#91 🍩 New $70M healthtech fund, Oura's IPO & the RDTI 10 year cap
What is happening in health tech & innovation?
Jun 09, 2026
Hey friends,
It’s been a hot minute.
Unsurprisingly, DHF delivered in the influx of people, stalls (and disease - once again kindly sharing every flu variant on the market).
Anyway - it’s sure been a bit of a busy month between Digital Health Festival, ANDHealth’s FY26 Sentiment Report Launch, Brandon BioCatalyst’s Cureator Showcase and the Claude for Health Meetup(not to mention all those I missed - sorry AusMedtech, MTAA Women’s Summit and PTA Congress 🥲)
💜 Great to see and meet so many of you and thanks to those who came to see me yap.
Events central - cute but rip social battery
As we all retreat and recover from the abundance of extroversion - its time to settle back behind our screens and catch up on the MANY delicious updates we have coming your way.
On to the news…
🍩 TODAY’S ISSUE
Noteworthy
Funding
Newsworthy
AI Updates
Sick Science
Startup Stuff
Events
Cool Content
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Noteworthy 🗞️
Funding
💰 Synthesis Capitalbagged $60M and HESTAas a backer for its debut fund, targeting early-stage Australian health and Metech startups, targeting a $70m close
🤰 Oli (formerly Baymatob) raised $6.5M in Series A3 backed by Scale Investors, Clare Ventures & USyd, bringing total funding to $13M+ plus $9.5M in grants.
The wearable monitors millions of maternal & fetal data points across 10 biosensors to predict complications like PPH, fetal distress & stillbirth risk, with a 1,000-patient clinical trial nearing completion across Australia & the US
☀️ MoleMap, Aus’s leading skin cancer detection service, acquired Spotscreen to continue to accelerate its growth
💊 Bioxyne secured a $50M two-year supply deal with German pharma company ADREXpharma for medicinal cannabis products, including a $25M minimum in the first 12 months
💰 But first… Budget recap time (ICYMI)
🔥The Federal Budget 2026 came in hot for health, with:
Prioritising national research ($210M for precision health and cancer programs), research infrastructure/admin costs ($128M), and commercial translation pipelines ($127.6mM
🏥 Bain Capital is exiting Estia Health, selling Australia’s second-largest residential aged care operator to US infrastructure firm Stonepeak in a deal reportedly valued at ~$2.5B
🎓 USYD will offer Aus's first part-time medical degree, allowing MD students to complete Year 3 over two years instead of one, starting 2027 at Westmead & Dubbo
🦷 Denteric, a Uni of Melb biotech spinout, secured FDA clearance to begin Phase 2 clinical trials in the US for GPV381, a therapeutic vaccine targeting periodontitis, a condition affecting 1 in 3 adults globally
💚 Tenmile & AusBiotechannounced a strategic partnership to strengthen the industry and ensure Australia achieves the impact it deserves as a serious player on the global life sciences stage
🏆 BioNTech awarded its inaugural mRNA Innovator Program grant toUoM's Professor Linda Wakim to support development of an advanced, long-lasting intranasal influenza vaccine candidate
🎓 RMIT is investing $30M in health capability & research at its Bundoora campus, in partnership with Northern Health
🤖 The Guardian explored whether AI can deliver more humanity in aged care, from companion robots speaking 90 languages to VR train rides through the Swiss Alps.
Meanwhile, USYD researchers warn the agetech industry is "subscribing to a vision of technological rescue" that distracts from structural reform
US & Beyond the Borders
🧬 NewLimit, co-founded by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, raised $435M in Series C led by Founders Fund to bring its first cell age-reprogramming medicine into human trials next year
🎥 Naturejoined TikTok, declaring in a recent editorial that "the future of science communication is not an article like this"
About. Time. Welcome to the new age research journals…
🎗️ A landmark WHO study found~40% of cancer cases may be preventable, sparking a wave of startups building lifestyle-based survivorship care for the US’s 18M+ cancer survivors
68% of patients found ChatGPT more empathetic & informative than their oncologist. Let that sink in
👵 Kalos Ventures, an all-women founding team backed by Melinda French Gates' Pivotal Ventures & MassMutual, closed an oversubscribed $78.8M inaugural fund targeting early-stage tech across workforce, care & education as AI reshapes jobs
👩⚕️ WHOOP is now a physician’s assistant - launching in-app telehealth in the US this summer, integrating medical history, bloodwork, and longitudinal biometrics for informed care, becoming a full operating system
💊 KURK Biosciences, a turmeric supplement company co-founded by Wollongong native Trent Scanlen & backed by actor Tom Hardy, is weighing a sub-£5M raise at a £27M+ pre-money valuation
⚛️ NVisionraised $55M in Series B to expand from quantum-enhanced MRI into quantum computing for drug discovery, with its POLARIS platform already being deployed at ~20 cancer centres globally
🤝 Anthropic committed $200M in partnership with the Gates Foundation to support drug discovery, vaccine development, & better use of health data in low- & middle-income countries using Claude
🧬 Isomorphic Labs, the Google DeepMind spinout, raised a massive $2.1B to scale its AI drug discovery platform targeting cancer, immune disorders & complex diseases
The $1.8B AI-native pharma company acquires clinical-stage drugs then runs them through its own tech platform to streamline recruitment, trial design, regulatory filings & data management
👩⚕️ Two reports from Elsevier & McKinsey reveal that nurses are being left behind in AI adoption. Only 41% of nurses regularly use AI tools vs 57% of physicians, & 41% say their views are rarely reflected in AI decision-making
80%+ of nurses believe AI can improve patient care. They’re the operational backbone of healthcare. If they’re not shaping these tools from the start, we’ve got a problem
Founded by two physicians & a former GoodRx exec, the app is free & plans to stay that way. Abridge started as a patient scribe before pivoting to clinicians… maybe the market wasn’t ready yet
✅ FDA cleared the first-ever continuous AI sepsis monitor from Bayesian Health, detecting patient deterioration & flagging sepsis earlier in hospital settings
🔍 OpenEvidence, an AI clinical search platform, was used in ~27M clinical encounters in April, with 65% of US physicians actively using the tool for medical decision support
💰 Penn Medicine is projecting $105M in ROI from AI across imaging, documentation & prior auth workflows, one of the clearest signals yet that health system AI investment is paying off
🩷 Evvy launched an AI-powered vaginal health advisor trained on 100K+ proprietary microbiome tests, translating results into personalised action items for fertility, menopause & common conditions
Sick Science
🧫 How Does a Common Gut Bacterium Trigger Colon Cancer?
