Four Aussie and Kiwi startups that raised $21.5 million this week

This week we’ve spotted new funding deals for Australian and Kiwi startups that are building restaurant solutions, “Windows for robots”, a scam protection platform, and rewards for internet users.

Keep reading to learn more about First Table, Metacognition AI, Dela and GoTroppo.

First Table, a startup helping restaurants turn quiet, off-peak dining rooms into bustling hotspots, has raised $10 million.

The funding round came from existing investors Altered Capital, Invest South, Mainland Angels and shareholders from Snowball Effect.

New investors K1W1 and Icehouse Ventures also tipped in.

The Queenstown-born startup offers diners discounts when dining in ‘quieter’ hours, helping restaurateurs monetise tables that may have otherwise sat empty.

First Table is already up and running in 22 Australian cities, and CEO Alex Cappy says the new funding will help it delve deeper into Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth.

“We know there’s room for us to grow in the major cities,” she said.

At a time of constrained consumer spending, Cappy billed First Table as a winning formula for both diners and restaurants.

“People are being careful with their money right now, so an offer like ours is really appealing,” Cappy added.

An AI startup building ‘Windows for robots’ has raised $10 million.

The funding for Metacognition AI came from CSIRO-backed deep tech VC Main Sequence. The raise was first reported by Capital Brief.

AI researcher Anton van den Hengel, the chief scientist of the Australian Institute for Machine Learning, co-founded the startup this year with Stephen Gould, and Paul Dalby.

Metacognition says it “will transform the AI revolution, leading to more capable and safer AI agents that are more personalised to their user. It will provide the missing software platform that finally enables robot hardware to be trained to do useful tasks by non-experts with simple verbal instructions and feedback”.

Robots will work alongside humans, remembering instructions and improving their performance as they interact with their environment via Metacognition, as users teach the agents specific tasks.

Sydney payments platform Dela has raised just over $1 million to tackle scam prevention in marketplace sales of second-hand goods.

The funding for founder Meg van der Velde came from from an unnamed private investor, and will be used on product development.

The startup handles transactions for second-hand goods advertised on platforms such as Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree. van der Velde came up with the idea to solve her own problem after she was scammed selling a laptop.

The supposed buyer sent a fake payment receipt, claimed to have overpaid, then requested a refund of the difference. A supposed Uber driver collected the laptop, then demanded fuel money to return it, while claiming he couldn’t find the buyer.

Van der Velde says the buyer and driver were the same scammer.

“I lost the laptop, I never got paid for it, and I paid him twice on top of that. In one afternoon,” she said.

Dela’s approach is to keep payments out of sellers’ hands until buyers receive their goods.

An Australian internet service provider that seeks to offer customers greater flexibility and more rewards from their internet use has secured $500,000 in new funding from two Melbourne-based family offices.

GoTroppo was founded in 2024 by Roger Slaney and Nick Bowring. The company offers NBN plans with no lock-in contracts, flexible payment options, and unlimited data for users.

Slaney told SmartCompany the new funding will help GoTroppo to invest in customer acquisition, marketing and the continued growth of the GoTroppo brand.

That brand is built on a mission to “do things a little differently and give customers something back,” said Slaney.

“We built our systems so customers can pay weekly, fortnightly or monthly, something we call ‘Pay Your Way’,” he explains.

“It allows households to align their internet bill with how they manage their finances.”

GoTroppo also offers a rewards program, which sees customers entered into prize draws when they pay their internet bills. At the moment, the company is giving away a new BYD Atto 1 car.

“The idea is simple: great, reliable internet. Pay Your Way, Get something back. Have some fun along the way,” added Slaney.

“This investment will help us take that model to a much larger Australian audience.”

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