It was a week of foreign investors snapping up Australian start-up firms. On top of the list is the acquisition by U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart of tech start-up Grapple, which just became a part of Walmart Labs.

Grapple was established by Stuart Argue and Anthony Marce in January 2010 to provide retailers a point-of-serve app for purchases. The aim of the firm, which started in a garage in Wollongong, is to make shopping smarter.

Following the buy-in, Argue and Marce disclosed that they will relocate to the U.S. to join Walmart Labs, which is the digital technology division of the world's largest retailer, and based in Silicon Valley.

On the same day, major link-sharing company Delicious acquired Trunkly, another Australian technology start-up company.

A week earlier, several foreign investors including PayPal co-founder Max Levchin plunked $11 million in capital to data mining start-up Kaggle, which is located in Melbourne.

Also on the same week, Filter Squad - a smartphone app maker based in Perth - got $1.1 million in funding.

Another Australian firm, Startmate, opened its second funding round by widening the program to seven from five start-up companies. The investment is $25,000 for a 7.5 per cent stake in a chosen tech start-up. The second round is open to new investors from January to April 2012.

Niki Scevak, co-founder of Startmate, said the company opened a second round because the officials underestimated the level of interest among U.S. investors in the first round. Besides opening a second round, Startmate also added more mentors, including Ash Fontana, Ozan Onay and Messers Argue and Marcar.

In the past 12 months, over $100 million has entered Australian tech businesses which resulted in technology entrepreneurs making up one fourth of the BRW Young Rich and Fast 100 lists.

Ryan Junee, an Australian techie who has mentored the Grabble founders said the duo learned fast how to adapt their pitch from what works in the Australian market to what would impress Silicon Valley investors.

"Stuart and Anthony are true entrepreneurs and hackers, I witnessed them spending countless hours coding in front of their computers and hitting the streets to talking to prospective customers.... Their success is incredibly well deserved, and I hope it inspires other Aussies to take the leap and become entrepreneurs themselves," Mr Junee told The Sydney Morning Herald.