Good News Wrap 2025

Our portfolio companies, funds and fellows had an incredible year, reaching significant milestones - raising capital, scaling breakthrough technologies, and earning recognition for work that’s solving real-world problems.

From methane-reducing agtech and non-invasive skin cancer detection, to advanced diagnostics, water remediation and climate technology, these achievements reflect the depth, ambition and impact of our ecosystem.

Here's a summary of the Good News Stories from our investments in 2025. For more insights and updates on our portfolio, subscribe to Breakthrough Victoria's newsletter .

December

• Number 8 bio raised $11m to commercialise methane-busting cow capsules that can reach the 70% of livestock methane emissions from cow flatulence and belching that other products can’t.
• Conflux moved into its next stage of growth , with Michael Fuller handing over the reins of CEO to CCO Dan Woodford.
• Jupiter Ionics profiled in piece on “the researchers tackling big problems” , detailing founder Douglas MacFarlane’s electrolytic cell that can produce carbon-neutral green ammonia for use in crop fertilisers.
• Diag-Nose.io founder Eldin Rostom received the Young Achievement Award at the 2025 Curtin University Awards for his biology-based treatment matching for respiratory conditions. Watch his story here .
• Bygen CCO Cameron Griffiths interviewed by Inside Water Magazine who featured their approach to PFAS remediation using biomass-derived activated carbon.
• Amber Electric, Harvest B, Kite Magnetics™, Samsara Eco and Xefco labelled as climate-tech ventures with billion-dollar potential in Climate Salad’s "The 2025 Climate Tech Industry Report". Read it here .
  
• Samsara Eco CEO Paul Riley profiled in The Australian piece on efforts to rewire supply chains and create true circularity.
• ElectraLith named in Inc's 2025 Best in Business List for Best in Innovation and Best in Startups.
• Smileyscope expands evidence-based XR platform into Women's Health.
• Infleqtion awarded a contract from the U.S. Army to apply its Contextual Machine Learning (CML) to strengthen their ability to deliver resilient navigation and timing data in adversarial environments.
• Quantum Brilliance Co-Founder and CEO, Mark Luo, named Young Entrepreneur of the Year in the Deep Tech category, at the Australian Young Entrepreneur Awards, hosted by Business News Australia.
  

November

• Lesley Cheng, Co-Founder and CEO of ExCelligent, a BV Co-Investment via La Trobe University's Eagle Fund, was awarded the 2025 Women in Colour in STEM Award – Innovator/Entrepreneur by STEM Sisters
• Shing Yue Sheung, Co-Founder and COO of Navi, was featured on health.gov.au, reflecting on how the Clinical Translation and Commercialisation MedTech program, a Medical Research Future Fund initiative delivered by MTPConnect, helped Navi move its Neonav project from Technology Readiness Level 5 to level 7.
• Mark Luo - Quantum Brilliance, Charlie McGill, SJ Oosthuizen and Huantig Wang - ElectraLith, Eldin Rostom - DiagNose, Dan Adams and Christopher Thompson - Amber Electric, Lewis Dunnigan - Bygen and Numa Berton and Zac Duff - JigSpace were l isted in The Australian’s Top Innovators of 2025 – labelled as “visionaries who are reshaping industries and redefining what’s possible”.
• Quantum Brilliance was mentioned in TIME’s The Best Inventions of 2025 List . QB also opened the world’s first commercial Quantum Diamond Foundry.
• Sustainable manufacturing technology startup Xefco strikes a deal with Indonesian footwear textile group SHINTA WOO SUNG to advance sustainable textile manufacturing - a major step forward in eliminating water use in textile processing.
• Chinese auto giant BYD agreed to warranty Amber Electric's electric vehicle batteries as part of landmark trial for vehicle-to-grid technology – with 4,000 people joining the queue for Amber’s V2G commercial offer, expected to rollout in 2026. This technology can act as a form of energy storage on wheels or a trading asset with the grid.
• Two of Atmo Biosciences abstracts received awards at the American College of Gastroenterology Annual Scientific Meeting: the Presidential Poster Recipient and the ACG Outstanding Research Award - Functional Bowel Disease Category.

