Sydney AI startup Lorikeet raised a US$35 million (A$54 million) Series A led by US fintech investor QED Investors in August 2025, its third raise in about 10 months, taking total funding to about US$50 million.
The round also marked a local milestone. According to Business News Australia, Lorikeet became the first company since Canva to receive early stage backing from all three of Australia’s largest venture firms: Blackbird, Square Peg and Airtree. It comes as customer service has become one of the most crowded categories in AI, with most products focused on answering questions rather than resolving them.
What it does
Lorikeet builds AI “concierges” that handle customer service across chat, email and voice, and take action rather than simply summarising help articles. One early deployment handled lost, stolen and missing debit cards from start to finish: checking eligibility, verifying the customer, updating their address and dispatching a replacement card without human involvement.
Instead of giving the AI open access to risky actions, the company uses granular permissions and dynamic gating to control what the agent can do. “Customers don’t want to be told how to fix their problems. They want a concierge that actually solves them,” co-founder and chief executive Steve Hind told Business News Australia.
Where it plays
Lorikeet focuses on highly regulated sectors that many AI startups avoid: financial services, healthcare and energy. It operates in the US, Europe and Australia, and customers include Airwallex, Linktree, Flex and Eucalyptus. The company said revenue had grown 10x since its public launch in October 2024.
Hind co-founded the company with Jamie Hall. The founders previously worked at Stripe and Google AI, according to Lorikeet.
The raise
Blackbird, Square Peg, Skip Capital, Capital49, Operator Partners, Airtree and Athletic Ventures joined QED in the round. Lorikeet claimed an A$100 million valuation for its February 2025 round, and the Series A reportedly valued it at more than US$200 million. “Lorikeet has cracked the code on AI that actually resolves issues end to end,” QED principal Victoria Zuo told Business News Australia.
The company said it would put the money into research and development and global go-to-market efforts.
Jack’s take
Lorikeet’s bet is that the winner in customer service AI will not be the smartest chatbot but the safest agent that can actually do things. In banking, health and energy, a wrong action costs far more than a wrong answer, so building for control first looks like the right call to me.