Syncrowin, a Melbourne startup building artificial intelligence software for heavy industry, has raised A$3m (about $2.1m) in an oversubscribed round led by New York firm Collide Capital. The company announced the funding on 19 October 2026.
Hustle Fund, POV Ventures and the Australian investors Co-Ventures and Ventari also took part, along with private angel investors who are exited founders. The company's announcement did not name a stage; Startup Daily and Capital Brief both described it as a pre-seed round. No valuation was disclosed.
Syncrowin said the raise is three times the median round size for its stage in Australia and the largest by a female founder and chief executive at that stage in the country this year. It did not say what data those comparisons were based on.
“The last era of industry was defined by deploying physical assets at extraordinary scale.”Jaideep Upadhyay, Co-founder and CTO, Syncrowin
What Syncrowin does
Syncrowin is building what it calls an AI operating system for critical infrastructure. The software is meant to help operators in energy, oil and gas, and manufacturing run the plants and equipment they already have more productively and reliably, rather than building new capacity.
Co-founder and chief executive Aisshwarya (Ash) Kansakaar framed the pitch around existing assets. "The world is spending trillions planning new industrial capacity, but a significant portion of what we need already exists," she said, adding, according to Startup Daily, that it is "just not running intelligently".
Speaking to Capital Brief, Kansakaar stressed caution in how the technology is used on live sites: "Critical infrastructure is not a playground for experimentation." The company has not named customers or disclosed revenue.
Who is behind it
Kansakaar grew up in Nepal without reliable power, which the company says shaped her interest in industrial AI. She was named 2025 Young Australian of the Year for Victoria and is a Forbes Australia 30 Under 30 honouree. Her co-founder, chief technology officer Jaideep Upadhyay, is an engineer with a background in mechatronics, mechanical and industrial systems and AI, and is named as an inventor on several patents.
The pair met at the University of Melbourne and, according to Capital Brief, both previously worked on infrastructure projects for companies including AB InBev and BHP. "The last era of industry was defined by deploying physical assets at extraordinary scale," Upadhyay said. "We believe the next will be defined by the intelligence layered across them," he added, according to Startup Daily.
Aaron Samuels, managing partner at Collide Capital, said the firm was drawn first to the founders and their experience inside industrial sites and plants. "What drew us to Syncrowin first was the team," he said.
What the money is for
Syncrowin said it will use the funding to develop and deploy its AI operating system across energy and manufacturing, to advance its core technology, and to grow its AI and engineering teams in Australia and San Francisco. The company has not said how many people it employs.
Support before the round
Before this raise, Syncrowin won the Initiate startup pitch competition at DTECH 2026 in San Diego, beating 36 US startups, according to its announcement. It was also selected for the Energy Labs Scale Up program from more than 600 applicants across Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
The company says it is backed by Australia's national science agency, CSIRO, and it was earlier supported by the University of Melbourne's MAP Accelerator. No earlier funding rounds have been reported.
Company website: syncrowin.com.au