According to The Australian Financial Review, Sydney-based biotech EnGeneIC is tapping investors to raise $20 million in bridging funding to buy time until the IPO market reopens and the company can undertake a Nasdaq listing next year.
The company, which was founded in 2001 by former CSIRO scientists Jennifer MacDiarmid and Himanshu Brahmbhatt, who still serve as co-CEOs, has created a new way of delivering cancer drugs that is more potent and less toxic than existing treatments.

https://www.afr.com/companies/healthcare-and-fitness/cancer-biotech-raising-20m-after-delaying-nasdaq-float-20221111-p5bxgo

According to The Australian Financial Review, an army of householders in the suburbs of Adelaide helped stabilise a creaking electricity grid in South Australia.
Their residential storage batteries on the outside walls of homes with rooftop solar panels are part of a “virtual power plant” set up by AGL Energy six years ago, and were utilised by authorities to help stop the local grid overloading with too much electricity.

https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/hundreds-of-home-batteries-helped-stabilise-grid-agl-20221117-p5bz1g

According to The Australian Financial Review, he’s only 26, but Melbourne-based entrepreneur Jordan Shreeve has created a multimillion-dollar packaging platform called Inke and signed up some of the world’s biggest brands, including Google, Microsoft and Uber.
Founded less than four years ago from his bedroom in the beachside suburb of Hampton with $20,000 of his own money, Inke enables companies to source branded packaging simply, regardless of the order size.
As well as big global tech companies, local brands including Mecca, Lululemon and Cotton On Group use the platform.
The brands can upload their own packaging design, or find a designer via 99designs, and select from a range of packages, or custom make their own. The platform connects customers with a local manufacturer and is designed to support smaller orders, but for companies wanting more than 3000 packages at a time, the Inke team manually facilitate the order.

https://www.afr.com/technology/how-a-26-year-old-turned-20k-into-a-multimillion-dollar-start-up-20221018-p5bqn3

According to The Australian Financial Review, the head in Australia of trading giant Mitsui has come out strongly in support of the development of Woodside Energy’s massive Browse LNG project in Western Australia, saying Japan will need LNG from Australia for decades to come as well as new clean fuels such as low-carbon ammonia and hydrogen.
In his only interview since taking up the role of chairman and CEO of Mitsui Australia on April 1, Masato Sugahara said the Japanese firm is also keen to stay a minority partner in the Woodside-led North West Shelf venture and will continue to look for opportunities for new LNG investments here.
“Looking at Japan’s energy resources breakdown, LNG is going to be still an important resource out to 2050, but we need to think about methods to minimise greenhouse gas emissions by CCS (carbon capture and storage) or other technological solutions,” Mr Sugahara told The Australian Financial Review.

https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/mitsui-backs-browse-lng-and-wants-green-hydrogen-too-20221024-p5bs9h

 

According to The Australian Financial Review, in the battle to supply the carbon-neutral aviation fuel of the future, American entrepreneur Karl Seck reckons Queensland’s sugar cane industry has one big advantage over the vast cornfields of North America.
“The one really good thing about bagasse [sugar cane waste] is it is already aggregated,” he told the Tech Zero podcast when discussing the potential to turn crops into fuels.
Mercurius Biorefining wants to become a supplier to the industry, and Seck jokes to Tech Zero that his company might become “the Exxon of biofuels”.

https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/why-australian-sugar-cane-could-be-the-jet-fuel-of-the-future-20221031-p5buag

According to The Australian Financial Review, a broad-based accord signed between Woodside Energy and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation on energy security and decarbonisation has raised expectations that Japanese buyers may sign up to support the Australian company’s $16.5 billion Scarborough LNG project.
Under the deal, which was signed in Tokyo on Tuesday by Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill and JBIC deputy governor Kazuhiko Amakawa, the partners will work together to identify potential projects where Woodside may be able to work with Japanese companies in LNG supply and on lower-carbon energy products.

https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/woodside-s-japan-accord-fuels-scarborough-deal-hopes-20221102-p5buwr

 

According to The Australian Financial Review, travel experiences marketplace Travello has closed its largest funding round to date, just two years after its founders were forced to take a pay cut to survive the COVID-19 pandemic.
A bounce back in leisure travel has led Travello to increase revenue seven times above pre-COVID-19 levels, enabling it raise $10 million in fresh funding, in a round led by the Queensland Investment Corporation and with participation from Paspalis Innovation Investment Fund.
Mr Hanly said the youth travel market was now wide open in Australia and the fresh funding would let it make acquisitions to grow its scale. It also intends expand into new categories including outbound multi-day tours.
“We are currently growing at 25 per cent monthly and have recorded over 1000 per cent growth in bookings,” he said.

https://www.afr.com/technology/travel-start-up-that-cut-costs-to-survive-covid-now-7x-bigger-20221005-p5bnda

 

According to The Australian Financial Review, Western Australia is a step closer to having a new port at Oakajee on the Mid West coast after doling out land to BP and the green energy offshoot of Fortescue Metals Group for green hydrogen projects.
The British oil and gas giant and Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) were each granted 220 hectares of land for green hydrogen and green ammonia processing alongside the proposed port. 
The WA government said FFI was eyeing its land grant for a green ammonia plant but had also talked about a green iron project in the state’s Mid West region.
BP has set its sights on an export-scale green hydrogen and ammonia production facility based on the positive findings of its feasibility study into the potential around Oakajee.

https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/bp-fortescue-handed-portside-land-for-hydrogen-projects-20221018-p5bqr8

 

According to The Australian Financial Review, it should not be a surprise that Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is making a whistle-stop trip to Western Australia to seek personal assurance from Anthony Albanese that there is no risk to the 65 per cent of Japan’s coal and 36 per cent of its LNG that comes from Australia.
Australia’s Asian model is now set to become a green Asian model as the coal and gas is augmented and then replaced by hydrogen and new age metals for electrification. But Japan’s current anxiety shows that a successful energy transition depends equally on investment in fossil fuels being maintained until renewables fill in the gap.
There are a lot of resources in the world, but far fewer reputations for reliability. That is an asset in Japan’s eyes that Australia must guard.

https://www.afr.com/world/asia/keeping-trust-with-tokyo-20221020-p5brho
 

According to The Australian Financial Review, a top Japanese business leader and former head of Nippon Steel says Australian coal and gas will remain vital for Japan’s energy needs for decades, but fears the lack of new investment in fossil fuels threatens the country’s energy security.
Akio Mimura, the chairman of the Japan Chamber of Commerce of Industry who has overseen major investments in Australia, said it was vital that Japan maintained secure supplies of energy sources with Australia at a time when his country’s power needs looked increasingly fragile.

https://www.afr.com/world/asia/japan-s-industry-urges-secure-supplies-of-australian-energy-20221012-p5bpd0