![\"startup](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Copy-of-SCM-ed-image-1920x1080-77-2.png\")
L-R: Damien Waller and Richard Stevens. Source: Supplied.<\/p>\n
Price comparison platform Zyft leads this week\u2019s funding round-up with a $7.5 million private investment, led by PSC Insurance founder Paul Dwyer. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
According to a statement provided to SmartCompany, the new funding gives Zyft a post-money valuation of $37.5 million, up from $30 million.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The new capital will be directed towards enhancing the platform\u2019s AI, bolstering its product capabilities, acquiring more users, and rolling out revenue diversification initiatives.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis 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,\u201d said Stevens in the statement. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is to make online shopping smarter, more transparent, and ultimately more rewarding for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fluency: $1.5 million<\/strong><\/p>\n Melbourne software startup Fluency has raised $1.5 million in pre-seed funding for its platform that co-founder Finnlay Morcombe describes as \u201cthe operating system for operations\u201d. <\/p>\n Morcombe and co-founder Oliver Farnill founded Fluency in 2023, after participating in Swinburne Innovation Studio\u2019s Pre-Accelerator Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Morcombe announced the new funding in a LinkedIn post<\/a> on Tuesday in which he thanked the startup\u2019s investors.<\/p>\n This list includes Brad Tabone, Andrew Cicutto, Archangel Ventures, Orvel Ventures, OneMX.ai, Swinburne University of Technology, NextGen Ventures and Exhort Ventures. <\/p>\n The co-founder also gave a shout out to all of the startup\u2019s angel investors \u201cwho saw our vision and backed two young founders determined to solve a problem that\u2019s been overlooked for too long\u201d. <\/p>\n Morcombe said he encountered an \u201cabsurd\u201d way of managing operations while completing an internship two years ago. The founder said he found himself \u201cdocumenting million-dollar processes with screenshots and Word docs\u201d, which was \u201cthe exact same way it was done in 2005\u201d. <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat started as two best mates teaching ourselves how to code in our Olly\u2019s parents\u2019 basement juggling university and internships has evolved into something much bigger,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Never miss a story: sign up to\u00a0SmartCompany\u2019s\u00a0free daily newsletter<\/a>\u00a0and find our best stories on\u00a0LinkedIn.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week\u2019s funding round-up includes a price comparison platform and a startup that wants to transform how companies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3094],"tags":[25887,25888,25889,51,3134,5036,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-68223","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-australian-startup-funding","9":"tag-australian-startups","10":"tag-australian-venture-capital","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-entrepreneurship","13":"tag-funding","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"startup](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Fluency.jpg\")
L-R: Swinburne Vice President of Innovation and Enterprise Dr Werner van der Merwe, Finnlay Morcombe and Oliver Farnill at the 2023 Swinburne Accelerator Program Pitch Night. Source: Swinburne University<\/p>\n