The startup funding round: Tech for developers, EV chargers and fine dining for doggos

This week in startupland, we saw invoice financing startup Butn go public in a $20 million ASX float, while incubator Cicada Innovations secured a continued partnership with NSW Health to give a boost the Aussie medtech and biotech sector.

We also met Kāhu, a startup using AI and imaging tech to diagnose skin cancer quickly and easily, that has just secured $3 million in funding.

But, as always, we weren’t able to cover everyone’s good news. So, this week’s funding round includes electric vehicles, AI for decision-making and delicious dinners for doggos.

Here’s some of the funding news you might have missed.

FL0

Back-end development startup FL0 — pronounced ‘flow’ — has secured $5.1 million in seed funding.

The tech, which the startup has coined Dev Acceleration as a Service, allows for back-end coding in a low-code format, essentially speeding up the process. According to FL0, the tool can improve development speeds by up to 20 times.

“It’s not about automating or removing the developer, but by freeing them up from repetitive tasks,” co-founder Dale Brett said in a statement.

The round was led by Blackbird Ventures, and also included investment from Skip Capital, Jelix Ventures, and Culture Amp co-founder Doug English.

Leading startup engineers Zak Islam, who is vice president of engineering at Atlassian, and Seb Ruiz, director of engineering at Canva, also contributed.

As veteran of startup engineering, the co-founders have “an acute affinity to the problem” they’re setting out to solve, Tom Humphrey, principal at Blackbird said.

“Engineering capacity and speed of development are top priorities for every growth stage company,” he added.

Lyka

Pet food startup Lyka has reportedly raised $6.5 million, with investors including Shearwater Capital and Wattle Hill Capital.

Headed up by co-founders Anna Podolsky and Matthew Muir, who is a vet, Lyka makes dog food of human food quality, which is delivered to pet parents all over the country.

Aptly, the business is named after Podolsky’s own pup, who the founder created the formula for when her health was declining at just five years old.

This funding will be used to expand production and distribution of the products, with the aim to get more people making healthy choices for their floofy friends.

“There’s a lot of correlation between heavily processed food being popularised and decline in life span,” says Anna Podolsky.

“There’s so much information out there, but our mission is for people to make a conscious decision about what they’re feeding their pets.”

Sourse AI

Decision-making startup Sourse AI has raised $1.5 million for its tech taking ‘gut feel’ out of corporate decision-making.

The platform uses AI and machine learning to apply industry-specific data and information to the key decisions executives make every day, with an initial focus on the entertainment, telco and utilities sectors.

In a statement, co-founder Matt Jones referred to a recent survey in which 58% of executives said they base more than half of their decisions on their gut feelings.

“That’s an alarming figure when you consider the degree to which these decisions materially impact bottom and top-line results,” he said.

The raise was led by Aligned Equity. Southern Cross Austereo was also an early investor and customer, rolling out Sourse to unpack audience behavioural data to provide a more personalised listening experience.

Evos

Evos, an electric vehicle charging startup headed up by a team of Tritium alumni, has raised $1.7 million in seed funding.

Co-founded by Marcelo Salgado, Seshan Weeratunga and Chris Crossman, Evos manufactures EV chargers that are easy for an individual to install in their home or workplace.

The funding comes from Autostrada, as well as from an ASX 100 company that has not been named. It will be used to bolster the Evos engineering team, and for further commercialisation of the products.

“Australia has an exceptional engineering and manufacturing track record, and electric vehicles and charging offers the nation an opportunity to continue that tradition in a new sector,” Salgado says.

“Our investors feel the same way, and we can’t wait to take our solutions to homes and fleets across Australia and into overseas markets.”