantum, robotics, semiconductors and new materials.
Is fintech funding in Australia dying?
No, but far fewer fintechs are raising. Fintech took 21% of deals in 2021 and only 8% in 2024. It has picked up to 12% since. The money has not vanished: Cut Through Venture counted A$868 million into Australian fintech in 2025, much of it in a few very large rounds such as Airwallex's.
Why is deep tech growing in Australia?
Our view: government money, investor appetite for hard-to-copy technology, and a run of big wins. Government-backed investors such as the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation were in 18% of deep tech deals from 2024 to 2026, up from 10% in 2017 to 2021. Gilmour Space, Synchron and Advanced Navigation all raised large rounds in the last year.
Do deep tech startups raise bigger rounds than fintechs?
They have nearly caught up. The typical deep tech round was A$5.6 million from 2016 to 2020 and A$10 million from 2021 to 2026. The typical fintech round went from A$8 million to A$11.5 million.
When should a deep tech startup hire its first finance lead?
Earlier than a software startup of the same size. Grants, R&D tax offsets and long runways before revenue all need someone who owns the numbers. Hire before the raise that will need them, and look beyond deep tech: manufacturing, defence and mining finance people often fit well.
These guides set out how we see it, drawn from the searches we run and the finance leaders we work with. They are general information about the market, not financial, accounting or legal advice, and they are no substitute for advice on your own circumstances.