This week’s funding round-up includes a price comparison platform and a startup that wants to transform how companies manage their operations.
Keep reading to learn more.
Zyft: $7.5 million
Price comparison platform Zyft leads this week’s funding round-up with a $7.5 million private investment, led by PSC Insurance founder Paul Dwyer.
The startup, which was founded in 2019 by iSelect co-founder Damian Waller, has also appointed Richard Stevens, the former top boss at LocalAgentFinder, as its new CEO.
According to a statement provided to SmartCompany, the new funding gives Zyft a post-money valuation of $37.5 million, up from $30 million.
The Zyft platform uses AI to help users compare prices across millions of products in real-time. Prices can be compared on products from more than 50,000 Australian retailers, according to the company, which says it processes more than 100,000 product searches each day.
The new capital will be directed towards enhancing the platform’s AI, bolstering its product capabilities, acquiring more users, and rolling out revenue diversification initiatives.
“This new funding will enable us to accelerate our product roadmap, deliver even greater value to Australian shoppers, and build strong, mutually beneficial relationships with retailers,” said Stevens in the statement.
“Our goal is to make online shopping smarter, more transparent, and ultimately more rewarding for everyone.”
Fluency: $1.5 million
Melbourne software startup Fluency has raised $1.5 million in pre-seed funding for its platform that co-founder Finnlay Morcombe describes as “the operating system for operations”.
Morcombe and co-founder Oliver Farnill founded Fluency in 2023, after participating in Swinburne Innovation Studio’s Pre-Accelerator Program.
Two years on, their AI-powered startup is helping a growing list of global clients manage their operations, including the likes of AON, SpecSavers, Boardroom and MISUMI.
Morcombe announced the new funding in a LinkedIn post on Tuesday in which he thanked the startup’s investors.
This list includes Brad Tabone, Andrew Cicutto, Archangel Ventures, Orvel Ventures, OneMX.ai, Swinburne University of Technology, NextGen Ventures and Exhort Ventures.
The co-founder also gave a shout out to all of the startup’s angel investors “who saw our vision and backed two young founders determined to solve a problem that’s been overlooked for too long”.
Morcombe said he encountered an “absurd” way of managing operations while completing an internship two years ago. The founder said he found himself “documenting million-dollar processes with screenshots and Word docs”, which was “the exact same way it was done in 2005”.
He and Farnill believed there had to be a better way, as companies waste 20-30% of their annual revenue on these kinds of inefficiencies.
“What started as two best mates teaching ourselves how to code in our Olly’s parents’ basement juggling university and internships has evolved into something much bigger,” he said.
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