A 2026 Nature study led by Johns Hopkins solved a 15-year mystery, identifying that the Bacteroides fragilis toxin BFT must first bind to a host receptor called claudin-4 before it can damage colon tissue & drive tumour formation. The discovery already led to the development of a molecular decoy that successfully blocked the toxin’s effects in animal models, offering a potential new strategy for preventing colorectal cancer at the molecular level.
📑 How Many Biomedical Papers Contain Fake Citations?
A 2026 Lancet audit of 2.5M academic papers found nearly 3,000 biomedical papers containing fabricated references that couldn’t be traced to known publications. The rate has grown 12-fold since 2023, with the sharpest spike beginning mid-2024, coinciding with the rise of AI writing tools. By early 2026, 1 in every 277 papers contained at least one fake citation.
Startup Stuff 🚀
Working on mRNA-based therapeutics or vaccine research?
BioNTech Australia in partnership with the A-RNA Association has opened the 2026 mRNA Innovator Award Program, offering AUD$50K (half cash, half in-kind mRNA supply from BioNTech’s R&D lab) for preclinical mRNA research. Open to researchers & companies across Australia & New Zealand. Applications close 31 July - More here
Deep tech founder looking to turn your research into a real-world venture?
Curtin University’s DeepStart program is a 3-month accelerator backed by RTCM Trailblazer in collaboration with Cicada Innovations & Greentown Labs. Providing researchers, startups & SMEs with a $5K grant & access to a $500K investment pool, plus a two-day immersion at Tech23 in Sydney. Applications close 12 June - More here
Building a startup that could compete on the world stage?
Startup World Cup Australia is open for Sydney & Queensland regional finals, hosted by Startup&Angels. Winners get a full Silicon Valley immersion week, investor meetings & a shot at the Grand Finale in San Francisco with 300+ investors. Queensland apps close 9 June - More here
Got a digital health innovation tackling global challenges?
The Future of Health Grant supports early-stage digital health startups through a Swiss-based accelerator with mentoring, clinical access & funding. Applications close 31 July - More here
Deep Tech founder looking to turn your research into a real world venture?
Curtin University’s DeepStart program is a 3 month accelerator backed by RTCM Trailblazer in collaboration with Cicada innovations and Greentown Labs. Providing researchers, startups and SMES with a range of opportunities, including a $5K grant and access to a $500K investment pool, to accelerate commercialisation and investment readiness. Applications close 12 June - More here
Driving community-led public health change?
Applications are now open for the Ian Potter Foundation's Public Health program. Offering multi-year grants and minimum $100,000 per year. Supporting organisations to design and deliver evidence-based, preventative health initiatives in partnership with their communities. Funding focuses on improving long-term health outcomes in high-need populations through early-stage exploration, co-designed solutions, scaling proven pilots, and system-shifting public health innovation. EOIs open 28 May - More here
Our mate Mr Gates writes about why breakthroughs in diagnositics combined with new treatements to slow cognitive decline, AI tools and data analysis creates momentum in creating understanding and perhaps treatments & interventions
72% of US physicians are now using genAI, 35% for direct patient care, & ~40M Americans use AI chatbots daily for health info. Yet almost none of this is validated.
A candid reflection from the founder of the Aussie drone delivery startup that delivered vaccines across three continents, raised $26M from Blackbird, Main Sequence & the CIA’s In-Q-Tel, then landed in liquidation. Required reading for healthtech founders
How do I learn more about these funds? As a founder I am more concerned with the potential loss of supporting activities in the R&D incentive. A lot of the work we do is simply not representable anymore.
The cap to 50k will kick out a lot of companies for their first year. Putting pressure on pre seed and angel investors.
How do I learn more about these funds? As a founder I am more concerned with the potential loss of supporting activities in the R&D incentive. A lot of the work we do is simply not representable anymore.
The cap to 50k will kick out a lot of companies for their first year. Putting pressure on pre seed and angel investors.
What a mine field.