This Month in Venture Capital

August 2026 has delivered a fairly clear message for venture investors: capital is still flowing, but investors are becoming much more selective about where they put it.

The biggest cheques are increasingly moving toward the infrastructure behind the next economy, including AI compute, data centres, energy storage, defence systems, industrial automation and sovereign technology, rather than simply funding another layer of consumer software.

For Australia, that shift is becoming increasingly important.

Firmus Technologies’ multibillion-dollar financing has put the country firmly into the global conversation around AI infrastructure, showing that international investors are prepared to back Australian technology and infrastructure. . .