Deploy Friday: Edition #13
The foundation has shifted. Now comes the build.
This week, the infrastructure question stopped being abstract. Anthropic locked in 300,000 GPUs via SpaceX, Databricks committed AU$420M to the region, and YC published a Request for Startups that reads less like a wishlist and more like a warning: the service layer is next, and the window is open now. Meanwhile, the local ecosystem kept moving: raises, a fund close, an acquisition, and much more. — Júlia G.
Top News
UNSW Founders 10x Accelerator opens 2026
Ten years in, UNSW Founders is leaning harder into what actually works: bespoke support, a philanthropic model that backs founders before any financial investor will, and now with a direct runway to international markets. If you’re building in either space and haven’t applied, applications close May 18.
Databricks drops AU$420M on ANZ
Databricks’ AU$420M ANZ investment follows 85% YoY regional growth, and the timing isn’t accidental: their new products (Lakebase, Genie, Agent Bricks) are purpose-built for the agentic AI wave hitting enterprises right now. For founders building in the data or AI infra layer, this signals serious enterprise appetite in the region.
Anthropic signs with SpaceX, 2X Claude Code limits
Anthropic just signed an agreement to use the full compute capacity of SpaceX’s Colossus 1 data centre coming online within the month. The immediate payoff for users: Claude Code’s five-hour rate limits are doubling across Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans, peak hour reductions are gone for Pro and Max, and Opus API rate limits are up significantly.
The Foundation Has Shifted
Every few months, Y Combinator publishes its Request for Startups, a list of ideas they want to back next. The Summer 2026 edition opens strong: “AI has stopped being a feature and started being the foundation.” The pattern repeats across headlines: AI copilots are not the hit anymore. The ask is for companies that replace the service entirely, skipping the human layer and doing the work. In February 2026, hundreds of billions in market capitalisation was wiped from global software stocks in a matter of days. As dire as it sounds, that's not a death sentence for software, but rather a signal that the stack is being negotiated… and that the next layer is open. YC's Summer 2026 RfS is a clear articulation of what that next layer looks like.
BCG’s February 2026 analysis puts a number on it: agentic AI will unlock up to US$200 billion in net new value pools for technology services over the next five years. Not by replacing what exists, but by doing what existing software never could. Enterprises have always outsourced their messiest, most labour-intensive processes: compliance, administration, healthcare workflows, legal support. Bain estimates that within three years, any routine rules-based task could shift from “human plus app” to “AI agent plus API.” The services sitting underneath legacy SaaS, the ones that SaaS was always just organising, never actually doing, are now the target.
For ANZ founders, that target is sitting at home. Australia's professional services industry, spanning legal, accounting, engineering, and management consulting, is worth A$305 billion in 2026, spread across 276,000 businesses. Almost all of it runs on manual processes and software that organises work rather than doing it. Across the Tasman, the picture is similar. NZ businesses are starting to plug AI agents into everyday operations, helpdesk queries, onboarding, admin, but still trail global peers in production deployments. The University of Auckland’s Aotearoa Agentic AI Platform (backed by government funding) has an explicit goal of augmenting the country’s five million people with 100 million AI agents.
The local signals are already there. Relevance AI’s A$37M Series B backs a Sydney company building no-code AI agent infrastructure that lets businesses automate entire workflows without writing a line of code. Haast, also Sydney-founded, raised US$12M to automate AI marketing compliance for Fortune 500s (4.5x revenue growth, zero churn) in a category the RfS specifically names. These are companies replacing functions, not augmenting them, a distinction that is everything right now.
The YC RfS points at structural gaps and opportunities that are now solvable because of technology advancements. The ingredients exist: deep domain expertise, a services economy ripe for disruption, and a capital market that deployed A$5.48 billion in 2025 and is actively concentrating behind AI plays. The next great ANZ company might not be a SaaS platform at all. It might be the one that makes several of them obsolete.
🔥 Big Builds
→ Major launches, raises, or breakthroughs.
Liquid Instruments, the Canberra-founded, Melbourne-based AI-driven test equipment scaleup, raised US$50M (AU$70M) Series C to scale its AI-powered platform.
Aigentsphere, the Sydney-based AI agent management and governance platform, raised AU$4M Seed led by Main Sequence to grow its engineering team and expand operations in Australia and the US.
Enaxiom, the Sydney-based data centre cooling and water efficiency startup, raised US$1.8M (AU$2.5M) Seed led by Epic Angels, to commercially deploy its Hydrocool system and accelerate US expansion.
ReadySteadyPlug, the Sydney-based EV charging-as-a-service startup, raised AU$1.51M from ARENA to roll out affordable EV chargers in apartments and strata buildings across Australia.
Manifest, the trans-Tasman AI-powered agency operations platform, raised AU$2M pre-seed led to replace manual timesheets with real-time operational intelligence for ad agencies.
SharonAI, the Australian Neocloud company, secured US$350M in convertible notes led by Oaktree Capital to accelerate GPU and network procurement for its sovereign AI cloud deployments.
🚪 Market Movements
→ Acquisitions, listings, etc.
Legora, the Stockholm-based legal AI platform (valued at $5.6B), acquired Melbourne regtech Graceview to integrate real-time regulatory monitoring across 100+ jurisdictions directly into its workflow platform.
💸 New Funds
→ Fresh VC capital announcements
Side Stage Ventures, the Sydney-based pre-Seed and Seed VC, held a AU$40M first close on its AU$50M Fund II, backed by founders from Canva, Linktree, Airwallex, and Leonardo AI, with 90% of Fund I LPs returning. Elli Hanson was promoted to Partner alongside the close.
The Startup World Cup is back in Australia with regional events in Melbourne (May 14), Sydney (June 17), and Queensland (July 9); winners get flights to the San Francisco Grand Finale and a shot at a US$1M investment. Applications are open now.
#random
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Tips (the non-pecuniary kind)
Shipping something cool or has some gossip worth sharing in the startup world? Please send it to us at lucas@ryft.vc or julia@ryft.vc.