A closer look at the top 10 female-founded startup funding rounds of 2024

There’s a massive lack of capital going into all-female founded teams in Australia, with the State of Startup Funding in 2024 report showing the proportion of funding going to these startups sits at a measly two per cent.

Even for startups with at least one female co-founder, the proportion of funding is only at 15 per cent, a result that is actually down on the 2023 figure, which was already just 18 per cent.

In 2024, much of the funding for startups with at least one female co-founder was concentrated into just five deals, with a combined total $336 million being spread between FLEET, Aravax, Constantinople, Kismet and RDC Rich Data Co.

Beyond this, rounding out the top ten female-founded startup funding for 2024, is Prota Therapeutics, Drift Lab, Evolt360, Ultra Violette and Liquid Instruments. Here’s a closer look at each of the teams.  

Fleet Space Technologies 

Flavia Tata Nardini is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Fleet Space Technologies, alongside Matt Pearson, co-founder and Chief Exploration Officer. 

Founded in 2015 and based in South Australia, Fleet Space is advancing space technology, multiphysics data acquisition, edge computing, and AI. The satellite-enabled solutions unlock new capabilities in the global space sector, defence, and mineral exploration needed for net-zero.

“Some people are born explorers at heart, they just want to see what’s out there, and I can’t help myself, I’m one of them,” said Nardini. 

Aravax

Founded in 2015 and based in Melbourne, Aravax is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing safe, convenient and disease-modifying treatments for peanut and other food allergies.

Aravax has three female co-founders, Professor Robyn O’Hehir (lead researcher, Professor Jennifer Rolland (researcher), and Dr. Sara Prickett (co-inventor of Aravax’s peanut allergy therapy). 

Constantinople

Constantinople was founded by former Westpac executives Dianne Challenor and Macgregor Duncan in 2022.

The first of its kind, Constantinople is an all-in-one software and operational platform for banks. The platform hosts and manages a bank’s customers directly on its cloud-native infrastructure, supporting a full-suite of banking products which are personally branded.

Rich Data Corporation

CEO Ada Guan is co-founder of Rich Data Corporation, alongside her three male co-founders– Michael Coomer, Charles Guan and Gordon Campbell. 

Guan brings over 20 years’ global experience in financial services, software, and retail industries to Rich Data Corporation, an industry leader in artificial intelligence (AI). 

Rich Data Corporation uses innovative technology in decisioning for business and commercial lenders, the company’s RDC AI platform enables banks to make high-quality lending decisions efficiently and safely. With the RDC platform, banks can deliver more meaningful customer interactions, improve credit outcomes, and increase lending.

Kismet

A health-tech startup based in Melbourne, Kismet is a digital community platform that aims to improve access to healthcare and disability support. The platform connects patients with providers and helps them manage their funds. 

Chief Experience Officer of Kismet, Lauren Grimes is among the team of five co-founders. The others are Mark Woodland, Stefan Cordiner, Sam Armstrong and Mathew Ellis.

“We want to give people more than they expect,” Grimes says about Kismet. 

Prota Therapeutics

Established in 2016, Prota Therapeutics is an Australian biotech company dedicated to developing and commercializing cutting-edge oral immunotherapy treatments. Its focus centres on leveraging proprietary food immunotherapy technology, developed under the leadership of Professor Mimi Tang’s research team, and exclusively licensed from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia. 

Professor Tang is a global thought leader in allergy and a clinician scientist with 25+ years’ experience as a pediatric allergist immunologist. 

Drift Lab

Drift Labs is a startup that develops software for a decentralized perpetual futures exchange called Drift. Drift is built on the Solana blockchain and uses a token called DRIFT. 

Cindy Leow and David Lu co-founded Drift Labs in 2021, with the goal of creating the best decentralized trading platform for crypto. 

“Building Drift through bull and bear cycles has not been easy, but it has been rewarding to see the work that we’re doing in building permissionless financial systems finally start to take off,” said Leow.

Evolt360

Evolt 360 is an innovative wellness company that is powering connected and digital health. Kelly Weideman founded the company in 2015 with Ed Zouroudis. 

“These days most people know more about their cars; they service their cars once a year, they know how much air goes in their tires – yet they know nothing about their bodies – how much muscle, fat, water, visceral fat they have, if they are in the healthy ranges, how many calories they need to consume to fuel their body, etc. Evolt is making that information accessible through a non-invasive and quick scan as well as having an easy to use and informative tracking platform and app,” said Weideman. 

Ultra Violette

Ava Matthews and Bec Jefferd founded the Australian sunscreen brand Ultra Violette in 2019. The two women came up with the idea while working at Mecca, a cosmetics company. 

Now a multi-million dollar Aussie sunscreen label,the company has expanded  into 12 European markets, as well as New Zealand, Hong Kong and South-East Asia, Net-A-Porter globally, and Space NK, Liberty and Harrods in the UK.

Liquid Instruments

Chief Operating Officer Danielle Wuchenich is among the team of co-founders of Liquid Instruments, an electronics and manufacturing company. 

Her fellow co-founders include Daniel Shaddock(CEO), Andrew Sutton, Ben Coughlan, David McClelland, David Rabeling, Magnus Hsu, Malcolm Gray, Paul Altin, Samuel Francis, Tarquin Ralph, and Timothy Lam. 

A Canberra-born technology company Liquid Instruments was founded in 2014. It specialises in the development and manufacturing of high-performing test and measurement equipment, including Moku, the only test solution that is engineered and optimized for friction-free customization in both simple tests and complex multi-instrument environments.