September

• Xefco launched their XReflex® range of textiles - an innovative radiant barrier technology that enhances thermal retention by reducing heat loss via infrared radiation. "Depending on material type and configuration, it can deliver up to 60% increase in heat retention". Xefco were also awarded Startup Daily's ‘Sustainability Startup of the Year’, at the Best in Tech Awards 2025
• Quantum Brilliance installed three of its quantum processor units at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The installation will be used to "explore how parallelized QPUs can enhance high-performance computing, much like GPUs have done for classical workloads".
• Bygen announced the completion of an independent Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) with Minviro, conducted under ISO 14040, 14044, and 14067 standards. The study confirmed that Bygen’s activation technology delivers a "dramatically lower carbon footprint compared to conventional activated carbon production."
• ElectraLith made the Forbes Asia Top 100 to Watch List for 2025!
• Atmo Biosciences, Navi Medical Technologies, Liquid Instruments were all announced as finalists in the InnovationAus.com Awards for Excellence – with winners revealed this November in Sydney.
  

August

• Bygen secured a $3m Cooperative Research Centre Project (CRC-P) grant to develop sustainable technologies to remove PFAS from water sources, alongside the launch of their Pilot Program – PFAS Clear.
  
• The Startup Daily ‘ Best in Tech’ Awards celebrate the most exciting technology startups, investors and industry champions across the country. Xefco was nominated in two categories, across ‘Most Innovative Startup’ and ‘Best Sustainability Startup’.
• In partnership with Human Health, Diag-Nose have secured a $3m Cooperative Research Centre Project (CRC-P) grant in working on their AI enabled platform RhinoMAP to transform how respiratory diseases such as asthma, sinusitis, and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) are monitored and treated.
  
• In collaboration with Deakin University’s Recycling and Clean Energy Commercialisation Hub (REACH), Samsara Eco have joined forces to fast-track world-first technology that could recycle plastics and textiles, previously considered unrecyclable, that would take centuries to eliminate from the environment.

July

• Atmo Biosciences ingestible capsule has received 510(k) clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the Atmo Gas Capsule System, enabling the company to market and sell its first product in the USA, which helps diagnose gut motility disorders. This breakthrough milestone is a significant step in their plan to promote the technology to a wider audience of healthcare providers and patients globally.
• Samsara Eco announced their 10-year multi-polymer offtake agreement, which could see them supply “approximately 20% of lululemon’s overall fibre portfolio”.
• Liquid Instruments launched Moku:Delta, to ‘help engineers go faster, think bigger, and stay focused on the hard problems’. This fourth-generation hardware platform is the most powerful device in the Moku family of reconfigurable instrumentation. Watch the video and peek behind the scenes of this cutting-edge technology here.
• Wavewise Analytics (Formerly Cyban) awarded $996,995 in funding through MTPConnect’s Targeted Translation Research Accelerator (TTRA) - an important initiative funded by the Australian Government’s Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF).
  

June

• Conflux announced that their heat exchangers are now embedded in the transmission of the Pagani Automobili Utopia, as part of a six-year production agreement. This followed separate partnership agreements with Supercar manufacturer Donkervoort Automobielen, Rocket Factory Augsburg - RFA (made possible through support from the Australian Space Agency under the Moon to Mars Initiative) and AMSL Aero.
• Quantum Brilliance launched Europe’s first room-temperature quantum accelerator at Fraunhofer IAF, moved into CoLabs Australia Notting Hill (Melbourne) and were selected for Tokyo’s global expansion program with Kiraboshi Bank.
• MILLIBEAM, the producer of the ‘world’s most energy efficient and long range 5G chipsets’ announced the launch of their Heaviside Antennas - a breakthrough in high-performance miniaturized antenna technology for 5G, Non-Terrestrial Networks and defence applications. Read more about the technical details of that launch here in their interview with Dr. Yifan Wang.
• Amber Electric announced the closure of a $45 million funding round. The round was led by UK/Europe-based impact investor ETF Partners - The Environmental Technologies Fund, as well as participation from existing backers including Square Peg, Gentrack Ltd (Global), Rubio Impact Ventures and BV. Read more about the company growth and journey in our interview with Co-founder Dan Adams here .

May

• Navi Medical Technologies were awarded the 2025 Cooperative Research Australia Award for Excellence in Innovation.
• ElectraLith selected as 'Top Innovator' by UpLink – World Economic Forum - one of only eight companies globally to earn the title in this year’s Sustainable Mining Challenge
• Kite Magnetics™ announced a AUD$3.3m investment from SQM Lithium Ventures to commercialise EV motor tech, alongside receiving 'Top 10 Gold' Award for Australia’s 50 Most Innovative Manufacturers
• Umps was awarded the 'Ageing Australia Technology Transformation' award #ITAC202 and announced strategic investment from one of Australia's largest health insurers, Bupa.
  

February

• Liquid Instruments , a leader in reconfigurable test instrumentation, announced this month the opening of a new office at Melbourne Connect, The University of Melbourne’s innovation precinct.
• Samsara Eco has been at the forefront of sustainability, securing the Best Sustainability Startup award at Startup Daily’s Best in Tech Awards. Their partnership with NILIT to develop the world’s first textile-to-textile recycling facility for nylon 6,6 marks a significant milestone in the circular economy. Additionally, their breakthrough in developing new enzymes capable of recycling nylon 6 has positioned them as global leaders in sustainable textiles.
• Bygen also made remarkable strides, winning the Circular Economy & Waste Management Track at the Net Zero Challenge and successfully launching their first activated carbon production plant, capable of producing 2,000 tonnes of sustainable activated carbon annually.
• Quantum Brilliance has cemented its status as a quantum computing powerhouse. Named one of LinkedIn’s Top Startups in Australia, the company secured a critical contract with ParityQC to develop the world’s first mobile quantum computer by 2027. Their collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and funding from the National Reconstruction Fund further underscore their leadership in quantum innovation. They also secured a $10 million follow-on investment from BV, part of a USD $20 million Series A that included the National Reconstruction Fund, aimed at making Victoria home to the world’s leading diamond quantum foundry.
• Infleqtion secured a $3.3 million grant from the Australian government’s Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator for emerging and disruptive technologies.
• Amber Electric has been making waves in the energy sector with its partnership with E.ON NEXT to revolutionise energy use in the UK. The company also expanded its EV charging capabilities with the acquisition of Charge HQ, following the launch of its innovative EV charging feature.
• Jupiter Ionics’ co-founder, Professor Douglas MacFarlane, received the prestigious Max Bredig Award and was recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher for the second consecutive year, reinforcing the company’s groundbreaking work in green ammonia production.
• JigSpace reached the finals of the Apple App Store Awards for its exceptional user experience and design.
• Millibeam won the Pitch Competition at the SemiConductor Australia Conference, showcasing its potential in semiconductor innovation.
• Conflux was honoured with the Governor of Victoria Export Award and nominated for the 3D Printing Industry Awards in the Mobility or Energy category.
• Liquid Instruments was named India’s top Test and Measurement Innovator by Electronics Era.
• The founders of JigSpace, Amber Energy, ElectraLith, and Xefco were all in The Australian’s 2024 Top 100 Innovators celebrating the ambition and commitment of the nation’s newest entrepreneurs
• Aravax reached a major clinical milestone by completing patient recruitment for its Phase 2 study, while Atmo Biosciences secured funding from the Medical Research Future Fund through ANDHealth’s Stage Two program.
• Navi Medical Technologies celebrated a major milestone, receiving FDA clearance for its Neonav® ECG Tip Location System and launching its first prototype. Additionally, the company announced plans for a new advanced manufacturing facility, further strengthening Victoria’s medical technology sector.

For more insights and updates on our portfolio, subscribe to Breakthrough Victoria's newsletter .